“Jeepers,” “creepers,” what’s inside those peepers? Well, Idared to look further into the very down-to-earth, charismatic andtalented cast of “Jeepers Creepers 2.” Though not as well known asthe “Freddie Prinze Jr.’s” and “Sarah Michelle Gellars” of theentertainment industry, Travis Schiffner, Kasan Butcher, LenaCardwell and Al Santos proved in person they have the heart missingfrom the occasional flick. The following is a chat over juice andsome highly potent coffee products:

Noeh Nazareno: The first thing I thought was, “What doesit feel like to be part of a teen horror flick that doesn’tsuck?”

Lena Cardwell: It’s an honor!

Al Santos: I don’t know about them so much, but when Igot the casting (call) for it, I turned it down four separatetimes. Finally, I read the script, and it touches on a lot ofissues. Like, it’s a movie within a movie. It’s like, there’s amovie about these kids who are dealing with racism and sexualityand conflict, and (they’re) locked in a bus and then you have theCreeper on of it. So it’s almost like two movies in one, which waspart of the reason that drew a couple of us to it.

Kasan Butcher: It’s not your usual T & A, you know,cheesy flick.

Travis Schiffner: Cut ’em up, slash ’em up, no rhyme,plot or reason to what the hell’s going on.

KB: Yeah, there’s actually something, there’s a plot.

NN: Lena and Kasan, you know how there’s that stereotypeabout the token African American…

KB: Black man dying?

NN: It’s pretty obvious that there was some decentfeeling and thought put into your characters and that it wasn’ttoken. What do you think about it?

LC: Well, I’m grateful for it, but you know, the greatthing about was that Victor (Salva) allowed us to do our own bios,collaborate with him whereas our characters were concerned and heworked individually with us. He cultivated our creativity whereasour characters were concerned. So I don’t think it really allowedfor us to be token characters concerned because he worked with usso much personally. I think we were really blessed in that area,that he’s so open minded and things like that.

KB: Victor was telling me that he had a friend for years,this black guy he knew. And that helped him understand that blackpeople aren’t as the media portrays them. If you ask the averageperson, say, living in the Midwest or something, about what theiropinion is of someone black, they’ll automatically think Nino Brownor some drug dealer. I don’t spend all my time playing basketball,you know, I play chess, I do a whole lot of different things. Andthat’s the one thing I don’t understand about Hollywood is, like,it’s impossible to live in Hollywood or New York or wherever andnot know someone was black. But then all the scripts that come out,their best friends are black, or they don’t have any minoritycharacters at all, or the characters they have are idiots. A lot oftimes, I’ve actually turned down a couple of auditions and rolesbecause the characters were that bad. I could be starving, eatingmy toenails and shit. I just don’t want to be…

AS: Oh, he eats his toenails anyway. He just likes theway they taste.

TS: When we were filming on the bus, I had my shoes offonce and he started trying to eat mine. I was like, “Yo!”

LC: Back off!

NN: It’s gonna be on the DVD, though, right?

TS: Yeah!

(everyone laughing)

NN: That’s the difference between the NC-17 andthe…

KB: It’s like “Jeepers Creepers 2: The FetishVersion”

NN: You guys have any crazy stories (fromproduction)?

LC: I can tell you guys the camera fell one time…

AS, TS and KB: Oh, yeah (agreeing)

LC: Fell from like, what was it, 25, 50 feet?

TS: No, it was like 110 or something. Pretty high.

LC: A hundred and ten feet, camera fell. Heads rolled onthat.

AS: They were setting up for this condor shot where thecamera swings down on this line. And they were doing the first testrun of it and supposedly the guys who rigged it up, they were like,”Alright, let’s run it out.” Nobody knew they were even doing this,this was going on behind everybody. The camera came down for thefirst test and they had slammed down, it was like, $300,000cameras. So you know a couple of people lost their jobs…

TS: That thing broke into, like, a thousand pieces.

