Amber Valletta

Although hosting duties on House of Style represented Valletta's first broad leap into filmed entertainment, she delayed her cinematic work for another four years. In 2000, the model debuted onscreen as the spirit of a murdered coed in Robert Zemeckis' Hitchcock retread, What Lies Beneath, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. Valletta's roles -- given the actress' off-camera motherhood and intermittent magazine work -- accumulated slowly over the next several years (in films such as the Nicolas Cage holiday vehicle The Family Man and the Danny DeVito-directed black comedy Duplex); as a result, Valletta only ascended gradually to top billing. In 2005, however, she attained her highest-profile exposure to date (and gained much-deserved respect as an actress) in the Andy Tennant-directed romantic comedy Hitch. As Allegra Cole, the city's most eligible bachelorette, who falls for the least likely candidate (overweight and self-conscious klutz Kevin James), Valletta played an admirable straight man to both James and "date doctor" Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Will Smith).

After a noticeable onscreen absence in 2006, Valletta returned to cinemas the following year, with two back-to-back roles in supernatural thrillers. She first received second billing as a nubile young bride in the James Wan-directed Saw follow-up Dead Silence -- a slasher picture about a quiet little town plagued by the spirit of an evil ventriloquist. And later that year, Valletta portrayed Claire in the Mennan Yapo-directed Premonition, starring Sandra Bullock. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide