While both she and the film are enjoying a resurgence, Jennifer's Body star Kyle Gallner recalls feeling heartbroken over how fame impacted Megan Fox. The 2009 dark horror comedy starred Fox as the titular high schooler who is possessed by a demon after a rock band attempted to offer her as a virgin sacrifice in exchange for fame, though she would in turn become permanently possessed and begin feeding on her classmates. It ultimately comes down to Needy, Jennifer's best friend, to try and stop her before it's too late.
Alongside Fox, the cast for Jennifer's Body included Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, J.K. Simmons, Amy Sedaris, Kyle Gallner, Cynthia Stevenson, Chris Pratt, Carrie Genzel, and Juan Riedinger. Penned by Juno Oscar winner Diablo Cody, the film initially debuted to mixed reviews from critics and only a modest box office return, grossing just over $31 million against its $16 million production budget, despite the star power name of Fox, fresh off the heels of her breakout work in the Transformers movies. While critics have since looked somewhat more favorably upon the film, one star is looking back on an unfortunate element of filming Jennifer's Body.
While appearing on the latest episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum alongside his Smile co-star Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner reflected on his experience making Jennifer's Body. When asked how he felt about working with Megan Fox on the cult classic, the actor recalled how his co-star was grappling with the height of her fame during production and how he was heartbroken how it was impacting her. See what Gallner shared below:
It was good, there was a part of it that my heart kind of broke for her every day, because it was smack in Megan Fox pandemonium. Where everybody was just so all over her that you could tell, she was guarded. And it sucked, because she was being kind of objectified as a person by everybody, by the world, that was hard. But she was very nice to me, I had a good time working with her. But, no, Megan was great, I really enjoyed working with her, and I’m really glad to see that movie’s getting a second life.
How Megan Fox Has Reshaped Her Public Image
As Gallner notes, at the time of its filming, Fox was in the heights of her popularity during Jennifer's Body, with paparazzi infamously attempting to get photos of the young star in the nude for the more intimate sequences of the film. Additionally, Cody had been pretty vocal about how studio executives handled the marketing for the film, as they took to highlighting Fox's sex appeal within the movie and thus marketed it to young men, rather than the young women it was more written towards. Some retrospective reviews of Jennifer's Body have since highlighted this issue as one of the main reasons it underperformed at the box office, with those the film was actually marketed to being underwhelmed by what was presented, while the actual intended audience largely didn't show.
Fox herself has been pretty open about her discomfort with her popularity around the time of Jennifer's Body, fearing being seen as a role model to some and running the risk of being typecast as a high-profile sex symbol, an image some retained for her in her reunion with Michael Bay for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboots. The past few years have seen Fox successfully reshape her public image, showing off her comedic range in the likes of New Girl and This is 40, as well as stronger female character roles including Rogue and Till Death, both of which earned her widespread critical acclaim. While audiences await her next action-focused role in The Expendables 4, they can revisit her underrated turn in Jennifer's Body streaming on Paramount+ now.