She Follows Her Instincts

Colleen Haskell doesn’t have any grand master life plan.

“I am just collecting stories in life,” says the peppy 24-year-old who came to fame last summer on the first edition of CBS’ “Survivor.”

“I fell into ‘Survivor’ and I fell into this,” she says.

“This” is a starring role in the new raucous Rob Schneider comedy, “The Animal,” which opens June 1. In the slapstick farce, Haskell plays Rianna, a sensitive young woman who spent a year in a tree to save it from being chopped down, who now works as a volunteer at an animal shelter. She falls in love with Schneider’s hapless police clerk, Marvin Mange. When Marvin is involved in a near-fatal car crash, he is rescued by an eccentric doctor (Michael Caton) who has cracked the genetic code. In the doctor’s barnyard lab, he repairs Marvin’s body with a hodgepodge of animal organs. Soon, Marvin is making friends with a goat, fighting with cats and marking his territory. And instead of kissing Rianna, Marvin tends to lick her face.

Haskell was bombarded with a variety of offers because of her exposure on “Survivor.”

“It’s weird because you don’t really know what’s happening,” says Haskell, relaxing at a picnic table at the Los Angeles Zoo. “People are calling your phone and faxing things. I was at a portfolio school in Miami. People were faxing things to my school since they didn’t know how to get ahold of me.”

At a “Survivor” reunion late last summer, she met an agent from International Creative Management. “We just clicked, and I gave her [all the offers] and she weeded through them,” Haskell says.

Although acting roles came her way, she wasn’t interested in pursuing it. “But I was in Los Angeles and they asked me to read for ‘Animal.’ So I said, ‘OK. Fine.’ . . . I went in and read for a casting director and did a screen test. I didn’t think much of it.”

Haskell was driving across country when she learned she got the job.

“I got to Los Angeles a week and a half later and that is when I realized, ‘I’m in a movie.’ ”

She says she didn’t have butterflies over doing a big summer movie. “I don’t get nervous in front of the camera.

“I think I was more naive going into this. I didn’t know how serious an undertaking it was to commit myself to a movie. ‘Survivor’ was fun, but it’s a game show. Whereas doing a movie is a job. So it woke me up to be prepared and know your lines and be on time.”

Haskell concedes she was a bit of a smart-aleck when the production began. “When I first started I used to say things like, ‘In the real world you don’t get fancy lunches.’ I was just taking it all as a goofy lark but quickly realized no matter how bizarre it was that I fell into this, I have to do the best job I can. A lot of people put their money into it and take it very seriously.”

Schneider, she says, took great care with her. “Rob really made me feel comfortable,” she recalls. “But sometimes he would say, ‘Just say [the line] like this.’ When he said it, it was funny. But when I said it, it wasn’t so funny.”

“Animal” director Luke Greenfield believes that Haskell seems completely natural on film.

“She is genuine as a person,” adds Greenfield, who makes his feature directorial debut with the comedy. “I don’t think Colleen needed much help. She had great improv skills.”

A year ago, the world had never heard of Colleen Haskell. “Survivor” “hadn’t even premiered yet,” she says. “And here I am doing an interview for a movie. It has been a fun ride this year.”

And a little stressful. “I don’t get nervous, but I do have emotional outbursts at really awkward times,” Haskell says, laughing. “I was crying the other night because the delivery guy was late. Stress comes out in funny ways.”

Born in Bethesda, Md., Haskell dabbled in theater at Walter Johnson High School, where she worked backstage in lighting, sound and set design. She received a bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Georgia. Haskell was attending a two-year portfolio program at Miami Ad School when she saw the open casting call for contestants for “Survivor” at a local mall.

“I love traveling and it was a really cheap way to go to Malaysia,” she explains. “I kept getting called back for more interviews.”

The 11th person voted off the Malaysian island, Haskell says she did eat rats--which taste “like duck meat, kind of greasy”--during her 30 days on the top-rated show.

She isn’t very close with her other “Survivor” cast mates. “I have been so busy with this, it’s been hard for me to keep up” with them. And as for Richard Hatch, the man everyone loved to hate who ended up winning the $1-million prize, Haskell describes him as a “disaster. I have no problems saying that. He is just a dingbat. I really don’t like him that much, and he knows it.”

Haskell maintains she won’t mind if “Animal” doesn’t lead to more film roles. “It’s a good job,” she says, “but it’s not something I am going to have a heartbreak over.”