AS: But um, yeah, needless to say, some people lost theirjob.

TS: She got the wedgie.

NN: You wanna set the record straight on these boys?

LC: No, nobody gave me a wedgie. I was pretty bad myself.I got, well, Al and I got Nikki Aycox in trouble. We kept throwingfake glass and finally Victor got fed up and he yelled at Nikki,but Nikki wasn’t the one doing it, we were throwing it at Nikki.And I took some water bug, I think Josh (Hammond) helped me. Wepicked up this huge water bug we found out in the ranch and we putit in this cup of water and we were trying to drown it, but itwouldn’t die. So, we just set it into Nikki Aycox’s room and thenyou hear this screaming, it’s like, “What the fff…!” And shecomes running red-faced out of her trailer, “Who, what kind of…!”And we’re just dying, we’re like, “OK, OK, don’t say I did it,don’t say I did it!”

AS: Yeah, we did a lot of fun stuff. I mean, when you’reput together for that long, you just start getting delirious andstupid things happen.

NN: Have you guys ever gone karaokeing, even onproduction? What are your guys’ feelings on it?

TS: Go ahead, Al.

LC: We wanted to do karaoke, but we haven’t gone yet.

AS: I’m a professional singer, part time. I have an albumcoming out in a couple of months, I started my own boy band, “Boys’R Us.”

LC: (laughs)

AS: And actually, part of the cast of “Jeepers” is in itwith me, so none of these guys, but, they couldn’t sing or dance.Karaoke is fun, man, it’s cool. I think you need to have a coupleof alcoholic beverages to thoroughly enjoy karaoke, becausesometimes I’ve been in karaoke bars and it’s like driving intraffic, you just wanna kill people sometimes. So, (laughs) unlessyou have a couple of drinks, it can get a little…

KB: I’ve done karaoke, like, at birthday parties, butnever go to a karaoke bar.

NN: Any songs in particular you guys have done?

KB: I’ve done R. Kelly’s “Bump and Grind,” that’s myshit.

LC: Oh my lord!

TS and AS: (laughs)

TS: I used to sing karaoke the night before an auditionto get over my nerves. I used to do that all the time, ‘cuz it wasfree and like, oh, I go up to the karaoke bar, get up in front ofeverybody, be nervous, dude, singing, oh my god. I haven’t sangsince I was young, dude. But I’d get up there and get over mynerves, for the audition I’d be like, whatever. You know, wouldn’tbe a big deal.

NN: Last night, I stopped by to a karaoke bar. I alwaysdo Marvin Gaye or Barry White or Eminem.

TS: Wow, really? Wow.

LC: Barry White? Barry White?!

NN: I can do “Rapper’s Delight.”

TS: Wow, pretty awesome dude!

LC: “Rapper’s Delight?” What’s that?

AS: Can you get it going for us? Wanna sing a littlesample?

NN: I said a hip hop, the hippie to the hippie the hiphop a hop, you don’t stop a rockin’ to the…

NN and AS: bang bang boogie, said up jump the boogie, tothe rhythm of the boogie the beat!

LC: Oh, that song! OK!

NN: Now, particularly for you (Lena), I’d read that youwere getting into a singing career. What’s your feelings about,like, you’ve got a music career and an acting career, and like, arethose both equally, you can equally express yourself in eithermedium, one’s more passionate to you?

LC: You know what, I think singing is a little bit morepassionate to me because I write my own stuff. So, I get to sayexactly what I want whereas someone else is giving me lines. And Ihave input here and there, but I’m basically what someone elsetells me to do. But I can really let my spirit free when I’msinging because it’s, all of it’s mine, it’s coming straight fromme. Fiction or non-fiction.

NN: Lena’s my girl. In three or five years, once I’m inthe movies, I’ll ask her for a nice…

AS: Exactly.

TS: There ya go, alright.

KB: She’ll turn you down.

TS: She turned us all down.

NN: I asked her, she had her chance.

LC: (laughs)