SportsHollywood: How about movie promotion: Did you enjoy the Super Bowl with Ryan Reynolds?
REID: No! It was New Orleans -- boys and football and Mardi Gras, are you kidding me? And on Bourbon Street? Any girl is unsafe there. It was crazy there. They attacked me. I got mobbed. And when they're drunk they really think they can touch you. But that's my own fault for being on Bourbon Street.
SportsHollywood: Did the National Lampoon name have any effect on your choice to do this film?
REID: Sure! National Lampoon films are classics: Animal House, Vacation, European Vacation -- there are moments that you will always remember in those movies. I like comedy -- I like to laugh. I'm in the entertainment business -- I'm an entertainer. I like people to go see my movies and be entertained. And this movie does that. You can go see this movie and not have to think -- just laugh.
SportsHollywood: How do you think Van Wilder stacks up to the other National Lampoon movies?
REID: It's different. It's more modern. Ryan's hysterical, and the producers and crew were really young. We had a very young set. A lot of them were beginners. And beginners are hungry. And fun. We lived every moment to the fullest. We went for crazy ideas and just had fun!
SportsHollywood: Is being hungy still a memory for you?
REID: I'll always be hungry.
SportsHollywood: What were some of the crazier, riskier scenes you played?
REID: That wasn't really my job on this movie. This character is probably one of the straightest I've ever played in my life. The riskiest scene I've ever played was in Body Shots.
SportsHollywood: How did you like being a journalist?
REID: I feel like I am a journalist -- I spend all my time with journalists! I could run a school for journalism. Just by the way I get asked questions to the stories I see written; the answers I give to how much they've changed the answers. I definitely feel like I've done my homework on the journalism side. And I think I did in the movie what a lot of journalists do sometimes. I didn't give a very fair story the first time, because I thought it would sell, and it did. The easy way out -- but I hurt his feelings in the process. Sometimes you forget that as a journalist...
(The reporter begins to shrivel in his chair.)
You write a story about me, but I might be home, crying! That maybe it's not true, and maybe it's just the easy way out. And maybe the story you wrote will really affect that person. Maybe they won't get that movie they want because of that story. And maybe Ryan will get kicked out of school now--
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SportsHollywood: Um, he dropped out--
REID: --You don't realize how powerful the journalist is! With a position like that, you should respect it and keep it running right. If you don't think -- not just about how they're a daughter to someone; someone's sister; someone's friend; someone's girlfriend...
SportsHollywood: Are you and Carson Daly still--
REID: -- When you write these things it has a lot more of an effect than you think. And that's what I loved about this character -- she does that, then wants to redeem herself, and write that story for him at the end.
SportsHollywood: You say you spent a lot of time with us damn journalists...
REID: I didn't say "damn" journalists!
SportsHollywood: Oops, I'm already changing the story.
REID: (Laughing) Damn journalist!
SportsHollywood: So can we assume that you're weary of having us damn journalists ask you these questions--?
REID: YES! Absolutely. Do I have hope that there's that one journalist out there who might really write that story for me? That really captures me? Not as a party girl but as that girl who works really hard. It's never about my work or my acting -- it's always about stupid stuff.
SportsHollywood: Okay, I'm your journalist. I'm going to write THAT story. What do you think is the smartest thing you've ever done?
REID: In my career or life?
SportsHollywood: Either.
REID: (Thinks) I have a couple but I can't reveal them. Too personal!
(Damn actress.)
Interview by Jeff Hause
