"But I wasn't having it."

Tough talk for someone with absolutely no modeling experience. But the 6-foot-1-inch willowy Utter refused to let the other contestants intimidate her, and instead focused on doing the best job she could. Considering she may have had more stumbling blocks to overcome than the other contestants, it's all the more surprising that she did so well in the competition. She was eliminated late last month — the season's eighth contestant to go — in the first episode shot on location in Italy.

But that doesn't mean that Utter found any of it easy — right down to the proper way to apply eye shadow.

"I have absolutely no background in modeling," she said. "I've never dressed up or worn makeup . . . I don't even know how to put makeup on. I grew up in a biker family. My mom's a biker chick. She never did it, so I never did it."

Walking like a model was something else Utter fought hard to accomplish. Judge Paulina Porizkova referred to her as "Frankenstein" more than once, and even Utter was shown repeating the phrase "Don't walk like Lurch" to herself before a challenge. Utter says that while she had the resources to learn how to better her walk — including a runway and girls in-the-know — she couldn't avail herself of them.

"It's a competition, and I don't think they wanted to help me," she says simply.

Yet as gangly and awkward as Utter may have appeared during eliminations, she shined in front of the camera and sparked many compliments from the judges. Photographer Nigel Barker was especially effusive, commenting, "Lauren's body of work stands for itself. Week after week, she's taken some of the best pictures."

Even an emergency visit to the hospital didn't slow Utter down. During the taping of the show, she sliced her thumb with a knife while cooking. The result was one throbbing appendage and a large, unsightly bandage she had to work around.

"I cut it at a diagonal and I severed it," she says. "And it was only hanging by a little tiny thread . . . It was like seven stitches."

Utter's ultimate downfall, though, came as a result of a commercial for Cover Girl cosmetics. She largely blames her loss on the script, which, in typical "America's Next Top Model" fashion, was entirely in Italian.

"It was very frantic," she says. "I was trying to learn this crazy script in another language in the amount of time it took for our hair and makeup to get done (roughly 1 1/2 hours)."

Utter says she also found it difficult — if not impossible — to hide her real personality on the show.

"I just can't pull that vapid personality out of me like the other girls can," she swears. "I don't want to say the wrong thing and upset people, because I have a habit of doing that. Things I find funny, other people don't."

She also insists that, contrary to the way she appeared during eliminations, she's not all that reserved.

"I'm not that shy, but in front of the judges, it's like a firing squad," she says. "You're standing in front of them, and they're judging you and you're like, "Oh God, please don't eat my soul.' It's very, very, very intimidating."

As out of character as modeling may have initially been for Utter — the rest of the time she's an artist living in Brooklyn, N.Y. — she acknowledges to having given the show a go once before.

"I had tried out for cycle 9 and they called me in for cycle 10," she explains, adding that she only pursued it at the persistent prodding of a friend. Since she wasn't selected for the previous season, it came doubly surprising when she was picked this time.

"I couldn't believe it," she says. "I was like, "Someone is playing a joke on me.' I got on and I was like, "I still don't understand. Am I on the show? Is this real?' I still can't wrap my head around it."

Now that she's had a taste of life in the fashion industry, Utter says that she would definitely like to pursue it further, although she doesn't have the faintest idea of how to go about it.

"If an agency comes to my door, I will definitely take the job offer," she insists. "(But) I'll stick to print because we know I can't move around in front of anyone."

The fact that Utter continually took beautiful photos during her run on the show seems to have surprised her as much — if not more — than the "America's Next Top Model" judges.

"I learned that I can take pretty damn good pictures," she says. "I never took a photo like that in my life. I just kinda took to it. I thought being in front of a camera would really make me uncomfortable, (but) it turned out I was able to do it."