Scary Movie 5's Ashley Tisdale Talks Lindsay Lohan and Nerve-Racking Lesbian Scene
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Thursday, 11 April 2013 23:46
- Published: Thursday, 11 April 2013 23:46
- Written by Lupe Haas
Ashley Tisdale takes over for Anna Faris in the Scary Movies franchise. The High School Musical alumni talks about her nerve-racking lesbian scene in SCARY MOVIE 5, co-star Lindsay Lohan, a deleted scene with Ted, the talking teddy bear, and her friendship with other Disney alumni in our Q&A.
Fresh off her turn in playing a “whore” in her own words in Sons of Anarchy, Ashley has fun spoofing films Mama, Evil Dead, Black Swan, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and even 50 Shades of Grey in SCARY MOVIE 5.
Along with her leading man Simon Rex, Ashley Tisdale sits down to talk about her new role and the numerous cameos from other celebrities from the film, now playing.
Q: Was it scary watching the movie with us?
Simon: It was scary period.
Ashley: It’s always nerve-racking when you haven’t seen something and it’s your first time.
Simon: Eight months of our life was really involved in this and to see it in 90 minutes. It’s like ‘Whoa!’ So yeah, it was scary.
Q: So what scares you and makes you laugh in real life?
ASHLEY: Scary movies, scare me.
Q: And what makes you laugh?
ASHLEY: Funny, scary movie spoofs. [giggles] No, I mean I love to laugh so I watch tons of comedies. I don’t know which one makes me laugh the hardest though. Oh, probably Bridesmaids. I laughed really, really hard.
SIMON: For me, I guess what scares me is people. Real people in the world are scary.
ASHLEY: I scare you?
SIMON: No, people I don’t know, I think. But I know you guys now so you won’t murder me. I’m scared of humans. And what makes me laugh is… just watching YouTube or America’s Funniest Videos. Real moments make me laugh.
Q: Was there one scene that was the hardest to get through?
ASHLEY: Yeah, probably the Molly Shannon bathroom scene. The only time I didn’t laugh is probably the one that’s in the movie. I honestly laughed on every single shot. I love Molly Shannon but I don’t like to break character and I’m trying to do really good but I could see her in the corner and she’s making all these weird noises in the stall. I was losing it. I’d look at the camera guy, and he’s shaking. He’s laughing. They were all laughing. What happened was David Zucker (producer) came up to me. He’s like ‘listen, I want you to be like Robert Stack. I’m like ‘who’s Robert Stack?’ Everybody is laughing at him. They’re like ‘You can’t tell that to 27 year-old. She doesn’t know who Robert Stack is.’ And so when I did the shot and I got through it, he said, ‘Great, what did you think of it?’ I said I was thinking, ‘who the fu**’ is Robert Stack?’ He was like ‘that’s exactly what it is? It’s just the thinking back and forth puzzled look.’ So yeah, I nailed it.
Q: What did you think about Lindsay Lohan coming in being able to poke fun at her problems. Do you ever worry that what you do in real life will end up in tabloids.
ASHLEY: I don’t live life thinking, ‘I wonder if this is going to hit the news,’ I just live life. I think its really awesome that they got to make fun of themselves.
SIMON: It’s brave of them. Charlie’s done it. I was proud of Lindsay for that. We’ve actually known her for a long time. We were both looking forward for her doing it. In her defense, there were only a couple of things she had taken out. She’s like, ‘I’m not comfortable saying this,’ but for the most part she trooped in and really laughed and made jokes of herself.
Q: How long have you known each other?
SIMON: Just for this movie now. Nine months. We just met during this project.
Q: You were brave for shooting the lesbian scene. Was it fun?
ASHLEY: It wasn’t really fun. It was nerve wracking. The lesbian scene which a lot of stuff got cut because of the ratings. We’re PG-13. So there’s definitely much more to it. The day of, me and Erica were like ‘this is so crazy.’ And Malcolm had, he was really cool, and had the amount of people that had to be there. Everybody else was in another room watching. It made if more comfortable. There was one time with the potted plant which I had to kind of do that. I remember going back to the hotel room that night and seeing a potted plant and I was just ‘I can’t look at plants the same way anymore.’
SIMON: For the rest of your life?
ASHLEY: No, just in that moment.
SIMON: That would be a horrible way to live.
ASHLEY: Yeah! But then in the reshoots, then we added the whole chair scene. Where the chair is hitting me from behind. At that point, I was like ‘everybody can be on set. I’m so used to it now.’ Actually, I hurt my butt on that –it was a hard wood chair. It was definitely fun and kind of nerve-racking at the same time.
Q: Were you able to keep a straight face during the lesbian scene.
ASHLEY: Oh, yeah! There were so many times that we were laughing and stuff. We were like, ‘Ok, we’ve got to do this. Where we come bursting through the door. And at that point, we were okay. I think we were laughing more when we were in the club, like about to. Is where we started to laugh. But Erica sticking her finger in my mouth, I was like ‘this is just so odd.’ There’s a scene where Heather Locklear also stuck her finger in my mouth. So I had a lot of weird things happen.
Q: Did you have them disinfect before those scenes?
ASHLEY: Yes! Erica is really brave because I just had gotten over a sinus infection. So I was like ‘good luck.’
Q: There was so much physical comedy. Any injuries?
SIMON: A couple of bruises. Nothing too bad.
ASHLEY: You almost got really badly hurt.
SIMON: One almost really bad one… you don’t see it in the movie because it’s edited out but there’s a scene where they are pulling me out of the ambulance, and the ambulance thing collapsed and my head grazed, at a very high speed from really high up. It was a close call, but that was it.
Q: Any cameo favorites?
