Sara Paxton On Her First Comic-Con and Going Blind For Shark Night 3D

The cast of Shark Night 3D helped kick off this year's Comic-Con convention with an appropriately campy cocktail party last night in the parking lot of PETCO stadium. There, nestled somewhere between a mechanical shark and a "Bite Booth" (where fans could pose for photo-shopped shark attack pictures), the horror film's star Sara Paxton, met with Movieline to chat about her maiden Comic-Con voyage and being temporarily blinded on the set of Shark Night 3D.

Is this your first Comic-Con?

Yes, I'm so excited!

What are you looking forward to seeing?

I can't wait to be surprised because I don't really know what to expect from the fans and the people in costumes.

There aren't many people in costumes tonight but there is a mechanical shark. Did you get a chance to ride it?

I did but they didn't really turn it on all the way. I think they were scared I'd hurt myself.

When I spoke to you last month about Shark Night 3D, you described being terrified of the mechanical sharks. Now that more time has passed since production, do you remember them more fondly?

Let me tell you a little something about these sharks again. They're mechanical, okay? They're life-size and they can swim 40 miles per hour at your face and they open their jaws, which have real shark teeth in them, and can come pretty close to ripping out your jugular sometimes. It was really, really scary. People on set were actually getting attacked by these mechanical sharks for real.

How do you mean?

They're a little unpredictable. Just because there's a guy out of the water "controlling" the shark doesn't mean that it's not going to veer to the left a little more than he wanted and bite the camera guy who starts bleeding everywhere. You know?

I'll take your word for it.

It's just another day at the office for us though. These sharks are like two tons so any bump or graze will cut people very quickly.

Did they injure you at all?

Luckily, I was fine. Although I did go blind that one day.

You say that so nonchalantly. What happened?

We had to keep our eyes open in the water for long periods of time and I went blind one day. I couldn't see anything. There was chlorine in the tank and we'd have to be underwater for like 25 minutes at a time so after that much time in the tank, I went blind temporarily. But I slept it off.

You weren't scared that it would be permanent?

I mean, we had a set medic who was pretty competent. They just said that I would sleep and it would go away. Basically, my cornea was bleached or something. Apparently, your eye regenerates really fast.

That would have been a wild lawsuit otherwise.

It would have been. But I'm fine now.

Did you spend time with real sharks as part of your preparation for the role?

We did but when we got [to Louisiana], I didn't really understand the whole "sharks in a lake" thing and all the locals were like [switches to Southern accent], "Yeah, y'all. It happens all the time. Bull sharks in the lake." And I was really scared because there are gators, sharks and poisonous snakes.

A troublesome trio of lake creatures.

And there was an armadillo that wandered around our set at night. [Leans over to co-star Dustin Milligan] Didn't he have scabies or something?

Dustin: Now she tells me! First she tells me to open-mouth kiss an armadillo and then she tells me that it has scabies.