American Pie star Shannon Elizabeth has reflected on the film’s iconic bedroom strip scene 20 years after the movie’s original release, saying: “If this had come out after the #MeToo movement, there would definitely be a problem.”
The 1999 rom-com follows a group of high school boys who make a pact to lose their virginities before graduation, with Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs), attempting to sleep with Elizabeth’s character, foreign exchange student Nadia.
In the scene in question, the boys set up a secret webcam to film Nadia change her clothes in Jim’s bedroom. Nadia takes a break to masturbate before changing and the video is accidentally broadcast to the entire school.
Jim then returns to his bedroom but his hopes to lose his virginity are scuppered after he ejaculates prematurely.
Two decades on, Elizabeth has reflected on the scene that launched her Hollywood career.
“It was a closed set and it was just me in this room and the boom guy above me,” Elizabeth told Page Six. “I was like, ‘This is so weird.’ It was a square room they had built in the middle of a warehouse and we made everyone that didn’t need to be there leave set.
“That’s the main thing I remember, just me and the boom guy, and trying to make jokes with the directors and make light of it because if I wasn’t nervous maybe they wouldn’t be so nervous… I just tried to make it no big deal.”
In the film, despite Nadia not knowing about the camera, she is promptly sent home to Slovakia, while none of the boys receive punishment for filming her or broadcasting the video.
“Gosh, do I get sent home?” Elizabeth asked. “If this had come out after the #MeToo movement, there would definitely be a problem. I think that it would have gone down differently.”
After her role in American Pie, Elizabeth went on to star in the film’s sequels, as well as Scary Movie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Love Actually.
