Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley thought she would be cast as a bad guy in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
The model-turned-actress plays love interest Carly Miller in the warring robot franchise – a new female lead which was created after Megan Fox was fired from the movie – but initially thought she was auditioning for the nemesis role, which in her opinion went "awful".
She said: "I went to the casting unaware they were looking for a new female lead. We were told it was for a 'nemesis' role, and I left thinking I was awful. The next day, I was offered the lead. Then, within three weeks, I was on set shooting my first scenes."
The 24-year-old actress – who is dating fellow action star Jason Statham – wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty on set, and threw herself fully into her role as Carly.
In an interview with The Sun newspaper, she added: "This is my first movie. I never in a million years thought I'd make a movie - and definitely never thought I'd make a movie like this.
"But I like to get my hands dirty and try everything at least once, maybe twice if I'm crazy. I'm a bit of a tomboy, so I really loved to do all of that action stuff."
Rosie – whose love interest in the film Sam Witwicky, is played by Shia LaBeouf - also revealed she had to put a lot of work into making the transition from modelling to acting.
She explained: "I had to unlearn all the things about being a model. As a great model, you have to be very self-conscious and aware of your body. And as an actress, you have to just lose all of those things."
BANG Showbiz