There's no looking back for James (Jamie) King

By Kelly Carter
USA Today

Actress and model James King plays Angela in the film "Slackers," which opens today. King doesn't want to talk about getting caught up in drugs at 15. "That's another time," she says. "That was like me being a kid." Associated Press

King is the female lead, her biggest role to date, in the college comedy "Slackers," opening today, after playing a fresh-faced nurse in "Pearl Harbor" and Johnny Depp's daughter in "Blow." In April, she'll co-star with Joshua Jackson in the comedy/crime film "Lone Star State of Mind."

"I feel like God has blessed me," says King, 22. "I try to take in each moment and really be present and open to the joy of all of the things that are happening."

In "Slackers," she's the object of affection of a misfit who threatens to expose a trio of cheaters if they don't fix him up with her. Now preparing for her next role as a sexy Russian mob princess in "Bulletproof Monk" with Chow Yun-Fat and Seann William Scott, she's spending six hours a day learning karate, kung fu and Hong Kong street fighting.

"Oh my gosh it's amazing," King says, running her words together in excitement. "You get to this point where you think your body can't take it and then you push past that point. It's awesome."

She's bubbly and energetic when talking about her career and her boyfriend, "Imitation of Christ" designer Matt Damhave. (Kid Rock is a previous beau.) But she clams up when asked whether she ever thinks about her days as a heroin user.

Discovered at a Nebraska modeling school at 14, King was on the fast track in New York a year later. But with the magazine covers and runway shows came temptation, and she got caught up in drugs at 15.

"That's another time," King says softly. She entered rehab in 1997, around the time she lost boyfriend Davide Sorrenti to a kidney ailment thought to have been brought on by excessive heroin use. "That was like me being a kid."

That's the way Revlon sees it, too. "We were really confident she's in a great place today," says Cheryl Vitali, the company's executive vice president and global general manager. Revlon research indicated consumers weren't concerned about King's past, Vitali says. "She's an obvious beauty, but you feel like it's within your reach to relate to her."

Maybe it's her slightly imperfect smile or the fact that she arrived at her first meeting with the company wearing Revlon.

"Growing up in Omaha, Neb., we had Cosmopolitan and Revlon," she says. "We didn't have Chanel. I want to be a part of things that everyone else would be a part of."

Born Jamie King, she decided to call herself James because the modeling agency she signed with at 14 already had a Jamie on its roster. Now she wants to be called Jamie again.

"James was always a nickname for me," said King, who traded modeling for acting in 1999.

"I just want to be called by my birth name. I'm grown up now and I'm adult, and it just makes more sense."