Going Mental for Marisa

Why do straight guys think girl-on-girl action is so hot but they can't handle guy-on-guy? I don't know! My husband is from Pittsburgh, and I think growing up there he didn't grow up around a lot of homosexual men, but now in L.A. it's so in-your-face, but he's the same way, but I don't know why that is. He won't watch Brokeback Mountain.

What are your thoughts on the opposition to gay marriage? I'm really tired of it. Everyone should have equal rights in every state. I'm just tired of all the arguments and all the controversy.

You grew up in California, right? Did that influence you getting into the entertainment business? I was born in Monterey Park, which is very close to East L.A. When I was 5 years old, my mother worked in a Realtor's office in Beverly Hills, and she was always coming across all these fancy bigwigs in the industry and kept trying to take me to auditions, and I did not want to go. I screamed, I threw fits, and I did everything a child would do to avoid it.

But then you started modeling at a pretty young age. How did that come about and eventually lead to acting? When I was 12 someone approached me and said, "You should model; here, call my agency." I think my mother instilled the industry was always in the back of my mind, and when I was 12, I think I was kind of ready to sample just a piece of it. Modeling is totally different from acting, but that's how it started. I started modeling when I was 12 and was traveling as soon as I graduated from high school. I went to Singapore, South Africa, Australia, Milan, and Hong Kong just doing the modeling circuit, and then I kind of got sick of it. I realized that I developed some personality that I didn't want to have my mouth closed all the time and I wanted to talk. I wanted to express myself and not just wear clothes and have someone poking and adjusting me all the time. So I came home and I got into an acting class and started auditioning, and it kind of went from there.