A few years ago, I had the immense privilege and honor of interviewing Ms. Briana Evigan, actress and dancer of Step Up 2, Step Up 4, Sorority Row and Burning Bright at New York Comic Con. She is no stranger to horror and action and her film roles demonstrate a ferocity very few young actresses possess this day and age. Not only is she beautiful and strong but she has a unique personality. Each project she’s involved in is better off having her on board. At the time of the interview below, Briana was promoting Zenescope Entertainment’s Grimm Fairy Tales animated series. Here’s how that interview went down:

How did you get involved with Zenescope?

I got involved with Zenescope because I met Benjamin Jackendoff, who is one of the producers on the pilot right now. Me and him are just trying to produce, partner, staff together films, and I saw a photo of Inferno, one of the comics on his computer, and I wanted to be her, and we ended up calling up Ralph and Joe and attaching myself to this as quickly as possible. Yeah, it’s just really, really cool. I love comics. I’ve always been into this kind of thing.

Is this your first time doing animation?

Yes, first time doing animation.

And how do you like it compared to live action?

They are completely different. I love, obviously, the live stuff the most, but this is cool because you kind of get to have a different outlet doing voiceovers in a booth. It’s very intimate. If you mess up, you can laugh at yourself, you can make any types of faces and try to create new voices and do something bigger maybe than you would on camera, and there’s nobody watching you. It’s very freeing.

What drew you to this project?

I’ve always wanted to do voiceovers, and what drew me to this was the characters. I mean, Hansel and Gretel, you know, big fan. Belinda, they’re so awesome. You get to be these bigger than life, really sexy animated characters.

And you identify with that?

Yeah, absolutely.

How’s your dancing going?

I’m not really dancing anymore, but I still go out and get crazy and dance it out.

Nice! Like tonight, at the –

Yeah, absolutely, last night.

Okay, cool, good, good. Since you’ve been in so many horror films, you’ve been called a scream queen. How do you respond to that title?

Umm, I mean, sure, it’s an honor. I’m glad that everybody’s been happy with the work that I’ve chosen to do so far, but I’d like to not be in the scream queen category.

What would you like to play?

Well, I want to be an action hero. Who doesn’t?

Well, in Burning Bright, you successfully pull that off.

Thank you, thank you. Yeah, that’s the kind of stuff I really like, it’s action or drama. So not that I’m going to say no to more of that kind of stuff, but I’d like to stay away from it for the future. Maybe do one here and there.

Yeah, I can see you as a future Lois Lane.

Oh cool! Aww, I like that. (laughs)

So if you know someone at Warner Bros –

Right, yeah? I would. (laughs)

Is there a particular filmmaker out there you’d want to work with, and if so, who and why?

I’ve always wanted to work with Paul Thomas Anderson. I think he’s just incredible, I love all his films.

Did he do Almost Famous?

Did he? I don’t know. I love Almost Famous. He did There Will Be Blood.

Okay, I missed that one.

And okay, the guy who did Almost Famous, sure! That’s like one of my favorite movies. I don’t even know who did it!

What is your favorite movie?

Oh, that’s impossible.

Top 3.

Top 3? The Notebook for the longest time was my favorite movie.

Nice, nice. I think you should’ve been in that instead of Rachel McAdams.

Oh, I wish! (laughs) I love Mad Max. I mean, I just dig those kinds of movies.

That’s a random one.

Yeah, Mad Max.

The sci-fi, futuristic look.

Sure, it’s not my favorite, but Mad Max did just come to mind. I would love to do a project like that, to be the female lead in Mad Max.

Nice.

I don’t know, it’s too hard. I love films so much. It’s like my favorite thing in the world. I’m not even a hard critic. I really enjoy most of everything I’ve watched. I watch movies every day.

Same here.

Yeah, I don’t think I could narrow it down. I’ve just got them all flying through my head, and then you have all these characters in the background, and it’s like, “Oh, I like that one, too! I like that one, too!” You know, something that always stands out when people talk about character work is Monster, with Charlize Theron?

Okay, okay.

I just thought she was fantastic in that movie. A really deep character. I like that kind of stuff. I like playing characters that aren’t like me, you know? Again, the list could go on.

Oh yeah, same here. Do you have a favorite comic book character?

You know what? I don’t at the moment. I’m kind of, I mean, I’m kind of now just getting more into it, and I haven’t read all of Zenescope’s yet, but I’m gonna have them send me copies of everything and start checking them all out. I mean, there are characters like Captain America and –

You could totally be a superhero.

Yeah, I would love to be. But the characters that I’m looking at now are so fun and stuff, but yeah, I don’t have one yet. I don’t know enough to pick a favorite yet.

I hear you. I’m a movie guy. Out of all of your movies, which did you have the most fun working on?

The most fun? Mind Games. It hasn’t come out yet, but my favorite to film was Burning Bright. But Mind Games had the most fun cast, so we were like crazy and silly every day.

In Burning Bright, that scene where you climb up that pipe, how crazy – was that like real?

Yeah, that was real. They had me do, they built like half ones, full ones, all different sizes for wire work, so I had a cord for part of it, but then also was just climbing in there myself, just doing extreme hand movements or just holding myself up. Very physically demanding, and they didn’t want to make it easy. They wanted to make it look real.

How are you enjoying Comic Con?

I’m loving it. I’m having so much fun here. It’s too bad there’s not an extra day that I can like sleep a little more.

Will you be here tomorrow?

No, leaving in the morning.