When a guy is wearing porcelain fangs, I don’t know if there is a way to bite, be gentle, and look real at the same time, so I just told Colin Farrell to go for it. They were hard and sharp. I was left with a bruise that kind of looked like a hickey. That was fun to explain—if only my personal life were that exciting.
But that’s getting ahead of the story ...
I’ve been acting professionally for almost seven years and have done quite a bit of commercial and TV work. I had a little recurring role on Boston Legal and recently did an episode of Memphis Beat. I actually auditioned for but didn’t get a role in the last Twilight movie, to play one of the vampires from the Russian clan. My first studio feature ended up being in another vampire movie: Fright Night, as the first victim of Colin’s bloodsucker, Jerry.
ADVERTISEMENT
I play Doris, the neighbor who lives across the street. He lures me over, like a lamb to the slaughter, and then holds me hostage and snacks on me. Doris is supposed to be a go-go dancer or some kind of dancer in Vegas. I’m not going to say stripper—I don’t want her to be a stripper. The wardrobe was a lot of fun. I had to wear a push-up bra that gave me double the size breasts that I normally have, and then I just walked around the neighborhood wearing that.
When I auditioned for the movie, they were being secretive about the script. I love scary movies, and I knew it was a remake of 1985’s Fright Night, but I didn’t know anything else. During the attack scene, it was me in front of everybody, kind of thrashing around, lots of screaming and acting scared. Obviously, I’ve never been attacked by a vampire in real life, so I just created it in my mind and put myself in that situation. When I found out I got the part, I was over the moon. A week later, I was filming in Albuquerque.
I was there for about a month, and everybody was so welcoming and nice. All the young actors on the set became great friends. I was most nervous to meet Colin. We met at about 2 in the morning, for our first scene together, the one where I’m walking to his house, being flirty with him, and Anton Yelchin is spying on us from next door. He then captures me and locks me in a cellar he’s built in his house.
During the attack scene, they had a rig attached to me that you couldn’t see. When Colin bit, they had control of it and the rig shot fake blood out of a tube. After every take, we had to wash my hair and change my clothes. It’s difficult to shoot, because you don’t want to screw anything up when there’s so much blood involved.
In the screenplay, he was only going to bite my neck. There was a lot of smelling and sniffing and touching involved. But Colin and the director Craig Gillespie wanted to make it a more sensual attack than a vicious ripping attack, so he licked some of my chest all the way to the back of my ear. That wasn’t in the script; that’s something Colin added in.
My friends wanted all the juicy details. But I didn’t have many. He was so nice. I don’t think he’s much of a partier anymore. He’s very open about the fact that he went to rehab and he’s sober, and he’s really just a great guy. And with all his kids running around the set, he has the hot-dad thing going on. The big attack scene was filmed on my birthday, so that was kind of a present. After we were done shooting, we did a little dance, and Colin dipped me and wished me a happy birthday.
