Meet another girl/teen in our club who likes the same movie favorites as you do. To write her, click on the link to join the penpal club!

	any age 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
	A Star Wars Movie Epics like Titanic Something Scary Anything Disney Anything Funny Romance Action Films Comedies Historicals Animal flicks

• Freddie Prinze Jr. & Linda Cardellini
• Ben Affleck
• Ashley Judd
• Hayden Christensen
• Eliza Dushku
• Tobey Maguire
• Kirsten Dunst: Spiderman
• The Rock
• Rachel True
• Zooey Deschanel
• Kelly Hu
• E.T. Premiere
• Ice Age Actors
• Samantha Mumba
• Frankie Muniz
• Amanda Bynes
• Britney Spears
• Mandy Moore
• Schuyler Fisk
• Shane West
• Sisqo
• Beauty&Beast Actors
• Jim Carrey
• Harry Potter Actors
• Cast of Ocean's 11
• The voices of Monsters Inc.
• Drew Barrymore
• Joey Fatone
• Lance Bass/Emanuelle Chriqui
• Max Keeble and Friends
• Jennifer Aniston
• Leelee Sobieski
• Reese Witherspoon
• Ming-Na
• Haley Joel Osment
• Sean Hayes(Mr. Tinkles)
• Kirsten Dunst
• Eddie Murphy
• Kerry Washington Julianne Moore
• The Ladies of Atlantis
• Cameron Diaz
• Shannyn Sossamon
• Heath Ledger
• Backstreet Boys
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Celine Dion
• Hanson
• Enrique Iglesias
• Sarah McLachla and Lilith Fair
• 'N'Sync
• Will Smith
  • Wild Wild West
  • Bagger Vance
• Spice Girls
• Britney Spears
• Justin Timberlake
• Oprah Winfrey
• Youngstown

Updated 6/16/02

We're Hangin' With....The "Reel" Daphne and Shaggy

SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR

AND MATTHEW LILLARD

Buffy in go-go boots emoting with a non-existent dog? Why not? Sarah's fiancé Freddie Prinze Jr. dyed his hair blonde and wore a dorky ascot. Matt Lillard spent months in front of a mirror getting Shaggy's mannerisms and voice just right. Hey, Scooby Doo is a cartoon folks!! But, one beloved by millions of international fans. These actors wanted to get it right! We chatted with the cast at Warner Brothers Studios in L.A. on a wild jungle set that was a duplicate of the Spooky Island Spring break getaway spot in the film.

Sarah, wearing a pretty-in-pink top, beige jeans and her HUUUUUGE engagement ring, was bubbling with excitement. We asked her about playing damsel in distress turned martial artist Daphne. "As an actor, you always want to do things that are different and Daphne was pretty about as different as you can get from [Buffy] so it was a great joy. You want to be able to use your skills in different ways. It was definitely difficult to learn the wire routines. I have never worked with the wires in that sort of realm before." There was a little language barrier between Sarah and her Hong Kong wire work coaches. "You're trying to learn something that could really be life threatening and you don't even understand what they're saying to you. Once I understood that when they said "girl,' they meant me, then I moved forward and started to learn the tricks."

Matt faced the biggest challenge of his career working with a CGI sidekick that just wasn't there. "So much of acting is the chemistry, the connection between two people. You look at the classic comic teams, it's all about timing and when you're working with somebody that's not there, you're continually, for six months, throwing energy into a void and having to rely a lot on your imagination, more so than I've ever had to do before."

Becoming Shaggy was a grueling metamorphosis for the actor. "I worked hard. I took the whole thing very seriously. I put a lot of pressure on myself, I hired two people that I've worked with for the last five years and we locked ourselves in a dance studio for two weeks and started to break down the character and (took on) the challenge of making a two dimensional character a three dimensional person; how to get the walk and the voice. It was a lot of trial and error in front of a mirror. I took it really seriously because I didn't want to be Shaggy for the rest of my life and have people go, 'Wow, that Shaggy, he sucks.' That would have been terrible."

