THE INSIDER: BRITTANY SNOW

From American Dreams to politics, in one easy video.

You may not admit to watching American Dreams on Sunday nights, but even if you missed her star turn as a typical suburban teenager growing up in the '60s, it's been hard to ignore Brittany Snow.

She was Zac Efron's hysterically high-strung girlfriend in Hairspray, Jesse Metcalfe's level-headed (and lingerie loving) ex in John Tucker Must Die, and most recently, Matthew Broderick's drug-tortured niece in Finding Amanda.

But now the 22-year-old has an even harder role: a conduit for Thomas Jefferson in Declaration: Vote, the three-minute PSA directed by Paula Walker, who also manned the cameras for Obama's Yes We Can video.

We sat down with the actress to talk about the project.

So you get a phone call from your agent being like, "Brittany, want to get people to vote?"It was almost exactly like that! I wanted to work with [the creative director] Brian Horiuchi, so much, and I really strongly believe in it, especially for this election.

The video features characters - mostly you - reciting lines from the Declaration of Independence. Did you already know it from school? Hell no! I was going over my lines and my best friend was like, "You didn't have to memorize the Declaration of Independence?! We all had to! I can't believe you passed high school!" And the lines I had to say were all really hard! I bet everyone was behind the camera going, "Let's stick Brittany with the lines that make no sense to anyone! We'll just have Brittany say that."  But it was cool, saying The Declaration of Independence in a "normal"� way. I was thinking about Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and how naturally they did that. It sounds so beautiful if you can pull it off. Not that we did, but it's what we're going for.

And you're definitely registered to vote, right? I have an absentee ballot because I'm from Florida. People get really excited about that, because we're a swing state. I get a lot of flack and a lot of excitement about it - and now, I feel really proud where I get to have a job where I'm looked at as someone who can get the message out there.

Were you glad you didn't have to endorse a specific candidate for this video? Oh my gosh, yeah. Before I signed on, I asked Brian, "I need to know if this is sliding one way or another."  My parents and my whole family is pretty Republican, but I grew up in California, and your parents are your parents, not you. But I wanted to respect everybody's opinion... everybody has a voice, and every vote counts. This part of our country has kind of gotten lost over the years, and especially for younger people, we were trying to get it across.

You're not dressing up as a politician for Halloween, are you? No, but I think there's something about McCain that's really funny! Every girl is going to go as Sarah Palin, but I think it would be hysterical to be McCain because you could just wear gray hair and be older, and more at peace. So that would be kind of funny.
--FARAN KRENTCIL





This story was published on October 28, 2008.