There were about $101 million worth of people who filled theaters last summer checking out “American Pie.” And while Jason Biggs’ pie scene was certainly the most memorable — or most haunting, take your pick — visual of the film, Shannon Elizabeth became the most-discussed one.
Before the hit film, Elizabeth was a model whose credits to date included the horror flick “Jack Frost” and a guest spot on “USA High.” But her lustful “Pie” turn as Czech exchange student Nadia put Elizabeth on the map and in teenage boys’ hearts. The scripts began to pile up, the Net images began downloading, and a star was born.
This summer she’ll start the drool meter running again in “Scary Movie,” a comedy spoof on teen horror films such as “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Elizabeth plays Buffy, a self-involved popular girl whose relationship with a jock (Lochlyn Munro) doesn’t stop her from sleeping around. But when a fellow student is murdered, the friends try to protect themselves from the disguised killer.
This time around, Elizabeth gets to strut her stuff on the runway during a teen beauty pageant, face down the masked menace and add a couple more makeout scenes (with Munro) to her résumé.
“[But] it’s so technical anyway,” Elizabeth saya. “It’s like, ‘Don’t block his light, move his face for the camera, and you can’t do this and this.’”
“Plus it was freezing cold, four of us in the back seat, really crowded.”
As an only child, Elizabeth says, she was performing, everything from dance to baton twirling. But after moving from Houston to the small town of Waco, Texas, Elizabeth sought to find her niche — and high school wasn’t it.
“It was really cliquey, and I didn’t fit into any cliques,” Elizabeth told Hollywood.com last year. “And I had moved into town in the middle of growing up, so everybody had already formed who they liked and who they were with. So I had a few friends here and there, but I didn’t really fit in.”
But her senior year presented a unique opportunity: starring in a music video for a local band. That led to a modeling stint in New York City upon graduation, and soon Elizabeth was taking in sights around the world.
Eventually Elizabeth turned up in Los Angeles to start an acting career, but used modeling as a springboard while she took acting classes and did a couple commercials. Acting class is also where she met Joe Reitman, and the two have been inseparable since. They were engaged in November, and Elizabeth is planning a wedding for summer 2001.
“You can never really predict when things are gonna happen or when things are gonna hit for you,” Elizabeth says of her past year. “I always knew that I would just keep pushing and trying and that I’d never quit trying.”
