January 2016 Playmate Amberleigh West has spent most of her life in the Pacific Northwest, a lush landscape carved by rivers and punctuated by majestic mountains, so it’s no surprise she enjoys the great outdoors more than the pulsing confines of a club. “Being outside comes so naturally to me—excuse the pun,” she says. “I bike, kayak and wakeboard. When my friends and I go camping, I’m the one who starts the fire. I don’t own jewelry, and I don’t need glamour, which is why my pictorial is so awesome. It feels like a dream.” Amberleigh is ambivalent toward the club scene, materialistic froufrou and frivolous hedonism, preferring instead to nourish her gray matter. The former paralegal is meticulous when it comes to grammar and quotes Ayn Rand often. (She fell in love with Rand’s objectivist philosophy in high school, she says.) Still, a life in front of the lens instead of behind a desk has always been the goal. “I’ve wanted to act since I was little, when I used my mom’s camera to film skits with my friends,” she says. “That being said, for a long time I didn’t think I could model, let alone be a Playmate, because I was never the pretty, popular girl guys asked to the dance. I finally learned to stop caring about what others thought. Flash forward to me getting an e-mail from a Playboy scout. I said ‘Hell yeah!’ and was in L.A. the next day.” Amberleigh’s favorite actress is Emma Watson, to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance, and she hopes to parlay her Playmatehood into similar top billings. “I’m serious about everything I do in life, and I’m honored to be a part of Playboy.”