ASHLEY: There’s so many people.
SIMON: Molly Shannon
ASHLEY: Molly Shannon so funny.
SIMON: A couple of people that got edited out, I was really…. Chris Elliott, unfortunately, didn’t make the final cut which blows my mind because he’s genius.
ASHLEY: Ted was awesome but he didn’t make a cameo either.
SIMON: Yeah, he’s on the poster. They had to cut for PG-13. There was a moment with her and Ted.
ASHLEY: Yeah, there was a moment. It was in the lesbian scene. (Laughter) It’s a long story.
SIMON: There’s a Tiger Woods look-alike cameo. It’s basically in her dream sequence and there’s all these little things happening.
ASHLEY: Popping up between my legs.
Q: That’s what the unrated Blu-ray is for.
ASHLEY: So you’ll see it there.
Q: When the Mama (movie) came out, you returned to shoot additional scenes for it. When you heard the news about the reshoots, were you excited or thinking, ‘Oh, no!’
ASHLEY: It’s funny. I actually seen Mama when it came out. And the thing I thought of was like ‘Oh my gosh! We should be spoofing this.’ It fit so perfectly with the kids in the movie and so when they told us we were going to be reshooting and doing Mama. I was like ‘Yeah, but how is that going to make sense.’ We’ve already shot as if they were our kids. One of them was our kid. It was amazing how they went back in and unraveled the stuff we already did to shoot….that we… that that’s really Charlie Sheen’s kids we take over. It was amazing how they did that in editing. And props to them. But we had so much fun. I was so excited about wearing the wig and being all tatted up. It was really cool.
Q: What was it like spoofing movies like Evil Dead which hadn’t come out yet?
ASHLEY: It was fun.
SIMON: They basically spoof the trailer. That’s all you know about the movie. We made a ten minute version of that. I saw it for the first time with you guys last night so it was cool to see what they had done. I think that was a good last minute decision to put some current horror movies in. Because really, we just shot Black Swan, Paranormal Activity and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was really the only stuff we were shooting with maybe some 50 Shades of Grey. We came back and shot the Mama stuff which I think was great.
ASHLEY: Evil Dead…
Q: Did the script keep changing?
SIMON: Everyday.
ASHLEY: On a daily basis. That day that Katt Williams came in, that scene hadn’t even been done yet. And we got it that morning. It was the longest scene.
SIMON: He had a ten page scene.
ASHLEY: That’s how you had to roll with the movie.
Q: Was it during his jail time?
SIMON: It was right after he got out.
ASHLEY: I remember checking online if we were going to have him or not.
Q: How did he react when he realized he had to memorize those pages that day?
SIMON: He was a little stressed at first but he’s cool.
ASHLEY: He was super nice. He brought a really great energy to the set. After being there for 3 months, there’s cameos coming in and out, but we’re there shooting really long days and in every single scene, and so he brought this fun energy and woke us back up. He’s just hilarious. He would improvise some stuff. On the gag real, he started improvising. When I said, ‘how do you know who’s a witch? He said, ‘does she have a broom?’ I lost it on that one. That was the funniest thing ever.
Q: Back to cameos, do you think the media is hard on Lindsay?
ASHLEY: I don’t know.
SIMON: It’s a fact. She puts herself in those situations. She knows what she’s doing. It’s kind of her M.O. Yeah, but it’s cool that she can make fun of herself.
ASHLEY: I really don’t know what’s true or not true unless it’s hard fact then it’s true. But the media blows a lot of stuff out of proportion.
Q: Do you still stay in touch with the cast of High School Musical?
ASHLEY: Yeah!
Q: When was the last time you got together?
ASHLEY: All of us together? We don’t all of us get together. That would be kind of awkward. I was with Vanessa [Hudgens] two days ago. We live right down the street from each other. She’s my best friend. So I see her all the time. And then when she’s working, we talk on the phone. And Zac [Efron]…
SIMON: Is my neighbor. Nice guy.
ASHLEY: That’s true. He’s always in and out shooting non-stop so we’ll be texting. And sometimes we’ll remember something and there’ll be a chain of texts of all of us. And we’re all talking to each other.
Q: Think there will be another High School Musical spoof.
ASHLEY: I don’t know. I feel like it’s been spoofed a lot so I don’t know if they’ll be another one.
Q: What’s your advice for young stars?
ASHLEY: I don’t try to live my life to be a role model. I don’t think of myself as a role model. I’m not perfect and I think that for me if being in this business is exactly what you want to do then, you love to work then always focus on that. Don’t get wrapped up in the other things that can tear you away from it.
Q: What was it like going from your Sons of Anarchy role to this?
ASHLEY: Very different. Son of Anarchy was really fun. I had such a great time on that show. It’s one of my favorite tv shows. And Charlie Hunnam is so cute. So I was so excited. It was funny because it was actually on while we were filming and he watched it and he was like ‘Oh, my god! You’re a whore!’ [laughing]
SIMON: It was pretty rad.
Q: All your Disney alumni are trying to get those edgy roles. How hard is to break that stereotype or find those roles when Hollywood tends to pigeonhole people?
ASHLEY: It’s definitely a struggle. It’s not like its easy. People have always been like “Oh, she’s like Sharpay,’ and that type of thing. I’ve done stuff before Sharpay and I’ll continue to do things after Sharpay. One thing I’m really proud of this movie is that I play something very opposite of the characters people have seen me do. And Sons of Anarchy was a really great opportunity that Kurt knew I was a really big fan. My dad actually built his house. And so he was like “Yeah, we want to use Ashley on an episode. So I was so down. I feel like my audience has grown with me and they are probably in college now so I feel like I haven’t run away from my fans. I always wanted to grow with them.