Yahoo! News - January 27, 1999

5 Questions with Rachael Leigh Cook

by Carol Deegan

It's 1999. Online shopping is the ultimate mall. Computers have replaced typewriters. And yet, some things never change. ... Like high school.

So baby boomers and their children can relate to She's All That, a new romantic comedy set in a trendy Los Angeles high school. The film is the feature film debut of Robert Iscove, the Emmy-nominated director of "Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella."

Oh sure, backpacks have replaced book bags. And kids tote beepers and cell phones. But the class president still rules. Cheerleaders and star athletes are at the top of the social pecking order. Your status is defined by the car you drive, the person you date and the people you hang out with at school.

And the senior prom is THE event of the year.

So when class president Zack (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is dumped by his social-climbing girlfriend Taylor (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), he makes a bet with his best friend that any girl on his arm will be voted prom queen.

Any girl in the school? Is this guy's ego big enough?

His friend picks Laney Boggs, whose father (Kevin Pollak) drives a pickup truck and cleans swimming pools. She helps with expenses by working part-time at a cheesy fast-food restaurant. The kids she hangs out aren't part of the most popular crowd.

Laney has her sights set on an art scholarship and college.

And she's not about to let anything or anyone - including the mega-popular Zack - distract her.

"It kind of surprises her more than anything when Zack comes up and he wants to talk to her," says Rachael Leigh Cook, who plays Laney. "Her attitude is like 'What is wrong with you? Are you stupid?' It's kinda funny."

From her character's perspective, Prinze is the loser, lost in a world of parental expectations, superficiality and trendiness.

"Until you meet Freddie, you will not realize what a feat of acting this was for him. Because he's just the nicest guy you will ever meet in your entire life," Cook says.

Cook and Prinze met during the filming of "The House of Yes," a dark comedy about a family obsessed with the JFK assassination.

"We never had any scenes together but I had little parts opening and closing the film. Freddie is great in it. He's so funny," she says.

Cook, 19, grew up in Minneapolis, where she worked as a print model. She moved to Los Angeles about three years ago. She stars in the upcoming films, "The Hi-Line" and "The Bumblebee Flies Anyway" with Elijah Wood.

As for life in Los Angeles, "I read a lot of scripts, I go on a lot of auditions, and I meet people and whatnot. It's not all that glamorous and everything. The truth is, it's kind of hard to find your way around, it's kind of hard to meet people. It's OK. You can't beat the weather. I miss Minnesota, I do."

1. What attracted you to She's All That?
Cook: I think people were marketing a lot of the whole 'Scream' idea. And I had a stack of scripts 'this high' of just carnage and cheerleaders. And when I got this script, it was just like, this is a nice movie, this is a good movie, I feel good. I'm going to read this script again.

2. How would you describe the film?
Cook (laughing): It's your classic 'boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy loses girl, girl reprimands boy for everything he ever did and said, boy and girl get back together' movie.

3. Did you go to high school or professional children's school?
Cook: I went to high school until my freshman year. And then things got pretty confusing. I had tutors who would have to coordinate all my work with the school. But I got a diploma. It was hard, but I got a diploma. That's why this movie was so funny. It was like everything that I missed in high school, like the cliques, the sports teams playing and the prom, and all this stuff, it was just my total vicarious high school experience. It was great. It was funny.

4. How did you pick your film roles?
Cook: Actors have like a hundred different ways of choosing which projects they want to do. But ... the ones I want are the ones where I can just read it, I can so clearly just see myself saying these lines. I read them on the page and I can hear my voice in my head and how I would say them. At that point, it's like, 'I have to do this. You might think that there is someone else you might want for this role, but you don't understand, because I'm going to do this.' I can just hear these characters in my head.

4 1/2. And what about She's All That?
Cook: I think it was more just the language of the film. It's so funny, it's just hilarious, I mean, I read it late at night, I was just like laughing out loud. And I couldn't remember the last time I've read a script and I was like actually by myself laughing.

5. You get the feeling that Laney could take or leave Zack, that she is going to be successful in her own life with or without him.
Cook: I'm glad you say that because sometimes people will say 'Well, here you play kind of a loser in the film.' And I just get so mad! Like absolutely not! They're sorry they asked. It's so wrong!