SHE’S POSED FOR PLAYBOY, HAS TWO HUGE FILMS ON THE WAY, AND SWEARS SHE’LL WIN AN OSCAR. WHY, THEN, IS SASCHA KNOPF STILL SINGLE?

PHOTOGRAPHY PHILLIP DIXON

     ‘To be a star, you need sex appeal or sexual heat,’ says Hollywood hottie Sascha Knopf. By her own analysis the raven-haired handful should soon find herself pressing her paws into some moist Hollywood Boulevard cement.

     Signs at the moment are that she could soon be getting some sand under her nails. This month she makes her multiplex debut in What’s The Worst That Could Happen? as Danny DeVito’s Playboy Bunny girlfriend. Sascha’s stroppy turn impressed the Farrelly brothers so much that they created a role in their up coming Gwyneth Paltrow weight-gain comedy Shallow Hal especially for her.

     The future wasn’t always shiny for the well-developed Long Island native. After completing a drama degree at NYU, the first agent she went to see told her he was ‘too ethnic looking’. Modest Sascha took that to mean ‘I was fat and ugly’ and put the acting on hold. Confidence recovered, she got her first job as the real-life face (and body) of Vampirella, a busty comic book vampire. ‘The gig was convention work. Standing around some make-shift booth in Omaha, wearing a skimpy bikini and stiletto heels while creepy boys took pictures. Ugh! It was hard to imagine I’d ever make it.’

     How things have changed. In a fiction-fact mix-up to promote What’s The Worst..., Sascha recently did a turn in her birthday suit for Playboy magazine. ‘Posing nude is sort of clinical after a while. Lots of passers-by got to see me naked,’ Sascha reveals. ‘But that was fun. It was like performing!’

     Sascha insists there’s a downside to all this pampering and naked frivolity — the Hollywood lifestyle isn’t all to her liking. ‘There’s a desperation to it,’ says Sascha. ‘That’s why I just moved out to the beach! I just couldn’t couldn’t take Hollywood anymore. I was so stressed all the time. It’s just awful! It really kicks you in the ass every single day.’

     And success isn’t doing much for her love life either. ‘It’s great that so much is happening for me right now. But it’s nothing, really. It’s not reality. I really want to have a normal relationship with a man. I want to be in love.’

     Sascha’s romantic life has had its ups and (mainly) downs. Two recent boyfriends have unsuccessfully proposed to her and another shut down her website. But she did pick up some language skills from one holiday romance, ‘He taught me to say “I’m drunk”, “I love you” and “You have a big dick” in Greek.’ A well rounded relationship, then.