Toronto Notebook: Megan's Body Kicks Off Film Fest

Megan Fox, Jennifer Connelly and Diablo Cody on the Red Carpet on the Toronto International Film Festival opening night

By James Rocchi Sep 11, 2009 6:35 PMTags
Megan FoxGeorge Pimentel/Getty Images

The 34th Toronto International Film Festival kicked off last night with two very different premiere events: Jennifer Connelly's biopic about a dead scientist, and Megan Fox's horror flick about a smoking-hot demon.

Here's how it went down:

In the shadow of the CN Tower downtown, Paul Bettany and Connelly wowed the black-tie crowd with the debut of Creation, their film about Charles and Emma Darwin. The real-life married couple play the mind behind the theory of evolution and his devout wife.

A few hours later, at a university auditorium transformed into the home of the festival's traditional Midnight Madness selection, fans and paparazzi went wild for Diablo Cody and Megan Fox at the world premiere of Jennifer's Body.

At Creation, there was some awkward banter on the red carpet: Bettany, when asked about the controversy surrounding Darwin's work, point-blank stated, "I'm an atheist."

Connelly got a little deeper—or not: "We both got our makeup done together this morning."

Once inside, director Jon Amiel got in a joke at his star's expense, and to his star's credit: When it came to playing Charles Darwin, "only one actor had the stature and intelligence to play the role...but Jude Law wasn't available." (He later admitted, "That's Paul Bettany's joke.")

A few hours later, the red carpet in front of the Ryerson University auditorium was a howling swirl of fans and paparazzi around the cast and crew of Jennifer's Body—the second film from Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter Cody, starring Fox as a popular cheerleader turned flesh-eating demon.

From our spot on the red carpet, talking to Fox proved impossible when she was whisked by in a crush of security people.

But Adam Brody, who costars as the satanic indie-rocker whose botched ritual unleashes Fox's killer demon, talked about how great it was to play the bad guy.

"It's totally liberating, not worrying about having the audience on your side," Brody told us. "It's kind of great."

He also added he did not apply his own eyeliner to play an amoral emo guitarist: "(Makeup people are) in the union; I don't want to step on anyone's toes."

And screenwriter Cody leapt from press to fans and back, signing photos with glee as the crowd chanted her name.

"This is outrageous," she told E! News. "When I came with Juno, I just made kind of made my way down the carpet...and this time, it's a little intense."

Cody also explained to us how she couldn't have been happier to have Jennifer's Body kick off Toronto's Midnight Madness mayhem:

"As a lifelong horror fan, as somebody who's been to Midnight Madness as a fan, I am so happy to be here; this is a dream come true. When I heard we were going to have this opportunity, I was just thrilled."

We'll have plenty more this week from the Toronto Film Fest, so keep reading E! Online and following @redcarpet on Twitter.

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See how the girl gets around in our Many Moods of Megan Fox gallery