Stephanie Bulger was the resident artist in this season's batch of hopefuls on Make Me A Supermodel.  She excelled in the fourth episode of the season in which her artistic eye propelled her past the her competitors and earned her high praise from the judges and photographers.  Unfortunately, she wasn't able to translate her passion for art into a passion for acting, and was eliminated after performing poorly in the acting challenge.

Stephanie spoke to BuddyTV today about her time on Make Me A Supermodel, about the various challenges she performed on the show and about her favorite performance artist, the inimitable Matthew Barney.  Below, you will find an audiofile and a transcript of the interview.

Hey, everybody.  This is Debbie at BuddyTV, and I'm talking to Stephanie from Make Me A Supermodel.  Hey, Stephanie, how's it going?

Good, how are you?


I'm okay.  So, what have you been up to since last week's elimination?

Let's see.  I got back to Dallas, and I got to be reunited with the real world and see my boyfriend and my family.  I've just been having a lot of family time, and I'm actually leaving for Australia tomorrow.


Oh, cool.  What are you doing in Australia?

I'm just going with some friends from home who are out there right now.  I've never been and this is kind of like a little vacation.


That's fun.  So, what's it like being back in the real world?  Do you get recognized by people?

I've been recognized by a couple of people, and one of my relatives had me call her random niece the other day and talk to her.  It's kind of funny because I really think, the whole time in the house, we kind of forget that we're on TV, or other people are watching us.


So, I wanted to ask you first, you had a hard time with the acting challenge, when you had to pretend that you were catching Shannon and Casey together.  What was holding you back?

I think that that week was really hard for me, obviously.  I don't know, it's kind of odd because, to me, what I really like about modeling is that it's acting without words.  Tyson and Niki used that one-liner a lot.  You really have to be able to convey a story without words, and that's what I like because I'm not so much into acting.  I think it's really cool, but I'm kind of fine with just being a clothes hanger.  My interest is in pictures and in runway.  So, it felt kind of unnatural, and I was getting correction like, "Let's hear you yell more."  To me, I was just trying to get a good picture, and I thought that I could do it without yelling and actually getting into it.  I tried, but, to me, I thought the pictures turned out really well, so I was happy with it.


Did you watch last week's?  How do you think you would have done in the snake photo shoot?

Oh my God.  I didn't watch.  My mom got really angry and stopped watching after I got eliminated, so they didn't record the rest of the episode.  I talked to some of the models about it before I left, and it was kind of like, "Maybe I got eliminated at the right time because I didn't have to mess with that."  It seemed like it would be really hard to take a good picture, but I think they look really cool.  Especially with the gold outfits underwater.


Yeah, yeah.  One episode that you really shined in was the art episode, and I was really proud of you because you really stepped up and set yourself apart.  So, can you just tell us that experience?

Oh, the art week.  I was like, "Did I design this episode myself, like when I was sleeping or something?"  It was so perfect for me.  Doing the performance piece, where we were painted black and Mary Schook and her team made us look amazing.  That was, to me, the most amazing and exhilarating experiences of my life.  I really like performance art, and I really like Matthew Barney, who does these crazy characters and stuff.


Like, the Cremaster Cycle?

Yes.  Hello?  That's my favorite project of his.  I wrote a 30-page thesis on it before I left school last semester.  I'm so glad you know about it.  Did you go see it?


Yeah, I saw all five in one week, like every single day.

Like the actual films, the DVDs?


Yeah, well, I saw it in the theater.

Oh wow, because I thought he only released the cycle 3 on DVD.


Oh yeah, you should check out--number five is my favorite.

Really?  Which one is that?


It was like the opera.  It had Ursula...what's her name?  I forget.

Andress?


Yeah.

Yeah, that was cool.  I have the whole, massive book because I had to research it and everything, but yeah.  I love him.  I'm obsessed with him.  He used to be a model.


Yeah, yeah!  Well, back to the show.  Another thing you really rocked was that really sexy photo shoot with Jacki.  Was that hard to do?  I mean, had you ever done anything like that in the past?

Had I ever done any soft-core porn shoots?  No!  [laughs]  But to me, that was really fun.  I think I just got really confident, and I felt like I really owned that photo shoot because I was really surprised about how weirded Jacki was with the whole thing.  I was like, "Whatever man."  First of all, I was really glad I didn't have to do it with a guy.  I could have done it, but I felt bad for my boyfriend having to watch it.  But with a girl, I was just like, "Hey, we're girlfriends.  Let's just have fun with it."  I had a lot of fun and I felt totally comfortable.  I mean, I did go to an all women's college where gender issues and sexuality issues are really an open discussion and something that I'm really aware of and surrounded by all the time.  So I don't feel very shocked by any of that.


Tell us what your experiences were like at Fashion Week.

Oh, God, I think Fashion Week is everyone's amazing highlight of the show.  You know, it's invitation-only.  The swankiest, most important fashion icons can go to it.  I would have never been able to attend.  Watching the shows was actually amazing to me, as much as even walking for Form, because you get so caught up in the whirlwind of it all.  Honestly, we were all like, "We're just so cool.  We're such celebrities," even though it was all in our heads, but it was still awesome.


What were some of the favorite things that you saw?

I really loved the Sass & Bide show.  I don't think they even showed us going to it, but the Sass & Bide show was really good.  And I actually really like the Alexandre Herchcovitch show.  The soundtrack and the music--I guess they didn't show that on there either.  But I like his show because it was super-dramatic and theatrical.  I mean, you can tell by the clothing.  It's very black and angular.  That was really awesome to me.


Stepping back, how did you get into modeling in the first place?

I just got into modeling with this show because I never had done it before.  I had considered it, I mean, when anyone sees someone tall and skinny, they're like, "Oh you should be a model," that's their reaction.  And I was like, "Oh, whatever, no."  But then, I was in New York doing an internship at an art gallery last summer in Chelsea, and I met a couple of people in the industry, and I did a couple of test shoots.  It was really fun, and I really liked it.  But I never signed with anyone, and then I went back to school, so I didn't really have time to pursue it.


So, did you feel like the other models who had experience had an advantage on the show?

I mean, I guess there's the advantage of having walked in shows before and having worked with photographers before.  But at the same time, I think that they picked people who weren't totally developed for a reason, so that we could go through a transformation process.  And, coming in and not knowing anything was an advantage in its own way, just because using all the new information I was getting was easier.


Are you planning to continue in the career?

Yeah, definitely.  I'm actually just planning my trip right now to New York.  I'm going to be in the city in two weeks to meet with agencies.  I definitely want to start working.  Right now, I definitely appreciate modeling as a career and as a job, and I definitely want to do it.

-Interview conducted by Debbie Chang
(Image courtesy of Bravo)