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Vivica A. Fox says she was missing sci-fi when 'Sharknado 2' came along

"It just seemed like a win-win situation for me," the "Independence Day" and "Kill Bill" actress says of landing a role in the followup to the pop-culture phenomenon "Sharknado."

By Karen Butler
Actress Vivica A. Fox attends the premiere of the sci-fi motion picture thriller "Elysium", at the Regency Village Theatre in the Westwood section of Los Angeles on August 7, 2013. Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds. UPI/Jim Ruymen
Actress Vivica A. Fox attends the premiere of the sci-fi motion picture thriller "Elysium", at the Regency Village Theatre in the Westwood section of Los Angeles on August 7, 2013. Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds. UPI/Jim Ruymen | License Photo

NEW YORK, July 25 (UPI) -- Actress Vivica A. Fox says she felt a big responsibility to the Sharknado fan base when she signed up to co-star in its sequel.

The original 2013 TV movie was about how Ian Ziering's bar owner Fin and his estranged wife April -- played by Tara Reid -- try to survive a freak storm that deposits man-eating sharks on Los Angeles.

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Sharknado 2: The Second One follows Fin and April as they find themselves up against a similar disaster in New York City. This time around, Fox joins the cast as Skye, the high-school sweetheart with whom Fin reconnects, as sharks rain down on the Big Apple.

"When I heard about the success of them getting 5,000 tweets a minute the first time, I was like, 'Wow, OK, people are really loving this and they are going to be looking forward to the second one.' So, we wanted to deliver and make it bigger and better,'" Fox told UPI in a teleconference with reporters Tuesday.

So, what was the biggest challenge of making the film?

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"The only element that was kind of crazy was just that it was really cold and sometimes you would be doing the scene and, boy, just getting out the dialogue could be a little tough. But we would just warm up and go back at it again," she said of shooting the film in New York last winter.

Asked what initially drew her to the project, the actress best known for her roles in the iconic movies Kill Bill and Independence Day replied: "I needed a little bit of sci-fi in my life. And action."

"And, wham!, there came Sharknado 2. I was really pleasantly surprised. When I got the offer to play Skye, I hadn't worked with Ian since back in the day with Beverly Hills, 90210, and Tara -- we had known each other many, many years -- so the opportunity to work with both of them and hearing the major success of the first Sharknado, it just seemed like a win-win situation for me."

Fox was a guest star on a 1991 episode of 90210.

Sharknado 2: The Second One is to premiere on Syfy July 30.

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