Although you spend most of the film running for your life and trapped in confined spaces, this must be a release compared to something as serious as A Party of Five? Oh yeah, it's incredibly free. There's no facial expressions either, you just scream and run. I had a blast, so I was excited to play Julie again and to see where she was going after that first year of terror.

Were you involved creatively in piecing together how Julie would be a year later? Absolutely! Danny Cannon and I had a long conversation and they ran things by me, like 'what do you think about this' and I was like 'oh that's kind of dumb' and they'd try it again. The goal was to make her the same person people loved and wanted you to fight for. We made her sadder too, a little neurotic with a can of man on her key chain, four locks on her door and a knife by her bed.

Why do you think this genre has suddenly captured the imagination of a new teen generation? There's something kind sick and demented about watching a bunch of people run around while you're holding your nice hot buttered popcorn. I think teens today are tougher than ever with society built the way it is. They have metal detectors in high schools now, so the average guy popping out from under a counter with a knife just isn't scary enough to scare them.

What's the scariest moment in the film for you? One of the scariest scenes in the film is when McKye gets the hook through his throat. The first time it was played I was crying and screaming. And for me the scariest scene to act was with the tanning bed. Firstly, I was in a bikini - and that's pretty frightening that everyone's going to see you in a bikini. Secondly, I'm claustrophobic and it was 100 degrees in the room and 100 degrees inside the tanning bed (that's the Bob Monkhouse ref).

I wanted to leave the door ajar and Danny refused. He said it would be the best moment on the film because I'd be genuinely scared. So I had to lie in there, close my eyes and listen to my walkman to calm down. I was in there for 40 minutes. That scene freaked me out but now I can do smaller spaces because of it.

Apart from the fact he's a good therapist, what did you learn from Danny? I learned about hard work from him. But what impressed me most was that anything we had to do he did first. So he had to roll down that hill when we were hit by the truck and running away from the truck. He came back next day with bruises everywhere, but he did it to show us we weren't being asked to do something he wouldn't do. He also got in the tanning bed and actually had one of the other crew members drag him so he would know I wouldn't get too hurt in the dragging scene.

Danny skirted around explaining the film's ending. What's your explanation? You know her life is okay, but she feels at the back of her mind there might be something there. My feeling is that is killed in the bathroom when the door shuts - but you don't actually see who is shutting it. I reckon if they want to make another sequel they could easily say it was all a dream and start over again.

Like Pam waking up in Dallas? Can you see the Julie character becoming the Ben character? Yeah, I'd like to see this. I'd like to see Julie take this anger she holds inside when she shoots him in that graveyard and go for it.

The original draft of the opening scene was very different wasn't it? Julie was in bed having a dream and all of a sudden she wakes up screaming and turns over and Ray is there. He has come to stay for the weekend and is sleeping and asks if she's okay and she says 'yeah' and goes back to sleep. You don't know whether it's a dream or real. Then Ben crawls through the window and when she opens her eyes he's standing in front of her. She jolts out of bed, except nobody's next to her now, and runs down the hallway [of the dorm]. There's a long chase and he catches her on the ankle a couple of times. Blood starts dripping on the floor and she slips on that which makes it harder to run. Her hands get bloody because he catches her on the wrist, so she grabs the door-knob to get out and because of the blood on it that slips too. Finally she runs into her high school gym where they were going to film because the floor separates above a pool. So she's running through it when he [Ben Willis] hits a button; the floor separates and she falls into the pool. Now it turns red because of the blood on her, and it was kinda scary because she's hyperventilating from running and starting to drown. He jumps in after her; she comes out the other side and has to kick open this glass. Now, of course, she is dripping wet and her clothes are very see-through.

They did that a lot to you! They were big on that. Anyway, she grabs a basketball jersey from this glass case and hits the button, and as the pool floor closes it crushes him.

Did you work a lot on perfecting your scream? I had to scream a lot, not necessarily because I didn't scream right, but because we had to shoot again and again. There were different angles and closer versions to take, or the hook didn't catch the light or I wasn't turned around fast enough. I lost my voice two or three times while filming, like the scene with McKye when he gets hooked and my screams had to be dubbed in later. I know the sound men were very happy on days I didn't have to scream.

Screaming must come in handy for future projects when you wear your executive producers hat! It's a very different experience having that creative control. I'm executive producing Cupid's Love and it's still in pre-production. I'm involved in casting and the writing process and in developing the characters, and picking locations. It's been fun and I've absolutely loved it.