Megan Fox is a fox. And not just in the way you might think if you’ve seen her in a tiny bikini in a men’s magazine or leaning over the hood of a ‘76 Camaro in Transformers. Yes, Fox is beautiful and often scantily clad, but dozens of beautiful girls arrive in Hollywood every day who are more than happy to pose nearly naked. Unlike them, Fox has a quality that sets her apart: Fox is sly. Canny. A devoted student of stardom, past and present, she knows how to provide her own colour commentary — a narrative to go with the underwear. After having appeared only in Transformers I and II, in which the true stars were giant robots, she created a rebellious, frankly sexual persona and talked her way into the limelight. The only problem is, having come so far so fast, how do you stay this year’s girl when the year is almost over?

This question seemed to be on Fox’s mind when I met her one morning in late September. She was in New York to host Saturday Night Live, and she answered the door of her hotel room dressed in black leggings, a low-cut tank top under a grey, loose-fitting long cardigan and large, rectangular glasses, which gave her a kind of “sexy librarian” look that vividly contrasted with her pinup image. Fox is small and narrow, with a tiny waist, and she wears her long, thick dark brown hair parted in the middle, which gives her a vaguely Indian quality. Her most striking feature is her eyes — they’re bright blue and catlike, and they look half-closed even when they’re wide-open. For all her raunchy talk, Fox is surprisingly dainty and ladylike. She took ballet for much of her childhood, and she has a natural stillness and grace. She’s not warm or particularly friendly and doesn’t seem at all interested in small talk. Instead, she’s self-contained and a bit wary. She will answer any question, but she resists true dialogue. With Fox, it’s not a conversation but a presentation.

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