[from Empire, 5/98]

The Central Perk empress on scary movies, "creepy" Friends fans and that backlash...

"I didn't know it was going to be a hit but I can tell you when I read the script, I immediately wanted to do it," enthuses Courteney Cox on the sleeper status of the original Scream. "As we were filming it, I was able to see a lot of footage. And I thought., 'this is just great.' It's been so long since there's been a really good, scary movie." Of all the coffee and cuddles brigade to attempt big screen stardom, Cox's choice to enter via horrordom looks the wisest. Leaving her small screen persona for dust, her turn in Wes Craven's original comedy shocker-ruthless TV tabloidster Gale Weathers-was the antithesis of her pinickity unlucky-in-love Friends persona. So would the real Courteney Cox please stand up? "I am pretty tough, so maybe in the sense, I am like Gale," she reports. "But I think I am a lot nicer than she is. I'm not as manipulative. I'm tough when I have the job, not before." Signing on for Scream 2-her character has penned a trashy best seller based around the events of the first film-Cox is once again put through the horror thrill mill. "Don't hold back," is her formula for the perfect movie shrike. "Just scream as loud as you can and don't worry about how embarrassed you might feel afterwards at the fact that you've screamed at nothing." But this time her hard-bitten hack is allowed to grow a heart-a character arc that allows Cox the opportunity to ladle on topflight thespian twaddle. "That was tough just because I wasn't ready for Gale to be that vulnerable," she emotes. "Courteney wasn't ready. I was ready to keep going with the other stuff. And to make that shift-that was a battle for me, internally." The "other stuff" presumably includes being chased around the set by a knife-wielding maniac with a "scary" mask inspired by Munch's famous painting, The Scream. Did become so immersed in frightdom every day lead to after-work jitters? "Maybe in first one I was a little scared, because the house we were filming in was really eerie," she says, professionally. "It was on top of a hill and it looked out over a valley, and it was all night shoots. So it was a little freaky. But even when I see a movie , I don't leave scared at all, I just leave kind tired like, 'Ooh that took me trough a roller coaster of emotions." Yet, lest we forget, Scream 2 is not only about scaring the bejesus out of audiences. With more movie references than Halliwell's Craven's fright flick is a veritable prom night of slasher movie clichés, teen movie parodies and pop culture riffing. Perhaps the pinnacle is this knowing weaving comes when Cox's character is informed there is a nude photograph of herself on the Internet-she retorts it is her head pasted onto the body of Friends stablemate Jennifer Aniston. "We all wrote that scene," she laughs. "Wes was writing stuff and Jamie Kennedy was coming up with stuff. And I was gonna say, 'Pamela Lee' but I threw in, 'Jennifer Aniston'. It just worked. I told her afterwards and she's fine about it-because It's a compliment and she's good sport." Born in Birmingham, Alabama, the former model began her thesping career aged 19 on TV's As the World Turns ("I was on the show for two days. I was so nervous I was sweating. No one out powder on me") before graduating to playing Michael J. Fox's squeeze Lauren in Family Ties ("That's where I learned a lot about comedic acting"). Movie roles followed via bit-parting in Master of the Universe, Cocoon: the Return and playing opposite Jim Carrey in the first Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Yet, pre Friends, Cox was primarily known Stateside for two things; being the first woman on America TV to utter the word "tampon" in a commercial and being pulled out of the crowd during Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark video. "I'm only in the video for about 24 seconds," she reminisces about the Brian De Palma helmed Promo. "But I got a lot of recognition out of those seconds. We did it an actual Springsteen concert. We did some close-ups the day before. Since then I've actually got to know him a bit through a mutual friend." But the notoriety she gained by jivin' with "The Boss" was just prelude. Originally considered for the role of ditzy waitress Rachel ("I would have played her much more neurotic. I wouldn't have been as good as Jennifer is"), Cox eventually snagged the role of Monica Geller, becoming an integral part of the matey, criminally gorgeous sextet that sent her into the stratosphere "I'm one of the older Friends," she says about her position within the Friends dynamic. "Lisa (Kudrow) and I are the oldest Friends so I think there are certain things people come to me for." Although the show, now approaching its fifth season, still chalks up big time ratings, endless gossip and a faithful following ("I've had some creepy fans," she says hesitantly, "but they're the kind of things you're not even supposed to talk about because that just gets them exited") many critics have argued the sitcom has begun to go off the boil. "I think it's pretty much the same," she says evenly. "If anything, we're more particular. We want it to get better and better and better to get past the backlash that we had. I don't know I think it was overexposure but everybody was talking about it and I'm like the person with blinkers on. I missed the whole thing! No one told me we weren't well." With the possibility of further Scream instalments on the horizon-"Yes!" she says when quizzed about appearing in a threequel-and a role opposite Kenneth Branagh and Heather Graham in Danny Boyle's next movie Alien Love Triangle, the outlook is definitely in the zone marked "hunky dory". "I'd rather be busy than board," she concludes. "I'm figuring myself out. I think that my career is getting much better. I think I will be allowed a lot of opportunities than I haven't been allowed in the past. I think I'm ready for them. I probably wasn't before..."