Anna Camp on Playing a Mean Girl: “There’s a certain line you have to walk”

Anna Camp usually plays bitchy blonds.  But it is a little surprising that she got her start playing a drug dealer—even if it was just in a fourth grade DARE play.

“I remember coming home and telling my mom when I got cast, and then being like, ‘What do I wear?  What does a fourth-grader wear to play a drug-dealer?’” she jokingly recalled in an interview with The New York Post.

Camp stuck with the theme, and auditioned for roles on shows like Law and Order.  “I used to go and have to walk down Pier 62 all the time to audition for drug dealers,” she remembered.  “And I was like, ‘I’m never going to get this,’ and then I’d have flashbacks to my fourth-grade DARE play.”

The actress has made her mark appearing on TV shows like The Mindy Project and True Blood, but really became a household name with her star turn in last year’s Pitch Perfect.  Although she was playing a snob, Camp found a way to make the role her own.

“When you have the mean girl, you can’t just hate her,” she explained.  “You’ve got to love to hate her.  There’s a certain line you have to walk to play the mean girl.  You obviously can’t be in on the joke, but you have to commit to it.  I’m hoping that that’s what it is, and that [directors] don’t meet me and they go, ‘Wow, what a bitch.  She’ll be a great bitch!’”