02 September 2014
Newsdesk
Jaime King felt "heartache" at the peak of her career.
The 35-year-old was discovered when she was just 14, and promptly started modelling for huge publications such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.
Despite this, the blonde star wanted to make her way into acting, as she felt unfulfilled. In 2001 she had her big break when she starred alongside Johnny Depp in Blow.
“I felt like there was this pushing inside, almost like a heartache,” she admitted to Vegas magazine. “I was at the height of my career, making an insane amount of money, and people didn’t understand why I would want to leave the business.
"It’s interesting when people know you as one thing. They want to put you in a box, and as soon as you try another box, it shakes them. People don’t like change.”
During her time as a model, Jaime also struggled with alcohol and heroin addiction. She became sober at the age of 19 after her teenage boyfriend Davide Sorrenti passed away from a kidney ailment, thought to have been the product of drug use.
Now she's a fully-fledged A-lister in Hollywood, boasting a CV that includes a part in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and popular small-screen show Hart of Dixie.
Jaime revealed why she was so keen to take the role of Lemon Breeland in the TV comedy-drama.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realised that no one else could play her. I wanted to take a character that was, on paper, a very rigid classic Southern belle and turn her into someone whom you really understood," she explained.
"I wanted to show the root of where her fear came from - the loss of her mother, the concern about being abandoned, the idea that if she were perfect, she would be of value again.”
Jaime is married to Kyle Newman and together they have baby James, who turns one in October. Being a mother has changed her life.
“When you have a child, you realise that he’s all that really matters. It’s so easy to get caught up in the illusion of what this industry is all about, to get stuck on my personal hang-ups. But then I look at James and remember that tomorrow is a new day," she smiled.
