When models attack – Kate Upton debuts in The Other Woman this week

In theaters Friday: A Haunted House 2, Transcendence
New on Blu-ray/Streaming: Date and Switch, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Louisiana International Film Festival will debut new comedy The Other Woman this Thursday with a special free screening at Perkins Rowe at 7:30 p.m. VIP seating begins at 6:45 p.m. with general admission seating beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at lifilmfest.org.

The film, opening wide April 25, is a madcap look at what three women do to get revenge on the man who played them all. Making her debut in a co-starring role is Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover star Kate Upton (pictured above at the film’s Hollywood premiere). Will she be funny? Watch the trailer below:

Models transitioning to the movies is nothing new, but such a move has proven difficult-to-embarrassing for most. Here are 10 former models who have had a surprising amount of success in Hollywood:

Every teen girl of the 1990s remembers this hip-hopper-turned-actor’s Calvin Klein ads, but it turns out, given the right role, Marky Mark has some real chops. Wahlberg often plays it safe with action flicks like The Italian Job, The Departed and this summer’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, but its when he steps out of that mold, that he’s most worth watching, particularly as boxer Micky Ward in 2009’s Oscar-winning The Fighter.

Pick an X, any X, and this former Chanel and Victoria’s Secret model will be a bright spot. Her role as Jean Gray in X-Men, and its sequels is one of the great unsung performances (and one of the most fundamentally human) of this ever-expanding mutant series. But it was her role as Xenia Onatopp in 1995’s James Bond comeback Golden Eye that made us love a good 007 villainess all over again.

Janssen’s X-Men costar, this former face of Versace often plays the other guy on screen (most famously in The Notebook), but its when he finally shed his rom-com caricature in last year’s riotous Anchor Man 2: The Legend Continues and embraced his villain potential that he really saw the light.

“Oh great, he picked the model.” This was director Steven Soderbergh’s big concern of the perceptions surrounding his casting of the Calvin Klein and Yves Saint-Laurent star in his feature debut, the Baton Rouge-set, Cannes-winning sex, lies and videotape. But MacDowell’s blend of dainty purity and wounded curiosity made her perfect for the role in the acclaimed 1989 drama that put indie filmmaking back on the Hollywood map.

Tatum’s career began with contracts with Armani and Abercrombie & Fitch, but his roles in cop comedy 21 Jump Street and Soderbergh’s Euro-cool actioner Haywire show that Tatum is more than a model. Still, his role later this year in Foxcatcher as real-life Olympic wrestling champion Mark Schultz whose brother is killed looks like it could be his critical zenith.

The Bebe, Vogue and Elle model was right at home opposite Tom Cruise in the charred sterilized future of Baton Rouge-shot Oblivion, bringing a Kubrick-like command and mystery to her role, but it is her lived-in performance as a mother, newlywed and recent U.S. immigrant in 2012’s gorgeous tone poem To The Wonder from Terrence Malick that shines.

As a teen, Theron traveled between Milan, New York and Miami for modeling work before moving to Los Angeles for the movies—she even played the role of “Supermodel” in Woody Allen’s Celebrity—bumt she established her acting cred once and for all by demolishing her image (and her face) as a serial killer in 2003’s Monster. The role won her an Oscar, but it is her appearance in a variety of guilty pleasure flicks and genre movies that has given her a career. Just check Theron’s inimitable range in The Devil’s Advocate, The Italian Job, Young Adult, Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus.

Known largely for One Tree Hill, this former Tommy Hilfiger and Gucci model turned heads in one of last year’s most powerful indie films: Fruitvale Station. He can be seen in the Baton Rouge-shot Left Behind this fall.

A former model and beauty pageant contestant—she was first runner up for Miss USA 1986—Berry’s acting career peaked in 2001 with her Oscar-winning performance as the widow of an executed inmate who falls in love with the man who ended her husband’s life in Monster’s Ball. It was a powerful performance in a Louisiana-made film, unfortunately, Berry quickly found her nadir three years later with her ill-advised turn in Catwoman.

Throwing it way back to she of smoky voice and smoldering visage, Lauren Bacall’s Hollywood break came when director Howard Hawks’ wife saw the young model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and arranged for a screen test with her husband. A long-standing relationship with Humphrey Bogart—on screen and off—followed, but it is Bacall’s complex, double entendre-laced performance in The Big Sleep (1946) that showed she could do anything and do it well.