Jennifer's Body - Sneak Peek
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The biggest test, when it comes to delivering Diablo Cody's signature snark, is "you try not to laugh during a take," says waifish blonde actress Amanda Seyfried with a wan yet winning smile.
During the talky tete-a-tete I saw being shot during a genre-journalists' visit to the set of Jennifer's Body in Vancouver last week, Seyfried was decidedly unsuccessful in overcoming her challenge.
She and her costar, Megan Fox (who plays the title role of Jennifer, while Seyfried portrays her subordinate best friend, nicknamed Needy), get a case of giggles when, within a span of just a few minutes, they have to deliver arch dialogue about everything from uncircumcised penises, mental retardation, smoking, drinking, and getting arrested — and did I mention, these are small town high school girls?
Cody (née Brooke Busey) is perhaps best-known for being the former stripper/phone sex operator/blog babe who hit it big with her script for Juno, which won the Oscar earlier this year for Best Original Screenplay. Seyfried, you may know from her role as the rebellious teenage daughter on HBO's ode to polygamy, Big Love. Both ladies — and the female director of Jennifer's Body, Karyn Kusama — stated that they just want to make a good horror movie, regardless of the gender bias.
The dark supernatural thriller, which Cody (looking softer and prettier in person than she does onscreen and in pics, by the way) likens to "The Virgin Suicides, Suspiria, Carrie, Creepshow, Just One of the Guys, and Ginger Snaps," has only two more days to shoot at the time of our meeting, and everything is going according to plan.
In some ways, we're told, Jennifer's Body is a loose homage to 80's horror, back when character mattered more than the body count. Even the bad ones. "I feel like bad horror movies are edifying in their own way," says the leopard-print partial scribe. "I don't consider any of them bad, so it's hard for me [to say]. Horror is sort inherently tacky. It's garish, and that's why I love it. I'm a garish individual," she adds with a self-deprecating shrug.
Having read the script, I will agree: the execution seems "garish". It will be interesting to see what Kasuma, who also directed Girlfight and Aeon Flux, will be bring to the gory story — but, along with everyone else, I'll have to wait until it's released on the big screen in 2009.
Stay tuned for our full set visit report, along with in-depth interviews with Cody, Seyfried, Kusama, actor Adam Brody, and producer Jason Reitman.