THE SISTERS GREW UP on Richmond Avenue in Staten Island, in a house next to the topsoil business owned by their family, which later did local development. “Everyone had that neighborhood feel, playing on the block, they were best friends with their neighbors’ kids. We didn’t have that, we were by businesses. So come 6 o’clock, there was no one around,” Diane said. “We never thought it wasn’t normal.”
“We had each other. So we didn’t need anyone,” Jodie said.
“We were nerds, nerdy kids,” Diane said. “It took us a while to really develop.”
“We started modeling in high school, and the girls started getting jealous,” Jodie said.
“Our senior year, we were in Your Prom magazine, and all the girls were looking for their prom dresses, and they saw us,” Diane said, “and we never told anyone we were in it. So that started a big rift with all the girls.”
They’ve been featured by Maxim twice and on Gossip Girl as extras. Ed Westwick reportedly flirted with them. After playing ring girls in The Wrestler, they were hired for the Catherine Zeta-Jones film The Rebound. This time their costumes were skimpier.
“We looked at ourselves in the mirror and were like, ‘There is no way in hell I’m going out there in front of 500 extras,’ the majority of them being men,” Jodie said.
“It’s not us,” Diane said. “We have brains, we’re businesswomen, and we love to be able to do both. And we have found a way to do both without one interfering with the other, or doing something that’s not classy.
“This was really raunchy,” Jodie said. “So then I found a woman and we just poured our hearts out to her, and said, ‘We can’t do this. We just don’t feel comfortable.’ Ten minutes later she goes, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I’m Catherine’s speech coach.’”
“We were like, ‘Oh shit,’” Diane said. “‘Just let them know the twins left the building.’”
As of this week, a month after their site’s launch, it has more than a dozen listings in Queens, but none in Brooklyn and only two in Manhattan. “We understand,” Jodie said, “it’s going to take a few months to build this thing up.”
“Once we get this up and running, it’s not going to take up too much of our time, and we can focus on other things, and just keep an eye on this. Because we have other ideas, different things we want to get into,” Diane said. “We’re into health food and stuff. And we’re going to start baking, trying different healthy snacks to possibly market.”
mabelson@observer.com
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