Thigh-high boots.

Stilettos.

Voluminous cleavage.

Skin-suffocating spandex.

No one ever accused a comic-book sexpot of dressing practically.

“If I was fighting crime, I’d wear sweats and a T-shirt — maybe a belt to fashion it up,” offers Malin Akerman, who has first-hand experience in this sort of thing.

For her role as Silk Spectre II in the graphic novel adaptation Watchmen, Akerman spent months encased in black-and-yellow latex.

Stunning, yes. But functional? Far from it.

The Toronto-raised former model remembers the first time she was shoe-horned into the rubber regalia and discovered that, after eight weeks of combat training with ex-Navy Seals, “I couldn’t even bend my elbows. It was so uncomfortable. I’m not going to develop a latex fetish at all after this.”

Whether it was all worth it, we’ll know shortly. Watchmen opens across the country late tomorrow, one minute after midnight. Odds are good, though, that it will mark yet another success for Akerman, who’s spent the past couple of years shuttling from one high-profile gig to the next.

“When they say you can come to L.A. and have your dreams come true, they really mean it. It’s not without some really hard work and a lot of disappointments, but once it happens — I still can’t believe it. It’s a bit surreal. I still haven’t gotten used to it yet.”

So far the 30-year-old is presumably best recognized for her comedic turns. She was the hillbilly wife in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Ben Stiller’s high-maintenance spouse in The Heartbreak Kid and Katherine Heigl’s sister in 27 Dresses. On the small screen, she made an impression in Lisa Kudrow’s now-defunct HBO series The Comeback as well as in a few episodes of Entourage.

With Watchmen, however, she is hoping to highlight her dramatic range, latex outfit be damned. “What happens often is you get put into one genre and some people are okay with that, they like that … But I’m curious about everything. I want to be challenged — that’s the excitement of this business. So after a few comedies, I was looking for something the complete opposite. Watchmen came along and I can’t believe to this day that I got it.”

SEXY DECIMATION

That’s because, as was true of the 1986 limited series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen the film is less an action extravaganza that a sinister, sexy decimation of superhero archetypes.

Indeed, while there are sudden bursts of violence and eye candy galore, the story gives equal heft to the conflicted psychology of its characters, Silk Spectre II included.

“For me, it’s not a superhero film. It’s driven so much by the characters, with deconstructing superheroes and making them real people. What would it be like? Where would you come from? What would your history be? It’s the most real character I’ve ever played. She has a complicated relationship with her mother, she’s a bit sheltered, she gets her heart broken and falls in love and finds her independence. Hopefully it shows I can play something character-driven.”

Akerman, who relocated with her parents to Toronto from Sweden when she was two, got her first big break when she was named Ford Supermodel of Canada at the age of 17. “That was completely random. I was walking through the mall and a guy from Ford came up to me and said they’re doing this competition and I thought, ‘Sure, why not?’ … Modeling is a great way to see the world.”

Eventually, she was landing so much work as a model and actress — including stints on such made-in-Canada series as Witchblade and Relic Hunter — she shelved her plans to become a child psychologist.

“I thought school could wait. I wasn’t too eager to spend seven more years in a chair studying psychology. I thought it might be something for the future.”

And probably the distant future at that — at least if her film output is any indication.

Following Watchmen, she has two more films due in 2009, both of them comedies: The Proposal opposite Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and then Couples Retreat with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. She’s now in coveted territory: able to be choosy.

“I’m so lucky I get to do a job I love … The more I do the work, the more comfortable I feel, like I belong. I also have more liberty now. I won’t say yes to everything that comes along. In the beginning, you take every part you can get because you want to work. I don’t want to go into a movie I don’t feel passionate about.

“It’s like with any job — if you half hate it, you’re not going to do your best work. But if you love your job, the results are going to be amazing.”

From the Edmonton Sun