Action heroine
SheKnows: How was it dealing with Chaka and the touchy-feely moments in which he’s grabbing at Holly? Did you have to slap him off?
Anna Friel: (laughs) Well, it kind of introduced a lot more than was in the original script. When I watched the film, I didn’t realize how much that would be in it. It made me laugh. I thought ‘if I’m laughing at it and it’s my breast that’s being fondled then it’s alright. I give it the okay’. I found that quite funny ‘cause my daughter’s going through a state of kind of grabbing your top when you’re out at the supermarket, and you’re like ‘No, we don’t do that, do we?’ So I kind of used those elements and just talked to Chaka like he was a little child. It was quite a childish thing to do, isn’t it?
SheKnows: The film is kind of racy for PG-13. Were you expecting that?
Anna Friel: Well they always told me that they wanted to make it PG-13. We have a very different certificate way of working in England. But, knowing Will Ferrell comedies, and seeing the work that Danny McBride does, it’s not a straight down the line family all around comedy. There were a few jokes that they took out because of children but it has got that naughtiness, which I think makes it fun and interesting. I laughed a lot.
SheKnows: On set…did you crack up or ever ruin any takes by breaking?
Funny Friel and Ferrell
Anna Friel: You know when Will’s walking across the Caldera when he’s doing ‘the dance’? Well, Danny and I had been off in our trailers so we hadn’t seen this whole thing and we came up to the top of the mountain and just watched him and we were just like (she breaks into laughter) ‘cause it was so silly. I think to have silliness in your life is such a good thing. It makes us not take ourselves so seriously, you know? I felt he was just daft. We’d find ourselves laughing when we were taking ourselves very seriously and shouting at tennis balls on the end of poles. You kind of look around the desert (location) going, ‘Am I shouting to a tennis ball?’ So you just got to be childlike to be able to suspend disbelief.SheKnows: Were there a lot of injuries due to the action sequences?
Anna Friel: I did hurt my ankle when we’re in the vines and we’re taking off. That was about a week of being in harnesses. We were yanked so hard one day and we’d all eaten lunch. That’s really not a good idea to eat lunch before wearing those harnesses. I’ll never do it again. And not only do you feel sick, but (I asked Will) ‘I can’t quite see properly, can you?’ and he was like, ‘No’. I said, ‘Are you having problems breathing?’ and he’s like ‘Yes’. We all thought we were going to have some aneurysm. We all needed to take about a half an hour break ‘cause we couldn’t breathe.
SheKnows: Didn’t you have to run around a lot in the sand?
Anna Friel: The sand dunes were quite good. It’s not in the movie but we have one bit when we’ve just met Chaka, we’re running, we go down these dunes, and we did our own stunts and we made these things called butt-pans (moulds of their fannies), so we called them bottom-pans, and they were like a little sleigh and all attached by a wire. We’d be falling down sand dunes and you just got sand in every orifice. I think that will be on the extras on the DVD.
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