Australian actress revisits her ballet days for the toughness to fight off masked invaders.


SAN DIEGO — Sharni Vinson trades pointe shoes for the point of a kitchen knife in her new, memorable and blood-soaked role.

The Australian actress, best known as a dancer in 2010's Step Up 3D, wields various household objects and appliances to killer effect in the horror movie You're Next (out Friday). She plays Erin, a family house guest harboring an important secret and a wicked penchant for violence when masked invaders crash a dinner party.

It's a twist on the age-old horror trope of a girl being the final survivor of a horror film. Except in this case, instead of running and screaming, the girl takes a meat cleaver to a dude's head over and over and over again.

"I just wanted the opportunity to be that girl," Vinson, 30, admits. "I knew — let's put it this way — I was this girl. I was just hoping these guys would see the same thing."

"These guys" are You're Next director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett, who are quick to banter with their leggy star during a recent stop at the Comic-Con pop-culture gathering. She's all smiles while sharing an interview with the filmmaking duo, but the grin belies the real-life toughness that she brings to Erin's fight to survive in a house under siege.

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"You can write a strong female lead, but finding an actress who can play one? Because so many actresses are trained to play down their physicality in some ways, it's really challenging," Barrett says.

Vinson is anything but fragile — the Sydney native spent 15 years studying ballet, and when filming Step Up 3D, she spent two weeks doing tireless dance work on two broken toes. "And I loved every second of it," she says proudly.

For Vinson, there's nobody tougher than a professional ballerina, and her dance background gave her a presence and posture that comes through in Erin's walk-softly-and-carry-a-nail-laden-stick confidence in You're Next.

"Just overall awareness of your body is what it gave me to be able to walk into a room and stand with your shoulders back and chest out like you're proud, but not fake-ly pushing your (breasts) up," Vinson says.

Her dance history was perfect for Wingard's movie, where the choreography was basically violence.

"We needed somebody who could be able to do all this various physically demanding stuff, and have a concept of how to be precise in those kinds of moments so that she doesn't accidently kill (actor) Joe Swanberg or something," the director says.

"We had to find someone who could make that stuff look real and was a strong person emotionally and physically," Barrett adds.

"As soon as it was like, oh, the girl from Step Up 3D is actually tough? OK, done."