SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T KNOW how to take a compliment. Consider Kristen Minter: When she was 12, a male flight attendant on a plane trip leaned over and asked if she was Brooke Shields—and she burst into tears. "I thought older men were gross, and I didn't know who Shields was," Minter recalls with a laugh. "I thought maybe she was some porno star."

At 30, Minter has grown thicker skin—which comes in handy, considering the teasing she endures from cast-mates on ER, on which she plays receptionist Randi, a tough, sexy ex-con who wears tight leopard-skin pants and low-cut blouses. "They have fun with me about those clothes," Minter sighs. Or the lack thereof. She did a brief topless scene in the 1994 HBO movie Flashfire. "George Clooney saw it," she says. "He told me, 'I've seen all of you.' "

Off-camera, the Miami-born Minter—who says she's "taking a vacation" from relationships—insists that she's actually quite shy. The oldest of four children raised in Yardley, Pa., by Charlie, head of a financial firm, and Dottie, a horse trainer, she first began doing impersonations as a child in order to "loosen people up around me." After graduating from Pennsbury High School in 1983, she worked as a fashion model in Europe. But photographers' sexual advances and a lack of confidence in her looks prompted a switch to acting. In 1989, she moved to Los Angeles and soon landed a small part opposite then-unknown Noah Wyle (Dr. Carter on ER) in the film There Goes My Baby. "I liked Kristen right away," says Wyle. "She has great, self-effacing humor."

Minter's ER audition came in 1995. "She brought real audacity to the character," says co-executive producer Lydia Woodward. But don't expect to find her wearing leopard skin off the set. "Randi and I look a lot alike," says Minter with a shy smile. "But we certainly don't dress the same."