True to her rural roots and the intergalactic role that validated her lucrative acting career, Helfer insists the only films she’d seen in her childhood were the space classics. “We didn't have a television, and I think the only movies we saw were Star Trek and Star Wars,” she shares, not taking sides as to which film she preferred (a wise decision). “I'm not a chick-flick kind of gal."

Growing up, an always driven Helfer had plans to study animal psychol­ogy, but fate intervened. At 17, she was spotted in a movie-ticket line by a scout. Soon after, she moved to New York and began a wildly successful modeling career, during which she studied act­ing. In 1992, Helfer’s hard worked earned her Ford’s Best Supermodel of the World contest. Just a decade later, Helfer would retire from modelling for good. Next up: an acting career. Helfer displayed her acting chops on CSI: Crime Scene Investiga­tion as a body-dysmorphic model who tries to cut off her face with manicure tools (yikes). She has since starred in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels (she played Farrah Fawcett, naturally), acted opposite Dennis Hopper in Memory, played attorney Evan Smith in Suits and stars in Fox TV series Lucifer. Remaining true to her sci-fi roots, the striking model voiced infamous video game vixen Sarah Kerrigan in the wildly successful Starcraft 2 trilogy. The more success Helfer collects, the more she finds herself wonder­ing how all this happened. “I never thought when I was a little farm girl in Canada that I’d be a model, she says. Not to mention, a Playboy cover girl. “Nudity to me is not taboo,” she explains. “I feel privileged to be one of this elite Playboy group. Besides, we all have the same parts.”