East Bay Born Ingenue Has TV Debut On Spike

To look at her, you would never suspect up-and-coming starlet Deborah Rombaut had just died a hideously violent death in a medieval torture and killing device called the Iron Maiden. 

But the former Bay Area woman cleans up well.

Covered nearly head to foot in fake blood, she endured a sponge bath with shaving cream in her dressing room trailer and was none the worse for the wear.

It was all part of a day's work for the multi-talented young professional who is  just as comfortable playing a Star Fleet Cadet (which she did in a 2008 Star Trek film) as a complex Shakespearean character.

In her latest role she portrays Clara, a young French revolutionary whose life is snuffed out in a dark dungeon — killed by a sarcophagus lined with spikes. Her performance airs in a Dec. 19 8 p.m. episode of Spike TV's 1000 Ways to Die.

She landed the role, she said, because she speaks French and is very comfortable with improv which she studied at the Second City Conservatory.

The daughter of a Belgian French teacher, Ingrid Rombaut now of Piedmont, Deborah grew up in the Bay Area.

From age 6 to 12 she lived in Alameda and attended l'Ecole Bilingue, the French-American School in Berkeley. She sang with the Bay Area Kairos Youth Choir, performed in the Alameda Children's Musical Theatre and studied gymnastics.

At age 12 she moved with her mother to Belgium, where she began studying singing and acting more seriously. She auditioned for the youth section of the Belgium Royal Opera Company, was accepted, and ultimately performed with it for six years.

At 18 she returned to the United States and a year later entered the theater program at San Francisco State University. She performed at venues throughout the Bay Area, including the California Shakespeare Theatre and the Lamplighter Musical Theatre.

While still at San Francisco State she opted to study a year abroad in Sydney, Australia where she further honed her Shakespearean acting skills.

Immediately afterwards she was Hollywood-bound, and she's never looked back.

A Southwest Airlines commercial, in which the mezzo soprano sang "Halleluiah," netted her enough money to pay off all of her college loans. She has also played a hippie in a Pepsi commercial, appeared in Miller and other beer commercials and even was part of a McDonald's commercial that aired in Japan.

"Commercials pay very well," she said, noting they are the bread and butter for many budding actors.

Although only in her 20s, she has worked on sets with big-name stars, including Ewan McGregor in Beginners, Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Woody Harrelson in Rampart, James Franco in Rebel, and Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in Water for Elephants.

Her career nearly got a huge lift when she auditioned for the role of a "young Sue" (a younger version of Glee actress Jane Lynch's character) on the hit musical TV show. Unfortunately, she said, the role was cut out and she didn't get the job. She was called back two weeks later to audition again for The Glee Project, a reality competition show where contestants vie for a spot on Glee itself.

She had the lead role in the History Channel's two-hour vampire special Vampire Secrets, which has gone around the world and been aired countless times.

Her hope is to land a regular role on a television series pilot or get cast in a feature role on a large project or independent film.

Meanwhile, she keeps busy with a variety of acting gigs, including recurring roles in web series, commercials, industrial films, video games, voice-overs and a plethora of short-term film and television work. She also models and sometimes works trade shows or other advertising events playing costumed characters.

Deborah is especially encouraged as an increasing number of her roles are being offered to her without an audition.

"It is very flattering," she said, "when someone wants to hire me based upon looking at my online reel and reading my resume otherwise sight unseen."

You can read about Deborah's musical and acting background here, watch a web series called Reckless in which she appears here and see her demo reel here.

As for the shaving cream? "Oddly it is apparently the most effective way to remove fake blood that there is," she said, "and since they filmed my death scene first before the rest of the show they had to bring me back to life and make me look like nothing had ever happened." 

Deborah said she has not seen the Spike TV episode that will run on Dec. 19 and looks forward to viewing it for the first time that night at a party she will host for friends at her Hollywood home.

She says it will be interesting to see how well she did biting into the fake blood capsules full of corn syrup and food coloring. "There is quite a skill involved with it," she said, "making sure it drizzles slowly out of your mouth."

Spike TV can be found on Channel 45 of Comcast in the East Bay.