One of the world’s hottest women has already auditioned with Scorsese and De Niro. Now she’s got her own beer, which is also nice.
With ten years of modeling experience and an I.Q. of 155, Amber Smith is pretty impressive as far as pinups go. Thanks to a new ad campaign with Anheuser-Busch and an upcoming reality series, you’re going to start seeing a lot more of her. But of all her upcoming projects, she might be most excited about her new kitty. Keep the jokes to yourself.
You’ll be fulfilling every frat boy’s dream this summer and launching your own brand of Michelob. What exactly is the campaign? Amber: This campaign isn’t just me holding a beer can. It’s my name, likeness, and signature. It’s Amber Smith selling Michelob Ultra Amber, as opposed to just me promoting as a nameless face.
The campaign is called Meet Amber.” Is it weird being introduced to the world by a beer? AS: The funny thing is they came to me in October of last year and said, We’re looking for a famous Amber that fits and we would like you to consider this.” Then I didn’t hear from them for two months. It ended up coming back to me, but I remember thinking it’s one thing to lose a role, but how do you lose to another Amber? That sucks. I couldn’t even think of another Amber. Amber Valetta is the only one that I thought of.
With your roles in Private Parts, American Beauty, and Friends, how often do people recognize you as “that girl?” It’s mostly from L.A. Confidential. I have never seen that movie. I remember shooting it. I get that a lot. “Are you the girl from L.A. Confidential?” It wasn’t a big role. I don’t like mysteries. But I was the girl in the car with the nose bandage and the red hair. I get that a lot, which is weird because I don’t remember shooting a lot. I’m not sure why I get that one.
Your dad was a football player and your mom was a model. You’re about as all-American as it gets. No, no one ever thinks I’m American. No one ever thinks I can speak English. I don’t know what it is. I don’t mind country music but that’s about as far as it goes. I love America. It’s the 13-year-old bratty brother to the world, and I always stick up for it, but there’s so many things here that I don’t understand.
How close did you really come to getting a big role in Casino? That’s how I first got into acting. Everything was dying down, and I got a call. I went in there and did something that scares actors the most. It’s called reading. Eight auditions later, it was such a great role but I was so young. I didn’t even know who Martin Scorsese was. When I was in the audition process, I had three auditions with both Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.
I would look to Robert after a reading to ask if it was good. I didn’t even know to look at Martin. The casting director pulled me aside and said “Amber, you’ve got to take direction from Martin. He’s the director.” I had no clue. In the process of the audition, there was a fight scene and I hit Robert. Not hard, but I thought you did that, I didn’t know you faked it.
That didn’t go over too well. He was cool but I got pulled aside again. One time I came drunk to the audition. It was late. It was a 7 p.m. audition, and I was out with some friends really early. I was a model, I didn’t care. It was not good. They called my agent and said, “We think she was pretty loaded.” But three days later they got me there at 10 A.M., so it was fine. I don’t even drink anymore.
How familiar are you with casinos in real life? I go to Vegas all the time. I love that town. I always play the slots, but I’m not good with numbers, so I’m not great with Texas hold ‘em. The new reality series Anchorwoman will come out this summer. I play a real-life anchorwoman, which is a really cool premise. Tomorrow I get the world’s smallest kitten. I bought a kitten that’s the world’s smallest Persian. They only have two-inch legs max.
