Brittany Daniel Talks Shooting 'Skyline', Her Reduced Role on 'The Game' and Why She's An Honorary Sister

Brittany Daniel is probably best known for her role as Kelly Pitts on The Game but you can currently catch her on the big screen outsmarting and battling aliens opposite Donald Faison in the new film Skyline (in theaters now.) VIBE caught up with Daniels to discuss what it’s like making a big splash in a low budget indie sci-fi film, her disappointment about having her role reduced on The Game when it returns to television on BET and why her Game costars thinks she has an inner black girl. —Ronke Idowu Reeves

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VIBE: You’ve done lots of teen movies and spoof films, how was making Skyline different for you?

I’ve never done an alien invasion movie before. Acting in something like this is like nothing else I've done before. I’ve never had to work off nothing. When you think you’re about to be killed by an alien ship and there’s nothing there, you’re looking out a window.  So it was definitely interesting to act off your imagination. My character Candice is a Hollywood LA  girl who goes from being the bratty socialite to the one who helps figure out how to get away from the aliens.

Because you spend a lot of the movie 'being terrified' it must have been physically exhausting to play that throughout the film.

I’ve never screamed, panted and cried so much in my life. You don’t realize how all that [makes heavy panting noises] can make you want to pass out. It was so exhausting and physically taxing just crying, being emotional, running and always screaming. But having said all of that, I still have to say we still had a really good time filming Skyline [laughs].

Is it true that your twin sister appeared as you in one scene and even she got tired playing you as well?

Yes. One day I had to fly to a baby shower and they needed me for a reshoot. So my twin sister Cynthia went in and they used her for all the wide shots for a particular scene. And I explained the scene to her and I told her to pretend that she was looking out the window in a living room at huge spaceships with monsters coming out of them. I told her she's also the girl that has it all together, and then she had to cry and scream. And after doing it my sister told me she felt like she was going to pass out. She was like, 'Your job is so crazy. You do this everyday? How did you do this for two months straight? It’s exhausting!' And in my mind it’s not crazy at all. I’m like yeah, that’s my job [laughs.]

So far Skyline has been described as an indie Independence Day.  What was it like shooting a low budget sci fi film?

We shot Skyline in two months and just wrapped the movie this past March. They had production people working 24 hours around the clock non stop, like 14 hours a day and in two shifts. It was a really fun experience but it was definitely like guerilla filmmaking. We shot a lot of the scenes in the director/producers apartment complex and we didn’t have dressing rooms. We would all hang out in a room together when we weren’t shooting a scene. So it was definitely really low budget filmmaking but where the production value came in is with the visual effects. The Strause Brothers (Colin and Greg) who directed Skyline, also did visual effects on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Avatar. We knew going into it would be a small budget movie, but the quality of the special effects are really amazing.