Tori Spelling is reflecting on her role in 2003’s Evil Alien Conquerors, which she hoped would be her big break in comedy after her iconic stint on Beverly Hills, 90210.
The 53-year-old actor is best known for playing Donna Martin in the Nineties drama and its subsequent reboot, 90210. Following the conclusion of the original series in 2000, Spelling landed a role in Chris Matheson’s wacky sci-fi comedy Evil Alien Conquerors, starring Diedrich Bader and Chris Parnell.
Spelling took on the minor, uncredited role of Jan, an alien who attempts to use a human disguise to hide her features.
Appearing on a recent episode of Stephen Baldwin’s One Bad Movie podcast, the Scary Movie star labeled Matheson’s film the worst on-set experience.
“I came into this from 90210 and having my forever persona being Aaron Spelling’s daughter, being like, ‘Oh, this is going to be great for me,’” she recalled. But the reality was different.
Spelling claimed that “from the moment I stepped on set, it was like I couldn’t say one word without the director being like, ‘Tori, can you do that again?’ Everything was just, a little bit less, and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
She said that she was used to taking notes on her dramatic acting, “but comedy, no one ever gave me a note. It was always, ‘Oh my God, that’s great, go for it.’”
Spelling claimed that it “didn’t matter” whether she “had a paragraph or a monologue,” Matheson was going to give her a note.
“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.”
She shared that she developed a way to handle the constant criticism by turning it into “a comedy routine in my own head, because it got to the point where every line I delivered was just thrown away.”
“That director, he just hated me,” she claimed. “I was like, ‘Just fire me and recast. This is so hard on me.’ I went to set every day just like a puddle.”
The Independent has contacted Matheson’s representative for comment.