Both actors were determined to flesh out their cartoon characters and give them more dimension. Matt had the Saturday morning Shaggy down pat and went from there. "My character is 'run for your life, eat a lot and love your friends'. It's very specific. That was fun, but in the cartoon, you never see Shaggy fall in love. In the cartoon, you never see him get in a fist fight with Scooby or make up with his best friend. Those elements were the challenges. It was easy to pick out how to run for your life. It was more difficult to fall in love with Mary Jane."

Sarah felt that the cartoon Daphne was too helpless, too one-note. She wanted to give her more spunk and that was a process. "A lot of times actors will start outside-in. What do I look like? What do I sound like? How do I dress? How do I walk? What are my mannerisms? (Here) these things are all predetermined for us which can be difficult as an actor. How do you give this one-dimensional character human aspects? Daphne is the most underdeveloped character in the cartoon. She gets kidnapped and likes Fred. That's pretty much who Daphne is. Why doesn't she get to help out more? Why doesn't Velma ever get captured and Daphne come up with the plan?"

Sarah worked on turning Daphne from a whiner into a winner. "She feels very useless in the group. There was a joke originally in the script about how her dad bought the van and that's why she was part of the group. Throughout the movie, what I hope you see is how, like a lot of young girls, she found her place. How she was more than just a figure in the group, that she could contribute. To give her this arc is walking a very fine line. (I tried) to give her this stronger personality and to make her more human, at the same time keeping what is essentially the integrity of the character."

Sarah and castmates were mindful of the millions of Scooby fans. "It's one of the longest running cartoon series ever and there's a certain amount of pressure that comes with honoring that. There are fans out there that if you're even slightly a bit off, they'll say, 'Well, that's not what Scooby would do' or 'That's not how Shaggy would walk.'"

We asked both actors what their natural high or anti drug in life was. Matt chose another branch of acting. "I think certainly being on stage is a rush. You do a movie like Scooby Doo and that satisfies financial responsibilities and career responsibilities. Then you go off and do a play where you're speaking great words and you're on stage and there's a relationship between you and a group of people. That's something that's hard to explain and one of the greatest feelings ever". Sarah is just high on life! "My life is really good. I have nothing to complain about. I have a great job, I have a great family, I have a great fiancé. I'm very happy. Then if I'm tired, there's caffeine, so it all works out pretty well. Uh oh, all we'll see is the quote, 'Caffeine makes me high.'"

Spring Break on Spooky Island is a big part of the film. Where would these two go for an Ideal spring break getaway? Matt tried to speak for Sarah. "An island where nobody knows who Buffy is. No, really, anyplace that has good food". Sarah's choice was in keeping with the film's setting. "Any place tropical and the food's gotta be good, otherwise my trip is wasted. Tanga Looma was tropical and that was wasted on me. Food had to be helicoptered in."

The Velma character in the film essentially wears one outfit, an orange sweater. Sarah wasn't going to let that happen to fashion-savvy Daphne. "I was very adamant that Daphne needed to not be in one outfit the whole time. I thought wouldn't it be great if she changed in every single scene? And Raja (the director) said, "Nooo." And I said, but so much of what we perceive about people is what they look like. To have Daphne constantly in another outfit for every occasion and always looking perfect, that's part of who she is. It's what she thinks she's worth, how she thinks people respond to her'. It was one way for me to humanize her."

As the scruffy Shaggy, Matt Lillard took a totally opposite stand. "It was very funny because I sat down for my costume fitting and the span of two years passes (in the film) and they have the modernization of Shaggy. They had all these drawings of Shaggy all hot. He was wearing tight shirts and rolled up sleeves. I was like, 'No, Shaggy stays exactly the same. He wears the same shirt, the same pants, the same shoes the whole movie'. So there I was six months later going, 'I'm wearing this shirt again. I don't wanna wear it'."

