Alyson Hannigan

Writers woo Hannigan for ’Date Movie’

It might be the most flattering thing an actress could hear from screenwriters - that they wrote a role with her in mind. It’s what Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer told Alyson Hannigan when they wooed her to star in Date Movie.

"I’ve heard that before," says Hannigan. "It’s always very flattering to hear, but I’m not sure if I quite buy it. It’s just kind of like, ’Yeah, yeah. Are you telling everybody that?’ But in this instance, I actually think I do believe them." Maybe director Friedberg and writing partner Seltzer thought the girl who’d done it all at band camp, according to American Pie, could handle dancing in a fat suit so energetically that her breasts would swing around to her back.

"I guess they figured they could just put me through the wringer and I wouldn’t mind," says Hannigan by phone from Los Angeles. "They were right. I don’t know if I should be flattered or not. But, OK."

Date Movie hopes to do for romantic comedies what Scary Movie did for horror films. (Friedberg and Seltzer were among the six writers of Scary Movie, and they co-wrote Spy Hard.)

Hannigan is perhaps best known as Willow Rosenberg on the cult series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and as Michelle the randy band-camp girl from American Pie (1999) and its two sequels, as well as for her current TV series How I Met Your Mother.

In Date Movie, Hannigan plays Julia Jones (a nod to Julia Roberts and Bridget Jones), an overweight young woman desperate to meet her soul mate. After getting a Pimp My Ride-type makeover, she finds her prince, Grant Fonckyerdoder (think Hugh Grant plus Ben Stiller’s Meet the Parents character), played by newcomer Adam Campbell.

The movie proceeds to spoof such hits as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Hitch, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Wedding Crashers, Runaway Bride and The Wedding Planner.

"We had such a great time doing this movie," says Hannigan. "Everybody was game for just going for it."

Hannigan, 31, was a fan of Scary Movie and grew up adoring Airplane! and "stuff like that."

"But I never really thought, ’Oh, I really want to do a spoof comedy’ until this presented itself," she says. "The idea of spoofing romantic comedies was just too good to pass up."

While Scary Movie became a trilogy, Hannigan hesitates to bet on a Date Movie three-peat.

"Let’s see the opening-weekend box-office numbers, and we’ll talk then," she says. •