cult film freak: MARY-LOUISE WELLER REFLECTS ANIMAL HOUSE: AN INTERVIEW

Mary-Louise Weller in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE
ANIMAL HOUSE, directed by John Landis and produced by Ivan Reitman, stars John Belushi and other great actors and actresses including the gorgeous and talented MARY-LOUISE WELLER as blond bombshell Mandy Pepperidge...

When did you first know you wanted to be an actress?

Mary-Louise Weller

I flew out of the womb in full camera makeup and screaming "HAIR... MAKEUP"!!! First role was (not joking here for a change) while still in diapers I played an X-mas present in a box under the Xmas tree… My Dad grew up with and hung out with Danny Kaye... who was always a family friend... which really got my little engine going... My Aunt was head of Dell publications, which at that time published all the tabs… so there were always fabulous drunken singing and dancing stars in her house...

How were you cast for “Mandy” in Animal House?

They had hired another actress before my meeting with the boys in the black tower at Universal. Suffice it to say something rather graphic happened in my audition that convinced them to hire me and pay off the first actress... who has gone onto huge huge movies...

With James Daughton
A memorable scene where you and “Greg” (James Daughton) are in the car on the hill and you’re, um…

OH GAWD!!!!! That scene will forever be stuck in my mind... it was freezing out... it took forever to shoot... shot night for night... the motion with my hand was actually just us shaking hands...

But the entire crew was leering over the windshield discussing how each one of them liked that particular motion... you know... faster... faster... NO NO... not faster... SLOWER SLOWER... Really hard (sorry pun) to do while hands are frozen into claw shapes... face is blue... lips stuck to teeth... and laughing so hard.

On the DVD commentary it’s said the Omegas and the Deltas were separated during the filming… Is this for real?

Sorry...but that just isn't true... the movie cost barely a million dollars... they were way to cheap to put us in different hotels... there was only one rental car for all of us and it was rented and paid for by Martha Smith...

We all hung out in D-Day's hotel room... where he had somehow secured a large piano... a fridge…You couldn't have separated us with crow bars...

Did you have any idea how big this film would be?

I'm pretty sure all of us knew that the movie would be a huge hit... The script was simply brilliant...

I remember showing it to Brandon Stoddard... who was head of ABC at that time... he also knew it would be an enormous hit... but he warned me that it would be the movie I would always be known for...