Henrick Vartanian
It-girl Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is busy battling giant space robots onscreen right now, but the model-turned-actress thought she bombed out her big audition for the job. At the time, she had no information about the size of the role or who she would be playing; that kind of uncertainty can unnerve even experienced actors.
“I went to the audition and really I knew nothing about the role. No one had said anything; it was just a role in ‘Transformers,’ so I kind of thought it would be an extra part or a cameo or something,” she told MTV.com. “I went in a bit blind and also, it was my first-ever audition. I went in completely not knowing what I was doing. I left feeling not confident.”
Nevertheless, she landed the gig. And it was no small role: She was to replace Megan Fox as the love interest to leading man Shia LeBeouf as they dodged those giant space robots. “I got to try a little bit of everything,” she says. “There’s something for everyone in it: There’s the romance, the comedy, the drama, the action, there’s the special effects.”
The 24-year-old was born in Plymouth, Devon, England and until recently the sultry, blonde beauty was best known as a Victoria’s Secret spokesmodel. She made her debut for the luxury brand in 2006 and received “Elle” magazine’s Style Award as 2009 Model of the Year, while “Maxim” named her to their “Hot 100” list in May.
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” debuted across the globe over the past weekend to gigantic numbers. The worldwide gross to date is more than $486 million clams with many more weeks still to go. 
Huntington-Whiteley already had experience working with her “Transformers” director, Michael Bay, who directed a Christmas-themed Victoria’s Secret commercial in 2009. See VIDEO HERE. That meeting was inauspicious, to say the least.
“I remember the first thing Michael said to me—before he even introduced himself or asked me my name—was ‘Can you walk?’ And I looked at him like, ‘What is this man talking about? Yeah, of course I can walk.’ ”
She was then driven “about half a mile” out into the desert wearing only “a bra and underwear and a big, billowing, black, floor-length cape and high heels,” she recalls. “They yelled action, and the car sped off back to set, and I just was like, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do?’ So I walked all the way back to where the camera was standing, which took me—I would say a good 10, 12 minutes, and it was a proper runway stomp—on salt flats; it was like 100 degrees, felt like fire.”
Huntington-Whiteley says she was “pretty pissed off” afterwards. Bay’s response? “I guess you can walk, then.”
Trivia: She dated Tyrone Wood, youngest son of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, from 2007-2009, then briefly moved on to French actor and heartthrob Olivier Martinez. For more than a year, Huntington-Whiteley has been linked to Brit action star Jason Statham.
CLICK HERE for the MTV.com story.
CLICK HERE for the “GQ” story.