Sarah was alternately pleased and then freaked by her costume choices. "When we started filming in my miniscule outfits, it was summer in Australia and I would laugh at Linda and Freddy going, 'Ha-ha, you guys are wearing your sweaters. It's 90 degrees. I'm nice and cool. I'm going to go get some sun outside.' That one came back to bite me in the [CLEARS THROAT] when all of a sudden six months later, it's winter and we're doing all the outside scenes and it's 15 degrees and I'm still wearing the same little miniskirt and go-go boots while they had their nice warm sweaters. A good lesson I learned on this film. Don't make fun of your cast mate's costume." But what did she think about her boy Freddie as a blonde?"I think he looked like Fred Jones and I think it was great that he had to get his hair colored every eight days and I didn't have to get my hair colored once that whole production".

Okay, we've got to ask about Buffy. Sarah is looking forward to lighter storylines next season. "I feel like we got very dark in the past two years. Maybe it was hard for me to relate to because I never went through that period of being 20-something and graduating college and not knowing what I wanted to do or where I fit in. I happen to like Buffy better when she's a little light and funnier and when the storyline revolves around the innermost cast." Sarah denied that she's part of an animated Buffy series or that Britney Spears would be in the show next year. Internet rumors are just part of her life. "It's really funny because somebody gave me a bunch of internet rumors the other day and the (answer to) every one was no, not true, never happened, nope. Unfortunately, it's hard to govern certain
aspects of the internet and so once something is put out there, it's often taken as fact."

Sarah clarified that she isn't down on the internet or its Buffy fans at all. "Our internet fans, our true fans on the website kept our show on the air. We are so grateful to them and part of that I think is what makes our show cool." Is the vampire slayer upset that the show hasn't staked any awards? "We love the fact that we're like the underdogs. At least I do. I shouldn't talk for the producers because they disagree with me fully on the awards topic but I love the fact that we never win the awards. I think it's great that we're critically acclaimed and the audience loves our show. We do our show for the people that watch the show, not for a voting panel of people we've never met. We're honored by that aspect of it."

Busy actors don't have a lot of kick back time. Had they been to see a film recently? Matt liked About a Boy and Sarah raved about Murder by Numbers but had an odd experience in the theater. "I really enjoyed it except for the people in the (projection) booth that kept talking during the whole movie. Some guy had gotten fired from the movie theater and they were cleaning out his locker really loud because he was so pissed. We're trying to watch the movie and you hear, 'Did you get your change of pants?'"

Sarah and Matt expressed great satisfaction in starring in a film for the whole family. Matt had an inspiring experience early in filming. "I will never forget walking out of my trailer the first day and one of the crew members had brought his son and daughter. It was the first time that I was actually in full wardrobe, full hair and ready to go into Shaggy mode. I walked out and these two kids were looking at me. I say 'Like, man, have you seen Scooby Doo?' These kids with their big eyes were like, 'no'. The look on their faces was so cool and that was really a treat."

Sarah wants to make family night at the movies a reality. "This will not be my last family film at all. One of my favorite movies of last year was Spy Kids. Family films are so important and Hollywood has a tendency to not really pay attention to them. First of all, children are our theater-going audience of tomorrow. You have to instill a love of going to the movies. I remember being five or six and seeing E.T. and just falling in love or Roger Rabbit . Today, with computers and multiplexes, you don't have that where a family goes and everybody sees a movie and can talk about it later."

Sarah sees films and entertainment in general as a great escape. "Look at what happened to our country and (people) went back to (t.v.'s) "Friends" and back to things that are familiar, that make them happy. I think we sometimes forget that entertainment is supposed to be (just) that. You're supposed to go and for an hour and a half or two hours, be taken away from your everyday life. That's what we really hope to do with this. (We hope) that not just kids go, but that adults maybe remember their Scooby experience from watching the cartoons. I even talked to someone who has no children who watched the screening and just had so much fun watching all the kids' faces."