Miss Popularity.(actress Leslie Bibb)(Brief Article)(Interview)

Leslie Bibb, star of the hit show Popular, dishes on landing her dream job and reveals the wet-and-wild fun she shares with her man.

* She may have grown up in Virginia, but in the six years Leslie Bibb has lived in Los Angeles, she has become the quintessential California girl. First, there's her day job: Bibb stars as Brooke McQueen, the "Gwyneth Paltrow of high school," on the WB's hit Friday-night show Popular. Second, she has that Valley Girl lingo down pat. "I say 'like' way too much," she admits with a laugh. But the true giveaway that Bibb was born to live on the Left Coast is her hang-10 hobby: surfing.

Unfortunately, her jam-packed work schedule doesn't give her much time to kick back and be a beach bum. Along with Popular, Bibb hits the big screen in this month's comedy See Spot Run, in which she plays a neurotic young single mom opposite David Arquette, a mailman mixed up with the mob. It seems at 26, Bibb's career is kicking into high gear.

Riding the Wave to Fame

Leslie Bibb never expected to live her life in the spotlight--she'd planned on being a lawyer. "I grew up in Richmond," she says. "Acting was like a daydream. I did not think there was any way I could make it happen." But at 16, her dream got on the fast track to reality when her mom sent her picture to a model-search contest sponsored by The Oprah Winfrey Show and Elite Model Management. Bibb beat 6,000 other hopefuls and was literally handed a career. "It was like winning the lottery," she says. "It was surreal. The summer before I won, I was baby-sitting my ...