Heather Haase, a recovering attorney turned actress, makes her feature film debut in American Nightmare. Playing Melanie, one of the groups of friends, she is forced to face her fears at the hand of Jane.

In your own words, how would you describe the story of American Nightmare?

Seven friends make the mistake of disclosing personal details on a radio show that should never have been disclosed to anyone, much less to a serial killer. Who knew one was listening!

Please tell us about your character, Melanie?

Melanie is sort of on the outskirts of the group of friends, or at least she views herself as being on the outskirts. She's not shy really but is very introspective and a little more cautious than the others. Her last few years have been about finding her path in life, about sort of experimenting with different things, figuring out where she fits in to the world. I mean, she dated Bruce for god's sake-- obviously, there's been a little bit of experimentation there. But I don't see Melanie as someone who has ever gotten into anything too wild. She's had her share of hardship though, which has added to her cautious nature.

What challenges did you face in playing Melanie, if any?

There were some situations where I had to really sort of dig a little more deeply into Mel's character traits to come up with why she would behave a certain way. For example, take when Melanie jumps into a car with a serial killer after meeting her once at a party. If you look at Melanie from her usual sensible, cautious perspective, she never would have done something like that. But that's sort of one-dimensional. I mean, behind all that introspectiveness is also a little bit of alienation, of loneliness... suddenly here's this cool stranger offering to befriend Melanie, and, against her better judgment ... she jumps. Unfortunately it turns out not to have been her best decision.

Did you do any special preparing for your role of Melanie?

I spent a lot of time thinking about how it must feel to be all alone in an enclosed space... just you and eternity. And maybe some spiders.

What did you bring to the role of Melanie?

Really bad arachnaphobia... seriously, I think I could really relate to Melanie's quest to find out what she wants to do with her life because that's been part of my life for the past few years in a big way too. I could also really relate to that split second when Mel makes that decision to get in that car. What a nightmare.

How would you define the relationship between Melanie and the group of friends?

I think Melanie sort of watches the group from the outside in. Technically, she's part of the group but she doesn't quite feel connected, although she likes all of them very much. She is a little envious of Cynthia's free spirit, a little annoyed by Jessie's and Wayne's constant goo-goo eyes; but generally she feels a lot of affection for all of them, especially Bruce, in spite of the fact that he is almost her complete opposite.

What would you consider to be the most frightening aspect of American Nightmare?

The idea that there are complete psychopaths out there who can destroy your life through no fault of your own.

What process did you go through to get the role?

I saw the American Nightmare website and the post and sent my information to Jon, then was called for an audition. Then the call-back was a few months later. When I saw the script for the audition scene for Melanie I loved it. Melanie has two really frightening scenes and one of them was in the audition. It involved going from very calm to out of her mind with terror in a very short period of time. I couldn't wait to get in there to audition. I don't really remember that much about the actual audition-- who was in the room or anything-- I was in such a state going in. Then I did the scene, and afterwards, it was really quiet. And then someone helped me up and led me out, and that's all I really remember. Then Jon called a few days later to offer me the part. It was very exciting.

How did the rehearsals go?

Awesome. Everyone will say they went awesome. There was one day when we were all a bit tired - I don't know how that happened. All of the 7 friends seemed to be on the same wavelength right from the start, but Jon was really happy with the coffee house scene that day.

You spent several long nights on location. How was that?

This probably sounds crazy but I think that was actually the best part of all. I am such a night person, I would much rather work all night and sleep all day than wake up early and work during normal hours. I thought it was like a series of all night parties. I'm sure Jon and the crew don't
see it quite the same way. That's not to say the whole thing wasn't very professional and that we didn't work very hard. I just think conversations get a lot more interesting after about 2 in the morning. And there was always somewhere to crash if you got too tired. For my first feature film,
it was really great being part of a project that was so well-planned and everyone got along so well.