By Shawn Adler in Los Angeles

On first meeting Nicki Lynn Aycox, star of "Jeepers Creepers 2" (opening August 29), I was immediately struck, of course, by her tremendous beauty. Her kind eyes and soft features are perhaps what led director Victor Salva to cast her in the challenging role of Minxie Hayes, the lead female student on board a doomed bus. What he got, however - and what I was totally unprepared for - is a smart and funny woman whose youth belies a mature and confident actress. In between speaking both German and Spanish and referencing Homeric poetry, Nicki paused just enough so that I was able to get in a few questions about her upcoming film.

Shawn: Before the interview I went on the internet to find out a little bit about you, and all that it says on imdb (the internet movie database) is that you speak German-

Nicki: (Laughs) That’s all it says! Well, I shot a film in Germany three years ago, and I was there for seven weeks. I made a lot of great friends and the director and I actually switched apartments. The next year I stayed there for seven or eight months in Munich.

Shawn: From Germany to the Midwest…It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a horror movie where the characters have been as proactive as they are in this film, oddly enough with the exception of your character, who, though she serves as the source for much of the movie’s information, is in many ways the resident damsel in distress. How was it different psychologically for you to play a character so unlike the characters of the other actors?

Nicki: Well, I think that it was important, as you said, to have all these dimensional characters, that had actual tension. This film has racial tension, even a gay character, something to give to the audience to root for. I think it’s important because if you care about a character then you care whether or not they live.

My character, in a sense, was sort of the interlock. Even in the first film there was a physic character and it’s because, basically in the movie, the Creeper can sense what body parts of yours he would like to take to replenish his human self. It’s important to have a physic character because the Creeper works through that person to get the rest of the characters in this mood of fear, so that he can get them as terrified as possible so that he can smell out what he would like to take.

So I thought that my character was a little removed from everybody else, because they didn’t believe what she was saying -

Shawn: Very much a Miranda complex.

Nicki: Exactly. So I think it was important that she does maintain off and on her own and a little bit separate, so that’s why my character always seems a little bit blank. (Chuckles) Having physic visions takes all the energy out of you.

Shawn: I can imagine. In this movie there are several scenes where you have great emotional breakdowns. How as an actress are you able to keep up the level of intensity for take after take?

Nicki: I wanted to take a lot of the traditional elements of a horror movie out of my character so, for instance, I don’t scream during the entire picture. I think, of course, there needs to be some screaming in a horror movie, and there’s plenty of it in Jeepers Creepers 2, but I wanted to find something in my character that keeps her.

As far as the emotions, it was very difficult to keep it at a high level. The day we shot the scene where I cry was also the day of the contact lenses (Nicki’s eyes appear to go to the back of her head during one scene, necessitating thick, white contact lenses that left her nearly blind) and it was thirteen hours. Thirteen hours of me crying and, once I got to that level I knew I had to hold it, because once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Needless to say I went home with a big headache that day.

Shawn: What, if anything, did Victor tell you about the back story of your character, or was that something that you were able to work on by yourself?

Nicki: I was able to work on it alone and with Victor. He spent individual time with everybody. We created a lot of the character together. He had a really great framework for the character and he let everybody, not just me, fill in the blanks.

Shawn: That’s interesting, because, of course, Victor is not only the director but the writer as well. You hear stories sometimes of writer/ directors who are very rigid -

Nicki: You would think that because it’s true, a lot of writers are stuck on, “No, this is how I wrote it and this is how I want it.” But Victor’s smart, especially when you consider that we had all young actors. If you give them line readings and you tell them, “It has to be this way, this way, this way,” you’re really stripping them of a lot of the ability to go ahead and create a character. It’s a smart way to do it.

Shawn: What happens to you as a person when you’re faced , as in the film, with a situation where it’s life or death, and you’re trying to survive?

Nicki: Well I think that the movie really shows it really well, and what makes it so interesting, is that you see these really strong friends and characters who already have a few problems in the beginning and when survival tactics kick in, half the group wants to stay together and half of them want to split up.

Shawn: Yes, I thought that was an interesting touch. A lot of times in horror movies, you know immediately who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Obviously, of course, the Creeper is the bad guy, but I also got the feeling throughout the movie that you begin rooting for certain characters to live, maybe even at the expense of other characters -

Nicki: Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You wouldn’t think that. You would think that you would want everyone to live but that’s not the way you feel during the movie. The things you think of that you wouldn’t normally do, whether it’s a hug or, on the other side, wanting someone else to get knocked off so that you could live.

Shawn: You have a recurring role on the TV series Ed. What’s the difference between working on a film and working on a TV set?

Nicki: Well, they are two very different mediums. If you do television you know you are going to go fast, everything fast. With film you are able to slow it down a little.

Shawn: Which do you prefer?

Nicki: I enjoy film more. I like to be able to change characters and projects and meet new people. The slowness. (Laughs) Though I like working on TV too.

Shawn: You mention the slowness of film. With such a large cast and so much time spent together, what sort of friendships developed in this environment?

Nicki: Oh yeah, with everybody. We got a lot more time to know each other. I think that shows in the movie too. We were all on the bus together, so if one person was being shot and your character was supposed to be behind them, you had to stand there and be behind them, so we all had to stay on the set for the entire time.

Because it was so slow, you would have four people in the back playing around and then you could switch it off later. When I watch the movie, I see the personality of every single one of my cast mates in their characters. It’s very clear that we all took on our parts, and it’s fun when that happens.

Shawn: Any real life experiences where you were broken down in the middle of nowhere?

Nicki: Broken down in the middle of nowhere (long pause) -

Shawn: If the answer is no, that’s fine, you don’t have to make something up for the interview.

Nicki: (Laughs) No, no, I do have a horror story about a bus. I was traveling in Peru and it was New Years Eve - no excuse me, it was New Years Day - and I had been out all night and my friend and I got on the bus. We get on the bus, and it’s now New Years Day, and we’re about to be on a bus together for eight hours. My friend turns to me and says, “What do you and the bus driver have in common?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s Peruvian, I’m American. I’m not really sure, he’s a big guy…”

And my friend says, “You both have confetti in your hair.” So, he had been up all night too! (Big laughter) Well, lo and behold, I have the one seat on the bus where the seat in front of me is broken, so I have a three hundred pound Peruvian man in my lap for eight hours.

Shawn: Oh, to be a three hundred pound Peruvian man.

Nicki: (Laughs) Yeah, well it wasn’t fun.

"Jeepers Creepers 2" opens in theaters August 29th.