When Ann Dusenberry was cast to play one of the teenagers in the 1978 blockbuster sequel to the groundbreaking Steven Spielberg film Jaws, it was actually against her will, she claims, though she is now grateful for being a part of it.
Dusenberry’s performance as Tina Wilcox in Jaws 2 is terrifyingly memorable. Most fans would recognize her as the girl whose face showed absolute terror when her character — alone in a boat that had just been attacked by a shark that also devoured her boyfriend (rough day!) — is greeted by Brody (famously played by Roy Schneider). She screams “Sh-sh-sh-shaaark!” as the horrific occurrence that she witnessed many moments earlier replays in her mind. It also served to tell Brody that she’s clearly in shock and that there is indeed a shark that’s terrorizing the group of kids that includes his two sons.
Dusenberry appeared on a YouTube channel called The Daily Jaws and gave a highly informative half hour interview.
Early in the interview, the host asked, “How did you get the part of Tina Wilcox?”
Dusenberry replied, “I was under contract to Universal Studios and so I was on call to go and do whatever they needed me on. I didn’t always have to audtion so in this case I didn’t have to audition. They just said you’re going to do Jaws 2.”
She then claims that she told the studio, “‘I want to stay in L.A. and work and that’s not my thing, I didn’t see the first one’ and they said, ‘You have no choice. You’re on it.’ And I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Looking back on the experience, she recognizes that getting cast in a film without even needing to audition was “a privilege,” but that she was so against it at the time that she kept asking the studio, “Do I really have to go and do that? Do I really have to leave L.A. that long and be on location?” She explains that she “was trying to negotiate not doing it.”
Later in the interview, she says that before filming, she decided to finally see the first film which, quite ironically, she had avoided watching because she was terrified of it.
In regards to her contract, it’s similar to how old Hollywood used to operate decades earlier. Actors were signed to studio contracts and worked on a variety of films. Now, actors are generally signed to do a single movie at a time and are usually not contracted to studios.
Despite her initial hesitation, Dusenberry speaks highly of her time on the film, and pointed out that she was actually the oldest amongst those portraying the teenagers. In fact, she says she was “23 or 24” while filming.
“We became quite a family,” Dusenberry says of the cast, adding that many of them still see each other. She fondly looks back on her experience, speaks of it as “being a lot of fun,” and that “We spent a lot of time in the Gulf of Mexico on one boat or another and learning to sail,” though she says that they spent many days they just hanging out all day on the water.
The most humorous moment of the interview, though unintended, was when Dusenberry was asked what she thought of Jaws IV. She replied, “Yeah, sorry, I did not see that.”
