"Blade" fans know from the first film that Blade’s father figure, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), got into the vampire-hunting business because his entire family was wiped out by vamps. Or were they? According to the third installment, "Blade: Trinity," one member lived - and it ain’t Whistler’s mother. Instead, Whistler’s daughter, Abigail, was born out of wedlock after the massacre and grew up to lead a sleeper cell of "Nightstalkers" - vampire slayers who come to the aid of Blade (Wesley Snipes). Being daddy’s girl, Jessica Biel of course has all the best toys - from secret blades in her boots to an ultraviolet laser-beam arc that can cut a vamp in half to silver-tipped arrows that pack a nasty UV punch. We recently caught up with Biel and came away with this bit of advice: Don’t startle her in the dark.

MTV: So did you feel a little like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" training for this film?

Jessica Biel: Yes I did, I did definitely felt a little Buffy-esque. Um, I don’t know what kind of training she went through, but my training was pretty intense and pretty hardcore. It was great, but it was a long process.

MTV: How much training was involved, and what part was the hardest?

Biel: I think the hardest part was the archery, because I have a bit of a dance background, so martial arts came a little bit easier to me and I’ve taken Tae Bo classes before, so I kind of have an idea how to punch. Archery was something I had never tried, never had a chance to participate in, so that was the most challenging activity that I learned.

MTV: Along with the different types of fighting, you had a lot of different types of weapons.

Biel: My bow was pretty cool. I had never seen one in a shape like that. It’s a compound bow, so it has a different shape and it’s really high-tech and cool, so that was cool, and I think I liked it a lot because I knew it, I understood it, I knew how to work it. My other weapons, one was half [computer generated], so I had the handle of the weapon but the rest of my UV arc wasn’t there, so that wasn’t anything exciting. But I had a really cool pistol, it was a seven-shooter, kind of like country - you know, a little bit Old West style, and it would shoot seven bullets instead of six, so that was really cool.

MTV: Your character seems so fearless, but is there anything that you yourself are actually scared of?

Biel: I’m scared of weird things. Bugs, spiders don’t bother me. Insects? Not a big deal. But I’m scared of being home by myself at night. I know, that’s weird. I think I have a bit of a fear of the dark, which is strange. I really think I’ve seen way too many horror films. I loved them as a kid, but now I just think someone is after me all the time, which is so ridiculous.

MTV: But now you have so much training in fighting, couldn’t you fend them off?

Biel: I’m ready, bring it. I can totally fend them off, or at least I can do my routine on them and confuse them for a moment and then I can run, so that’s the idea, jump out the window and run. ... I have a nice base [of skills] at least, an idea of lots of different types of martial arts and some boxing and kickboxing, so if I needed to defend myself, I think I would feel kind of remotely confident about it, and if I had to do another movie that involved any sort of martial arts I think I would be, you know, a step ahead than maybe somebody else ’cause I’ve had this experience of all of this training, so it’s really valuable and I’m so glad that I got it.