by Paul Fischer

David Arquette is no stranger to the world of cinematic horror. After battling psychotic killers in the Scream franchise, he does battle with some grisly spiders in the tongue-in-cheek Eight Legged Freaks. Arquette describes mining engineer Chris McCormick as "sort of an heroic action character," the kind which, the actor admits, he rarely has a chance to play. "Rick Overton and Doug E. Doug were in the film so they would sort of carry the humor element of the picture and it would allow me to be slightly subtler. I was virtually begging for it.  I said, 'you didn't let me try out for Scooby Doo so you're gonna have to let me do this." While Arquette, 30, may not exactly identify with being an action hero, the contemplative star approached playing McCormick by acting cooler than usual. "Nothing really shakes you and you've got to put on a calm exterior.  This character had different quirks so, obviously, he wasn't the most action-packed guy."

Of course working with real spiders showed up the real Arquette, he recalls. "I didn't think I was really afraid of spiders until I had this big tarantula climbing up my arm, it got over here and then threw up its legs and I was like 'take it off me.  Take it off me'.  So at that point my calm exterior crumbled.  I'm not really afraid of spiders. Courtney will call me into the room and say 'there's a spider' and I'll rush in and say 'don't worry'.  I'm the spider action hero." Courtney of course, is Arquette's wife, Friends star Courtney Cox, whom he met on the set of the first Scream. "We realized pretty quickly that we were falling for each other, but my addictions made it difficult for us to have a proper, lasting relationship. I desperately wanted a serious relationship, but that's impossible when you're as messed up as I was." Arquette recalls. Then came Scream 2, during which the actors played on-screen lovers and a real off-screen romance ensued. "We immediately reconnected, but because I was at a big crossroads in my life, we never committed." Arquette adds that Cox "was there for me like no other woman I'd ever been with. She didn't give up on me just because I'd given up on myself. I was actually shocked that when the smoke finally cleared, she was still there."

Arquette is the youngest sibling in the Arquette acting dynasty, which includes Rosanna, Patricia and Alexis Arquette. Their grandfather Cliff Arquette was a TV star in the 1950s and beloved by fans of the first run of the Hollywood Squares as "Charlie Weaver". Their father Lewis Arquette played J.D. Pickett on The Waltons. Arquette, now clean and sober, insists that these days he is on a more natural and artistic high. "I love painting.  Painting to me is just the best and I love making movies.  I mean to be able to do this for a living is just so much fun.  You get to embody these different worlds."

After battling spiders, audiences will see a very different Arquette in what could result in an Oscar-nominated performance in The Gray Zone, a distinctive Holocaust drama which casts Arquette as a Jewish concentrate camp inmate who survives by assisting the Nazis in burning