Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the… anywhere outside. At all. SHARKNADO! Last year the Syfy Channel blew the minds of viewers everywhere with their high-concept smash hit summer blockbuster, ‘Sharknado’! Then earlier this year, they did it again with the instant classic ‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’ (yes, that is the legitimate subtitle. We’re serious. It is just that brilliant.). ’Sharknado 2: The Second One’ is set to release on DVD and Blu-Ray in the U.S. on October 7th,  so ScienceFiction.com was lucky enough to sit down to talk to Tara Reid, one of the films stars, about the film and her experiences making it!

*SPOILER WARNING: Story elements of both ‘Sharknado’ films are heavily discussed below, so if you have not seen them and care about spoilers, go watch them then come back to give this a read!*

Science Fiction: So now that you’ve done it twice, and are potentially lining up for a third round, do you have any tips on how to survive a Sharknado?

Tara Reid: To Survive a Sharknado? Don’t follow me around! They seem to be following me everywhere! Also, always have a saw nearby.

Photo credit: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

SF: What would you say was your favorite part about making these movies?

TR: They’re just really fun movies! They make it really hard to take anything seriously, because you don’t SEE the sharks anywhere. I mean you’re running from imaginary sharks all day on set, so you’re trying to do a scene and sort of guessing where to be like “oh, I guess this is where his eye is” or “is it coming this way?” and you just have to have fun with it. We had so much fun on set, it’s just a really fun movie to make so we just laughed half the day. The director Anthony (Ferrante) is amazing and Ian (Ziering) is great to work with and even all the other people who did cameos. Like Kelly was great… Kelly Osbourne! Everyone was just so much fun and so happy to be there and be on board like “Tara, do you think I could be in ‘Sharknado’ and I could get eaten by a shark?’! It’s just so astounding, because all these people respond to ’Sharknado’! I’ve been in hit movies before, but the experience of how happy these movies have made people… it’s just so awesome to be a part of it.

SF: Do you have any crazy stories from on set? Like any kind of pranks or anything between castmates? You seem like you guys were having so much fun!

TR: Well first off, there wasn’t that much time for pranks, because we shot both of these movies in around eighteen days each, which is almost unheard of! We were really working like non-stop, and it was so chaotic and crazy and sometimes we didn’t even know what we were really supposed to be seeing because it’s all CGI! So it wasn’t like a Steven Spielberg movie where there’s real sharks or anything, so you have to just find the campiness of it, because a lot of it is just guessing. Like ‘Is there a shark here?” And you just had to sort of trust that it’d hopefully be there so it doesn’t look like you’re screaming at nothing. I think part of the reason everyone did such a good job on it and made it work was because we made the reality of this film really come together.

SF: How do you feel about the direction they took your character April in ‘Sharknado 2’ compared to the first film?

TR: Oh I like it so much more! I feel like she became such a stronger person. Like in the first one she just seems a bit weaker and have as much emotion, but in this one I feel like she really made a full arc and we really see her. Her mindset is like she gets to go to New York, she just wrote a book, she’s trying to work things out with Finn, and then BOOM! Sharknado strikes the airplane! Now she’s holding on for dear life, gets her hand cut off, she ends up in the hospital, and she should be completely out of it. But then she saves a little girl and gets a buzzsaw hand and kills a shark! She becomes much more of an action hero, so it was a lot more fun to play her!

SF: Where you really gung-ho about the loss of her hand and the addition of a buzz saw, or not a fan of the concept?

TR: Oh I thought it was great! I thought it was genius! Thunder Levin, who wrote both of them, how he has this imagination is just incredible! He’s really creative and sometimes it’s like “how do you come up with this stuff?” Like how are we going to top the ending of the first ‘Sharknado’, which had a man chainsaw right out of the belly of a shark, which is insane, and he just did it! He made it work again! That’s one thing about ‘Sharknado’, you never really know what’s going to happen next! When we were shooting in New York it was really cold out, and it was supposed to be summertime in the movie, but it was freezing out! Like this big blizzard, the biggest New York has had in years, came in and it started snowing! Like we had deadlines and had lost a day because the trucks couldn’t move and there was ice everywhere and it was so cold because the snow was just falling constantly! And they had to write it into the movie, like with a Sharknado ANYTHING could happen, so now there was a cold front coming in! It’s insane!

SF: Well you never can tell what’s going to happen when the Shark hit’s the fan, right?

TR: Exactly!

SF: What are your thoughts on ‘Sharknado 3’? Do you plan on taking part on the third go around?

TR: Honestly? We have no idea yet. Like Syfy bought it ad picked it up, but no one like the director, the writer, any of the actors, are signed on yet. So we don’t know. We’re all just waiting to find out!

SF: But would you like to take part in a third ‘Sharknado’ film?

TR: Oh yeah! Absolutely! I’m sure it’s going to be amazing what they come up with this time, and I’m sure once everyone is on board it’d be a great experience!

 

SF: If you could pick the location for ‘Sharknado 3,’ where would you set it?

TR: If I could pick the location? One-hundred-percent, somewhere warm. It was so cold in ‘The Second One,’ and even on the first one, when we shot at nights the temperature really dropped and it was freezing! Plus we had to be wet the whole time, so it was like we were dying. On both of them we were just so cold, so if we could film the next one somewhere warmer, that would be fantastic!

SF: Any potential dream cast mates you would love to see take part in the next film?

TR: It’s hard to say, because I’m sure there’s going to be something like a million cameos again, but I think that hopefully it’ll be me and Ian for sure! Because you never really know where we’re traveling or who is going with us and you never know what’s really going to happen! That’s what I love about these.

SF: Before this, you’ve done work in several genre films over the years like ‘Alone in the Dark’ and ‘The Crow: Wicked Prayer,’ and now Sharknado looks to be giving you a huge popularity boost again, do you think you’ll start doing more sci-fi horror genre movies going forward?

TR: I actually have another horror movie coming out that I just finished in Australia called ’Charlie’s Farm’! That one was really fun for me, and I started filmed it like right after ‘Sharknado 2’ so it was like they were back to back for me. It’s a great horror film and it’s scary so I’d say I’m absolutely going to do more horror stuff!

SF: Now that you’ve both made it through the Sharknado twice, what other kind of natural disasters would you like to see Fin and April take on next outside of the ‘Sharknado‘ movies? Sharktopuss-nado? Polar-Bear-Vortex?  I hear they’re gearing up ’Lavalantulas’ over at Syfy!

TR: I think maybe like… if the sharks were frozen? And like we were going skiing,  and the sharks are frozen, and then all the sudden they come out of the ice and start eating people!

SF: So like… Snow Sharks?

TR: Yes, exactly that. Snow Sharks!

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There you have it folks. ‘Snow Sharks.’ I don’t know about you, but this reporter is certainly excited at the concept!

Don’t forget to check out Tara Reid in ‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’! The film is set to hit your DVD and Blu-Ray collection on October 7th, 2014! Don’t wait, go pre-order your copy today to make sure you don’t wind up empty handed when shark happens!