Tori Spelling opens up about ‘shuddering’ on-set experience with director who 'didn’t like’ her
Tori Spelling has candidly detailed the worst experience she has ever had on a film set and how she believed the director wasn’t keen on her at all.
Cast your mind back to 2003: Chicago picked up the Best Picture Oscar; former NBC President Jeff Zucker confirmed Friends was coming to a halt; Wicked debuted on Broadway; and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez postponed their wedding.
Something you may not remember is that alongside film released like Disney Pixar’s Finding Nemo and The Matrix was a divisive flick known as Evil Alien Conquerors.
Described unfavourably by many critics, Evil Alien Conquerors, starring Chris Parnell, Diedrich Bader, and Daredevilfavorite Elden Henson, was distributed by First Look International.
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Part of its $500,000 budget was used to hire actress Tori Spelling, whose credits at that time already included Scary Movie 2, Beverly Hills, 90210, and three episodes of Saved by the Bell.
Despite believing the movie would help her finally shed the ‘Aaron Spelling’s daughter’ persona she’d been lumped with, things didn’t quite go to plan for the star.
In fact, the 55-year-old recently admitted on Stephen Baldwin’s One Bad Movie podcast that she ‘[didn’t] even have to think twice: Evil Alien Conquerors was her worst film experience to date.
“It was a straight offer. I got it, and they were like, ‘It’s a comedy,'” she explained of the film, which follows two aliens who befriend women on Earth, only to learn they too are aliens.
“All I know is I had a big, furry unibrow and furry feet, and I was one of the girlfriend. I was so excited. This is going to be great for me,” she recalled.
The celebrity said it didn’t quite work out like that, with the director, Chris Matheson, allegedly giving her a bit of a hard time.
“From the moment I stepped on set, it was like I couldn’t say one word without the director being like, ‘Uh, Tori, can you do that again?'”
Spelling claimed that despite her comedy being ‘on point’, Matheson asked her to do ‘a little bit less’ with her acting.
“In drama, sometimes I was like, ‘Okay, if I get that note, I understand that.’ But in comedy, no one ever gave me a note. It was always like, Oh my God, that’s great. Go for it,” the ex-reality TV icon continued.
She reported the director would call her out in front of other actors: “It could be a scene with me and one other actor or a scene with like 20 of us...
“By the end I knew he’d go through the first take, and then he’d be like ‘Cut!’ And I’m like, ‘Wait for it,’ and he’d be like, ‘Tori...’” she claimed.
“Every time! He would say it out loud across all the other actors and everyone in the room and I’d be shuddering.”
The LA native continued: “I went to set every day just, like, in a puddle of… I don’t know.
“I watched it. I’m fine in it. But I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I’d done more with it.’ It was a comedy. It was just, like, a goofy comedy. He just didn’t like me.”
Spelling, who alleged she was ‘good with directions’, eventually had her manager strike her name from the credits.
“So if you look it up, it doesn’t credit me.”
In a statement to People Magazine, Matheson said: “I’m sorry she felt that way. I like Tori personally. I just think we have some different ideas about comedy.”
If Spelling and Matheson’s comments have piqued your interest, then Evil Alien Conquerors is available to stream via YouTube.
Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, Film and TV, Podcast
Ella Scott