Estylo April 2008 - Nadine Velazquez interview

She arrived at our cover photo shoot, casually dressed and without makeup, the long locks she has sported as Catalina on My Name is Earl snipped to ear-length November 20 for her 29th birthday. Two hours of hair and makeup magic later, the transformation was nothing if not dramatic. Nadine Velazquez was one hot mama, working the camera in one sexy outfit after another.

Unlike actresses on more glamorous shows (whose wardrobes she admits to envying), Velazquez doesn’t get to dress up on air, so she makes up for it during shoots and events, shopping often for outfits and accessories. “I’m trying to add more color to my wardrobe,” she said, as she made plans to order the lavender Tony Cohen and purple Charlotte Solnicki dresses she posed in, as well as the Laura Cardenas medallion earrings that she “had to have.” She also planned to search out colorful dresses on a trip to India, where she was set to fly three days later with her husband, literary agent Marc Provissiero. It’s a trip that Velazquez has always wanted to make, and as she raved about her love for Indian food, the health conscious actress sipped from a bottle of pomegranate juice, her adorable dog Kiki (named for Julia Roberts’ character in America’s Sweethearts) at her side.

Petite but curvy, and toned from three workouts per week with a personal trainer, Velazquez is definitely no longer the girl teased mercilessly by her sister for having skinny legs, big lips, big teeth and slanted eyes. “She called me ‘Fideo,’ a skinny pasta,” remembers the Puerto Rican-American actress, who also revealed that she’d be an interior designer if she wasn’t in show business, and that Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock are her favorite TV series (although she’ll catch Kimora Lee Simmons’s show and The Amazing Race occasionally—she and Marc would love to compete in a celeb edition).

Watching Small Wonder and Wonder Woman during her childhood days in Chicago inspired Velazquez to pursue a career on TV. Now she has been on My Name is Earl for four seasons, although she has been on hiatus since the Writers Guild strike halted production last fall. She used the time to do “domestic stuff” at the home she and Mark moved into last May, spend time with friends and family, and work on projects like a fitness DVD and a one-woman show. While she got camera-ready, she told us all the details.

For the entire interview, get the April issue of Estylo magazine.