SULTRY brunette
Karina Lombard, who'll turn up on USA's sci-fi hit "The 4400" later this summer, says her star turn on "The L Word" last year turned her off from girl-girl sex.
"Before 'The L Word,' I thought I was bisexual," Lombard tells the new edition of Playboy, in which she also poses nude. "But I don't know anymore. Doing it with women on the show got so repetitive that it took the edge off doing it with women off the show.
"It got associated with work in my brain and kind of ruined it," she says.
On the show she played Marina Ferrer, a coffee-shop owning temptress who seduced Jenny (Mia Kirshner), the new girl in the neighborhood.
When the show returned this season, Lombard had left the cast amid swirling rumors that she had been uncomfortable with "The L Word" sex scenes and buzz about clashes with the producers and other cast members.
Either way, Lombard claims she was not invited back.
Lombard thinks that she got the boot because other people on the show became jealous of her character's growing popularity.
"I became popular, and I guess that's not good," she says. "And then suddenly with the rest of the cast it became all about politics, ego and who's the better flatterer — all stuff I can't stand."
Lombard, 36, is no newbie in Hollywood. She's been appearing on screen since 1987 and turned up in "Legends of the Fall" with Brad Pitt and "The Firm" with Tom Cruise.
But she's never achieved the kind of notoriety that came with her work on "The L Word." Over the years, there have been rumors that Cruise had her blacklisted in the entertainment industry after she told a reporter that as a kisser, he only rated a six on a scale of one to 10.
Lombard claims she's never heard of that until now.
"Oh, I hope not. That would be horrible! Hmmm. Actually, I did have a tough time for a while."
On the "4400," Lombard plays a woman named Alana Mareva, who mysteriously turns up as the wife of one of the show's main characters. Any more information would ruin one of the hottest dramas of the summer.