Rebecca Romijn

Rebecca Alie O'Connell (née Romijn; ; , born November 6, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is known for her role as Mystique in the original trilogy (2000–2006) of the X-Men film series, as Joan from The Punisher (2004) (both based on Marvel Comics), the dual roles of Laure Ash and Lily Watts in Femme Fatale (2002), and Una Chin-Riley on Star Trek: Discovery (2019) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022present). She has also had a recurring role as Alexis Meade on the ABC television series Ugly Betty. Her other major roles include Eve Baird on the TNT series The Librarians, voicing Lois Lane in the DC Animated Movie Universe, and as the host of the reality competition show Skin Wars. Early life Romijn was born in Berkeley, California. Her mother, Elizabeth Romijn (née Kuizenga), is a community college instructor of English as a Second Language (ESL) and textbook author. Rebecca's father, Jaap Romijn, is a custom furniture maker. Her father is a native of Barneveld, the Netherlands, while her mother is an American of Dutch and English ancestry. Her mother met Rebecca's father as a teenager while living in the Netherlands on a student exchange program. Romijn's maternal grandfather, Henry Bernard Kuizenga, was a Presbyterian minister and seminary professor. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show, when questioned about always being glamorous and beautiful, Romijn revealed that in her early teens she was an insecure "drama geek" and that, as a result of her growth spurt, she suffered from scoliosis and was in constant pain. Many sources say that she was once nicknamed the "Jolly Blonde Giant" because of her height, but she has admitted to making that up "for a laugh". While studying music (voice) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she became involved with fashion modeling and eventually moved to Paris, where she lived for more than three years. Career Among other jobs, Romijn started her modeling career in 1991. She has appeared on the covers of American, French, Spanish, Russian and Swedish editions of Elle, Marie Claire, American, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Greek, and Mexican editions of Cosmopolitan, Allure, Glamour, GQ, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated.