The star who overcame rape

Next week, I'll be walking down the red carpet of Leicester Square at the premiere of my new movie on the arm of my co-star, George Clooney. I've always had a thing for George, ever since I had a small part in ER. He remembered me and chose me for the role. It's a dream come true.

Even before I became an actress, I've always been really ambitious. That's partly because my dad - a part-time basketball referee - taught me to always win and never make excuses. Whatever I did, my dad expected me to outshine the competition.

So it was unlike me to baulk at the idea of auditioning for a challenging role. But when I read a script a little while ago for a character who gets gang-raped during the film, I couldn't bring myself to audition for the part. Because 10 years ago, at the age of 19, I was held at gunpoint and brutally raped.

When I was attacked, I was already going through a bad period in my life. I'd won a scholarship to study sociology at the University of Nebraska but I dropped out after a year because I felt I didn't really fit in. I moved back to my parents' home in Pleasanton, a mostly white town in California, and my parents forced me to stop sitting around all day, and to go out and get a job.

I was hired by a local discount shoe shop called Payless ShoeSource where several of my friends from school worked. It seemed like it would be a really easy job. I had no idea how vulnerable I was as a young girl working late at night in a store.

Only a few weeks after being hired, I was locking up the shop by myself so that the girl I was working with could go to a concert. Suddenly, a young man burst into the shop with a gun in his hand. He didn't say anything, but just grabbed the till and emptied it while pointing the gun at me. I just stood there, frozen, thinking he was going to run out of the door with the cash.

But he suddenly grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the storage room at the back of the shop. He was twice my size, but I tried to get away from him. I put up a good fight - but he was so much stronger than me. I was shaking with fear.

As he shoved me into the storage room and locked the door, I was convinced that he was going to kill me and I started crying. When he ordered me to strip, I just did what he said. He pushed me onto the floor and he raped me. I only got through it by spiritually leaving my body. It was as if I was floating over my body and thinking "This isn't happening" and "I'm a good person, a good student."

While he was doing it, he put his semi-automatic gun down next to me. I didn't notice it until after he had finished - at which point he had the nerve to ask me to hand him the gun. My reflexes took over and I grabbed it, pointed the gun right at him and fired, but the trigger jammed and it didn't go off. I was sure that he was going to kill me so I tried to shoot him first.

He scrambled for the gun and started punching me in the face over and over again until I was covered in cuts and bruises. I let go of the gun and expected him to shoot me. I thought about my family - I wondered what they would do when I was found bloody and naked on the floor of the stockroom. But instead of killing me, he asked me how to get out of the store and then ran out.

By the time the police came, I was hysterical. My dad and my sister arrived, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them what had been done to me. My sister overheard the detectives talking and realised what had happened, and she told my dad. I saw this change come over him. I don't think he was ever the same after that.

We went straight to hospital, where I was looked after by a counsellor. I was examined, samples were taken, and my hands and face were x-rayed. Then we went to the station, where I filed a statement.

I found myself wondering what I'd done wrong, what I could have done differently. My family tiptoed around me. I felt crushed and ashamed of what had happened to me, I couldn't hold my head up any more. The whole town knew about the rape, even though my name wasn't in the paper, and that made me feel even more powerless. I'd always been so confident before and because I'd also always excelled academically and at sports, people in the town had looked up to me as a fierce competitor. After the rape, they saw me as a broken little bird. I felt like a victim, which I hated.

The police caught the man a few days later and found out that he worked for another branch of Payless and that he'd robbed other branches of the store and raped another female employee a few weeks earlier.

He was sentenced to 33 years in jail. And because Payless hadn't told me (or other female employees) that a rapist was on the loose, I sued them for gross negligence and won damages which later helped me complete my degree.

But even though the rapist was in jail, I was terrified of going out by myself - I'd avoid using cash machines and going in convenience stores. I'd start shaking and having anxiety attacks whenever I saw a man who looked anything like him. I would suddenly have fits of inappropriate rage. When you lose the right to choose what happens to your body you lose confidence. Overnight, all my control was taken away.

A year later I enrolled at UCLA but even there I'd mentally plan an escape route wherever I went. I felt angry and ashamed at the same time and all the stress led to arguments with my boyfriend and friends. I ended up seeing a therapist and joined a Rape Crisis support group. Talking to other women who'd been through the same thing made a huge difference.

I started to realise that I was not alone and that I had nothing to be ashamed of. I had to move on.

After three years of therapy, I was able to start living my life again. I graduated, married Jacksonville Jaguars football player Chris Howard, and was signed up by a model agency. After only a few weeks my agent sent me to audition for a part on a TV sitcom, and I got the job!

I didn't confide in anyone outside my family and circle of friends until three years ago. I was playing a doctor on an American TV show, and there was a story line about a serial rapist. Members of the cast would joke about rape to try to lighten the atmosphere. I knew that if they realised it had happened to me they'd stop taking rape so lightly. So I decided to tell them.

I've learned that talking about my experience can help other women. So now I man the phones for a few hours each week at a Rape Crisis Centre in LA. The women who phone in feel so comforted when they realise that the person on the other end of the line knows what they are going through.

My career has gone from strength to strength. As well as starring in Welcome To Collingwood with Clooney, I'm in Bad Boys 2 with Will Smith. Being a rape survivor doesn't mean that you are damaged goods. It happened to me, and I've made a success of my life.

Welcome To Collingwood is released on 25 April.