The star of ESPN’s poker drama Tilt ups the ante

I don’t know that I really want to be a sex symbol,” laughs ESPN’s newest bad girl, Amelia Cooke, “but it seems to be the slot I get put into.” Playing Dee—the daughter of Michael Madsen’s character on the poker drama Tilt—Amelia made her series debut by begging a strip-joint proprietor to pleeeeze let her show him her assets. “Come on, take a quick look!” she implored while fingering the buttons on her blouse.

Anyone else hoping for a peek of the Colorado native can rent the unrated version of Cooke’s screen debut, Species III. Her knockout entrance in that film involves roaring up to a gas station in a Ferrari, losing her top and banging a redneck on the toilet before heading down to the local college for a refreshing nude stroll down the dorm hall.

But it wasn’t always like that. Born in Colorado Springs, CO, Amelia moved to Toronto when she was 8. For the next nine years she tied her hair in a bun and did hard time at the National Ballet School of Canada. Then came a few years of modeling around the world. Now settled in on the Toronto set of Tilt, the 24-year-old insists that she’s “not the kind of girl that walks in and oozes sex.” FHM begs to differ.

Tilt is your first recurring role, but you’ve done a ton of commercials. Is there an advertising greatest hit our readers would recognize you from?
Probably an Old Spice commercial that runs on sports channels. I’m a girl in a dorm hallway. A guy wearing Old Spice comes along and I say, “Brian, need help with your anatomy homework?”

That’ll work. On Tilt you grab a guy by the belt buckle and say, “Maybe I’ll have to put you to work.” Is that anything like your real-life pickup technique?
That’s definitely not how I am in real life. I like the playful aspect of getting involved with someone, and I like having a guy as a friend for a while first. I wouldn’t go to a bar and just pick up a guy. What can I say, I’m a bunhead.

A bunhead who is grooming herself to be a sex symbol.
If people like the way I look and want to call me a sex symbol, I’ll go along with that. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me—it’s just my body.

Right. So how did you approach your naked dorm-walk scene in Species III?
I had such bad nerves that I just kept thinking, “If I don’t look down, I’m not aware that I have no underwear on.”

And that worked?
Well, at the same time, I don’t have this huge hang-up with nudity that a lot of people have—I don’t have this big shameful feeling about being naked. Although, when I was shooting it, I was concerned only with who was going to see me on the set that day—I didn’t think so far ahead about the fact that all these other people were going to see it. I forgot that once it’s out there, it’s out there forever.

Have you ever attended a sci-fi convention and been ogled by any Species-loving fanboys?
I have. It was neat to meet people who cared about the movie, but basically it was a lot of young guys with sweaty palms. They wanted me and Sunny [Mabrey, the other woman from Species III] to write quotes from the movie on their pictures. So Sunny would write, “They’ve got my eggs!” and I’d sign, “You’re better off making me happy than making me mad!”

And who makes you happier? American men or the European men you met while modeling?
I prefer American men. They’re not so in your face. In Europe, especially Italy, it can be a bit too much. Plus, in America, we girls get to go after the guys as well.

Part of your family is European. Did that make you more comfortable with your body?
Yeah. I did this commercial once where girls were hiding behind stuff while they were getting changed. It hit me that they were ashamed of how they looked. That’s such a waste of energy. We all have bodies, so I don’t understand why, when you take your clothes off, it’s all, “Oh my God, she has breasts!”

To see more of Amelia Cooke, pick up the April issue of FHM on newsstands now.