Actress was initially rattled by the whole snake concept, but now embraces it

LOS ANGELES -- Unlike Samuel Jackson, actress Sunny Mabrey needed more than just a film title to convince herself to sign on for "Snakes on a Plane."

"When I first read it, I was like, 'Okay ... Samuel Jackson is doing this, and it's about snakes on an airplane,'" she says at a junket to promote the indie film "One Last Thing ..." in which she plays a supermodel. "'And it's pretty entertaining.' I couldn't stop reading it, and finally I was like, 'Okay, what a nice way to spend the summer.'"

The film stars Jackson as an FBI agent who escorts a key witness on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles. A crime lord, knowing he'll be incriminated by the testimony, schemes to have hundreds of deadly snakes set loose on the plane to eliminate the witness. Mabrey plays Tiffany, one of the unlucky flight attendants on the plane.

"There's four of us. There's not four at the end but there's four of us in the beginning," Mabrey hints. "The guys take care of the snakes and chop their heads off, but the girls -- there's one guy flight attendant -- have the task of making sure everybody's in their seat, sort of taking care of everybody. We're ushering them here and there. So throughout the whole thing, we have to not only be terrified but take care of everybody else."

The actress says shooting the film was intense, partly because of the constant action of the simulated plane itself.

"This is a huge lifesize replica inside a studio and it was a luxury plane with an upstairs first class with a bar," she explains. "The airplane was on a [gimbal]. It was crazy because that thing would shake and there would be smoke and part of the plane got jerked up with holes."

And of course, there were the snakes.

"There was a 20-foot Burmese python and that's really the only real snake that I did a scene with," she explains. "There was a snake room with a snake wrangler and we went in there all the time. I have a miniature pinscher and I kept her in my trailer. I was like, 'Don't come out' because if she got near that Burmese python, you wouldn't even see a dent. It was that big."

Luckily, Mabrey was one of the few actors who didn't have to touch her reptilian co-stars.

"I actually never have a snake on me, but pretty much everybody else did," she confesses. "I mean, I never had that exact experience. I had snakes crash down next to me on the floor. I screamed at fake snakes. Snakes got wrapped around my friend's throat, but I never had an experience with a snake myself."

Production on the movie officially wrapped in September, but New Line recently filmed an extra five days to add more attitude and gore. When Mabrey first learned she wasn't called back for the reshoots, she was worried that her part was cut from the film, until she started seeing herself in publicity stills. Now she's thankful to be left out of the follow-up shots since most of them were done to bring the film's PG-13 rating up to an R.

"So it just came together. I don't know what people expect from it, but whatever it is, I think it'll deliver that," she says. "I mean, it's cut and dry. It's right there for you. It's funny but terrifying. I'm looking forward to it."

"Snakes on a Plane" slithers into theaters nationwide on Friday, Aug. 18.