Tori Spelling was down for anything on the set of her new movie, Abducted in the Everglades — even pulling a Lana Del Rey and ending up with an airboat captain.
“I was thinking the same thing!” Spelling, 51, exclaimed to Us Weekly during an exclusive interview about the Lifetime film when asked about channeling the “Born to Die” singer’s marriage to Jeremy Dufrene. “This makes all of this even sexier because Lana Del Rey went through it. I know the outcome of her story. I had my eye out now that I’m single again. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll fall in love with some hot airboat guy.’ Who knows!”
Spelling filmed Abducted in the Everglades, which follows single mom Beverly searching for her daughter after she goes missing on spring break, in Florida. The movie is complete with airboats, alligators and yes, a love interest for Spelling’s character.
“Nick Ballard is so talented and super funny. I mean, it’s a Lifetime movie, so it was a lot of drama, but he and I totally connected on a comedy level,” she told Us. “The off camera stuff was a whole movie in itself. It was in Dumb and Dumber in the Everglades — I’m gonna coin that one. Maybe that’ll be the sequel or the spoof. He was so amazing to work with. We had a great time.”
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Overall, Spelling “had the best time in Florida” — and with the gators.
“It was perfect timing, physical-wise, because I had just been doing Dancing With the Stars,” Spelling said. “I love tackling things that I don’t think I can do, or things people would never think I could do. I jumped in when I got there. [They told me] I have a stunt double, and she can do as much or as little as you want. And I was like, ‘No, no! I’m in the swamp. I’ll even wrestle an alligator. Let me do it all.’”
While doing “99 percent of all of the stunts,” Spelling did have one close call.
“Where we filmed, it’s the alligators’ habitat. We were on their territory, so it’s not like we could film all those scenes and they could say, ‘We’re gonna remove the alligator for the day.’ They can’t be touched or moved. We’re in their house, their backyard,” Spelling recalled. “And a lot of this wasn’t on camera, but there would be an alligator wrangler and when I was in the water and in the swamp, they would be on lookout in case the alligators got too close. There was one scene where I’m scrambling to get onto the airboat and there was an alligator, like, 20 or 30 feet away, which I thought was fine.”
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Spelling initially thought the gators were “so cute,” but she didn’t realize how quickly they could pounce.
“They have one eye looking out of the water. He heard me splashing and calling for help [in the scene] and zoomed in. He was there within seconds,” she continued. “And they were like, ‘Cut, cut, get Tori out of the water!’ And I was like, ‘Don’t worry, no one has to get me out of the water.’ I just, like, flew out of that water onto that boat. … They could bite your hand off. Their teeth are so sharp!”
Outside of the stunts, Spelling told Us she didn’t even feel like she was acting since she knows what it’s like to be a mother who would do anything for her kids. (The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum shares sons Liam, 17, Finn, 12, and Beau, 7, and daughters Stella, 16, and Hattie, 13, with estranged husband Dean McDermott.)
“I have five kids, but raising two strong daughters and in particular, my daughter Stella, she’s out there and going to parties. I’m constantly on Life360 tracking her. And thank goodness she’s a good girl, but it just spoke to me,” she said of the script. “A mom not wanting to, like, let their child out into the world, and then all of a sudden she goes on spring break, she can’t find her, she can’t get a hold of her, she can’t track her — any mom or father would do anything to save their child. I didn’t have to play a character in this movie. It hit home.”
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When Spelling isn’t on set with the gators or stalking Stella online — “it’s what I do on a Saturday night,” she admits — she is recording her headline-making podcast, “misSPELLING.”
“I’m one of those people who just has so many stories,” she said, telling Us that she isn’t worried about ever running out of material for the podcast. “When people say, ‘Oh, is it because you’re an actor in Hollywood?’ I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m just that person that things happen 24/7.’ I’m definitely not like a working mom who can keep to a schedule, because at any given time throughout the day, the most random, crazy things happen.”
Abducted in the Everglades airs on Lifetime Sunday, March 2, at 8 p.m. ET.
