Rihanna donned a sexy white gown and walked her first red carpet as an actress

"Pete Berg, he's the sole reason why I took it on," Kitsch said. "We go back to the "Friday Night Lights" days together," the television show that Berg produced and that launched Kitsch's career. The actor admitted that for a moment, neither one of them was sure they should test their relationship with such a massive cinematic project.

"We have an incredible friendship," Kitsch explained. "So that was a huge thing, are we willing to sacrifice that, or put that up and go to work? But we're both very demanding of ourselves, and on set we're demanding of each other. And that made it better because the trust is there."

Connie Britton, another friend from the "Friday Night Lights" years, joined the guys for the premiere and after party, which included Malin Akerman, Apollo Ohno, Crystal Allen, Kristin Bauer van Straten and Molly Sims.

It was an exciting moment for Rihanna on Thursday, May 10, as she donned a sexy white gown and walked her first red carpet as an actress. Never one to do things small, the Barbadian native is about to take Hollywood by storm, leading the charge in "Battleship," the new blockbuster action flick based on the classic Hasbro board game of the same name.

Budgeted at $200 million, the movie is Hasbro's latest attempt to turn their popular games and toys into movie franchises; in fact, the great success of "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" led directly to the making of "Battleship."

The film tells the tale of an international flotilla of military ships at sea together for naval war exercises that suddenly encounter an alien fleet, one that attacks without warning. Rihanna plays an American naval petty officer assigned to the USS John Paul Jones, in the film directed by Peter Berg.

He marshaled his acting troops into downtown Los Angeles for the massive premiere and after party at the Nokia Theatre, where screaming fans packed bleachers and hoped for a moment with Rihanna or her co-stars. Those included Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Hamish Linklater, Tadanobu Asano, Alexander Skarsgard and Taylor Kitsch, who commented earlier about accepting the leading-man role in the film.