Ryan Merriman, the young actor who stars in the upcoming sequel Final Destination 3, told SCI FI Wire that the film made him think about the possibility of death all around. "I was actually bench pressing the other day, working out, and my hands were kind of sweating, and I was like, 'S--t, man, if this fell on my head, I would die really quick,'" Merriman (The Ring Two) said in an interview during a break in filming in Vancouver, B.C., last week. "And there was nobody else in there, so I just kind of racked it [and] went to the isometric machine. But other than that, no, I don't, like, walk around and, like, step over grates or anything. Even though, by the end of the movie, I will."

Ryan Merriman in "Final Destination 3"

As in the previous two installments, Final Destination 3 centers on a group of young people who manage to escape a horrific accident due to a premonition, then spend the rest of the film trying to anticipate and avoid death's plan. "I play Kevin," Merriman said. "It's my girlfriend and my best friend both ... [who] initially crash in the beginning. So we [he and co-star Mary Elizabeth Winstead] kind of both end up getting in this wild ride together. Because of that, and also because of the fact that she has this vision that brings us together. We solve it."

The story appealed to Merriman in part because it's not the typical teen horror movie, he added. "It's not some demon from the dead of the night or some guy with a chainsaw," he said. "It's, like, realistic things that can actually happen. Like you hear about those weird things like a truck's driving with telephone poles and one thing gets loose and it bounces and decapitates somebody [as in Final Destination 2]. You think on the news, 'How the hell did that happen?' And that's why it's cool. Even when I was reading the script, this happens, this triggers this, you just keep reading. I think that's what the audience is going to do. They're just going to be like, 'What's happening next? How is this happening?' And then when it does happen, like, 'Oh, s--t, man!' It's just cool."

Merriman added : "But it's also counterbalanced by good scenes. ... It's not just a thriller-action-teen whatever. It flows. There's some really good dramatic stuff. It's just really well-rounded, I think, personally. I don't think it's just about death and death's plan. It's got a reality to it, you know what I mean? Like if this were to really happen." Final Destination 3 is currently shooting, with an eye to a 2006 release.