Earlier this year, Jay Leno showed up at a young woman’s door with a camera crew. The lantern-jawed talk-show host wanted to see if she would do a horror-movie parody scene for one of his show bits.

Little did Leno know that the woman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, had just starred in the hit horror movie Final Destination 3. She knew a little sumthin’ sumthin’ when it came to being scared on-camera.

Exposure on The Tonight Show usually takes a higher profile than ninth billing on Wolf Lake, the short-term TV series about suburban werewolves. And for Winstead, a native North Carolinian, the late-night appearance was a bonus in a year that has brought her a lot of face time.

She started 2006 with Destination and ends it with two movies. In Emilio Estevez’s all-star Bobby, she plays a diner waitress and struggling actress. And Monday, you can catch her as a snobby sorority girl in the remake of the 1974 horror film Black Christmas.

There’s more to come. Next year she’ll appear in the Quentin Tarantino-directed half of the highly anticipated Grind House, and she’ll co-star in the long-awaited “Die Hard” sequel, Live Free or Die Hard.

Winstead, 22, who was born in Rocky Mount, is a distant relative of Johnston County’s own Ava Gardner (the screen legend was a cousin of her grandfather on her father’s side). She spoke by phone from Los Angeles about her career and growing-up years.

Let’s start off with that magical night when Jay Leno knocked on your door to re-enact a scene from a horror movie.

It was very random. I’d known that he does what he calls “Jaywalking” around my apartment complex every now and then. But I definitely didn’t expect him to knock on my door. So it was fun, but it caught me off-guard definitely.

He had no idea that I was an actress and I just did a horror film or anything like that. It was really just kind of a coincidence. He came to my door and planned on finding two people to do a skit, and he chose me and my boyfriend. We were hanging out, watching TV in my apartment, and along he came.

Which do you like playing better, horror heroines or the aspiring actress in Bobby?

It’s hard to compare one role to the other, because I love doing everything. And every part that I’ve played has been so much fun to do. You know, it’s fun being in horror films. You get to scream and cry and get splattered with blood and all this sort of high-energy, high-adrenaline kind of thing. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s also fun for me playing more realistic characters as well.

In Grind House, you get to play both.

It’s a horror movie, but luckily, it’s a lot more dialogue- and character-driven. So it is kind of the best of both worlds.

I play an actress who is working on a film about cheerleaders and, in the script, talks about how my co-stars are Lindsay Lohan and other teen stars like that. So it’s kind of a little bit of a joke.

Wasn’t Mandy Moore originally supposed to play the waitress in Bobby?

I took a meeting on it with Emilio months and months before the project got into production and told him that whatever role came available or any way that I could be a part of it, I would take any part that I could have. And so eventually all the roles became filled, mostly by big names, and I didn’t get in there. And, at the very last second, I got lucky and I was able to swoop in there and take her place, and I was very happy I did it.

You didn’t get to work with many of the stars in your scenes, but did you meet them?

Unfortunately, the film was originally three hours long. [It was cut to two.] So a lot of the scenes I had with other cast members aren’t actually in the film that’s been released. But I got to be in scenes with Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Anthony Hopkins, Emilio Estevez. It was so much fun — you can just get to hear those little bits and pieces of them and just speak with them and be in the same room with them. It was very amazing for me.

And I so admire Anthony Hopkins. He was around a lot. Even when he wasn’t actually working scenes, he was around just watching and observing. So that was quite intimidating, but it was also such a great opportunity for me.

You moved from Rocky Mount to Salt Lake City when you were 5, correct?

Yep, that’s right. And I spent all of my Christmases and summers in the Fayetteville area, visiting my grandmother. But now everyone’s back there. They moved back to North Carolina a couple of years ago, so I visit as much as I can.

How did you adjust to Utah?

It was somewhat difficult moving to Salt Lake City, because we weren’t Mormon and that was quite predominantly a Mormon area. So it was really hard to sort of fit in and adjust to that new environment. But I really just threw myself into performing arts and whatever I could get my hands on — drama, dance, singing.

It’s one of those things that I really love: to dance. There was, for me, a lot of opportunity in Salt Lake City to get involved in that. So, that’s kind of how I made things work out for me.

Did the Mormon kids give you any drama?

Every now and then, I would get comments. People would say things like, “I wish you would convert, so you could be one of us, and we could all go to heaven.” (Chuckles). But I knew, even as a kid, that my religion was not that much different than theirs.

I don’t want to be condescending toward Mormons or negative to them in any way. Because I think, for the most part, they were very welcoming to me and nice to me while I was living there. So even though I’d get comments over the years and, every now and then, felt ostracized for not being part of that religion, I still had a very happy childhood. So I can’t complain too much.

Let’s talk about Black Christmas. Did you have reservations about jumping into another horror movie after “Final Destination 3″?

I didn’t want to repeat myself in that way. But I just loved the people I worked with on Final Destination 3. Glen Morgan [who co-wrote Destination and wrote and directed Christmas] as well as everyone in the crew — they’re really kind of like family to me. So just the thought of being able to spend another couple of months with them was a really nice thought to me.

And I was lucky enough to at least play a very different character from the role that I played in Final Destination 3. So even though it’s the same genre, at least I’m not repeating myself as far as the characters that I play.

Finally, can you give us some news on the new Die Hard movie?

It’s been really great. I’ve been working for the past few weeks on that. I get to play Bruce Willis’ daughter. I get to be part of the McClane family, which is really cool because I’m a big fan of the first three films. I think they’re so much fun and entertaining, and I think they really appeal to everyone in different ways. So it’s great to take part in that franchise.

Article Written By Craig D. Lindsey