Baring it all: BloodRayne star Kristanna Loken comes out and tells Curve why women love her--and why she loves us back.(Interview)(Cover story)

Given a name like Kristanna Loken, you might expect to encounter a Nordic supermodel or at least, a Norwegian emigre. In fact, the town Loken was born, Ghent, is not some hidden treasure in Norway where beautiful blonde-haired and blue-eyed girls mature into six-foot-tall, striking models--but rather is a quaint town in upstate New York, where Loken was raised on an apple orchard by her full-blooded Norwegian parents.

Loken, who bared it all as the Terminatrix in Terminator 3 (where she quite literally kicked Arnold Schwarzenegger's tush) is kicking ass on the big screen again in the vampire period piece BloodRayne, a film written by Guinevere Turner (The L Word). As the title character, Loken is a half-human, half-vampire on a mission to avenge the rape of her mother (by her father), and is invited to join a society fighting vampires.

I spent a recent afternoon with the 26-year-old Loken at the famed Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood where Loken admitted something that queers have long guessed (especially after all those photos of her kissing singer Pink turned up in the tabloids): She's one of us. But that's not the only reason that lesbians love her.

"Women would like to know there's a chance," she admits. Seated in the kitchen of her suite at the Chateau Marmont, sipping from a champagne flute full of sparkling water (the actual champagne comes later that night at the BloodRayne release party), Loken seems pleased that she has lipstick-lesbian-loving lesbian fans. "Women are drawn to other strong women. I am the only woman who has ever fought Arnold [Schwarzenegger] in any movie and won. That might turn some women on."

Women, says Loken, are more comfortable with same-sex relationships. "Hatred, by allegedly straight men, of men in love with men has to be based on fear that is deeply hidden within. Anyone who is filled with so much venomous rage ... has major issues going on in their head."

Few of Loken's fans know her as the outspoken activist she sounds like here. When she bared all in the January/February 2006 issue of FHM magazine, Loken--who has previously appeared in Maxim and other laddie mags--did so physically, not verbally.

"I was painted in latex and it fucking hurt like a mother fucker when they took it off," she admits. "But the photo shoot was fun, and doing the magazine interview was great. If you can't have fun and [you] take life too seriously, what's the point of living?"