Runway success
Milla Jovovich
Cameron Diaz
Olga Kurylenko
Ashton Kutcher Charlize Theron LAST month, Cara Delevingne parted ways with Storm Model Management, the agency she signed on with when she was 17 years old. Her decision is probably because the 22- year- old model wants to concentrate on her blooming acting career. While she’s not totally quitting the industry that first brought her fame and fortune, Delevingne is definitely taking less modelling assignments.
Delevingne is, of course, not the first model who has chosen acting as a permanent career. Here are five others who have traded fashion for film and are totally killing it.
Charlize Theron
THERON entered a modelling competition back home in Johannesburg, South Africa in her early teens. She won and flew to Italy to take part in another modelling competition. Not surprisingly, she nabbed first prize again, and was soon taking assignments all over Europe.
While her dream of becoming a ballerina was dashed due to a knee injury, her chance to be an actress was realised when she was spotted by a talent manager.
Theron then moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. After appearing in a number of small films, she graduated to big- budgeted features including The Devil’s Advocate, Mighty Joe Young and The Cider House Rules.
In 2004, she won an Oscar for Monster and was nominated again in 2006 for North Country.
The actress, who turns 40 on Aug 7, was most recently seen in Mad Max: Fury Road which also featured another model- turned- actress, Rosie Huntington- Whiteley.
Milla Jovovich
JOVOVICH was only 12 when she started modelling. Such a striking mien she has that even at such a young age she was picked to star in ads for Revlon and appeared on the cover of magazines such as Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
But conquering the world of fashion wasn’t enough for Jovovich. She took the cue of another model- turned- actress – Brooke Shields who starred in The Blue Lagoon – and decided to act as well. Jovovich chose to star in the 1991 sequel Return To The Blue Lagoon.
But Jovovich’s breakthrough actually came in Luc Besson’s 1997 film The Fifth Element. Since then, Jovovich has become a formidable female action star starring in all the Resident Evil films ( including next year’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) and Ultraviolet.
The 39- year- old still models, even dabbling in fashion design for a while, but she is mainly known for her bigscreen roles.
Cameron Diaz
FOR a lot of us, the earliest memory of 43- year- old Diaz was in the film, The Mask. She was still modelling at the time her agency got her the audition
for the 1994 film.
Her involvement in modelling started when a photographer spotted the then 16- year- old Diaz at a friend’s party. He offered to help get her into modelling, and within days, Diaz signed a contract with an agency and worked for clients such as Coca- Cola and Nivea.
For the next five years, the ambitious teenager travelled to Japan, Australia, Mexico, Morocco and Paris for modelling jobs.
She was 21 when she returned home and was signed on to star opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask. After that, she did a few independent films to hone her acting skills. The rest, as they say, is history as she charmed audiences in hits like My Best Friend’s Wedding, Charlie’s Angels and Any Given Sunday. KURYLENKO lived in poverty in Ukraine until the age of 13, when during a trip to Moscow, she was spotted by an agent and signed on for training as a model.
In 1996, she moved to Paris, and by the time she was 18, Kurylenko was gracing covers of top magazines like Glamour, Elle, Madame Figaro, Marie Claire and Vogue. She also became the face of Bebe, Clarins and Helena Rubinstein, as well as appearing in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
After the new millenium, she shifted her gaze to acting – first in Seal’s music video, Love’s Divine in 2003, followed by a number of French films.
Hollywood came knocking in 2007; she starred opposite Timothy Olyphant in Hitman and had a small role in Max Payne. At the end of the same year, she was offered a part in the 2008 James Bond film, Quantum Of Solace.
Kurylenko was last seen opposite Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner early this year.
ashton Kutcher
KUTCHER started his career in showbusiness as a model when he was in college. But he didn’t seem destined for higher education.
Kutcher decided to drop out of college and travelled to New York City to further his modelling career. He entered the International Modeling and Talent Association competition in 1998, but eventually lost out to another rising model by the name of Josh Duhamel.
But Kutcher looks good enough to be signed on to a major agency and was soon appearing in commercials for Calvin Klein and accepting shows in Paris and Milan.
After making it as a model, Kutcher started on his next phase for stardom; he moved to Los Angeles to try his hand in acting.
His first audition was for the role of Michael Kelso in the TV series, That ‘ 70s Show ( where he met Mila Kunis, whom he married recently), and he nailed it!
Other than having appeared in Two And A Half Men, guest starring in Men At Work and producing TV shows like Punk’d, Kutcher’s focus these days is on films.