There's more to Megan Fox than just a body. Don't believe us? Ask her.

"I don't really identify with the whole sex-symbol thing," the Transformers siren told journalists yesterday while promoting her horror comedy Jennifer's Body.

The movie, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of its national release next Friday, stars Fox as a Satanic, scantily-clad high school sexpot who goes on a gory feeding frenzy, devouring plenty of male flesh in the process.

Fox's presence in Toronto predictably launched a feeding frenzy of another kind -- one with jostling photographers, blinding strobes and screaming fans.

"I don't really know how to speak about it. It's all very new to me. The movie isn't about sex. (But) clearly sex sells and the studio wants me to push that on you."

And who are we as members of the media to argue? Not when the film, directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight), includes an extended lip-lock between Fox and Amanda Seyfried, who plays Jennifer's geeky best friend, Needy. That just wouldn't be responsible journalism.

"It's easier kissing someone you know doesn't want to kiss you, than going into a scene with someone who is anticipating it and going to kind of enjoy it. That's worse in a work environment," Fox says, without naming names, although we presume every heterosexual male co-star she's had is a suspect.

"But clearly, Amanda was not excited at all. We were both nervous. They cleared the set of anyone who didn't have to absolutely be there. We laughed and were embarrassed and got through it. It wasn't the worst thing I did on the shoot. It is what it is. And it's really not meant to be a gratuitous, girl-on-girl sex scene in the movie. And I think it's a shame it's been sensationalized because the movie is so much more original than that."

Nor is Fox afraid to take a playful, if frank, jab at her own marching orders. Earlier in the day at the TIFF news conference, she noted, "If I were to use my talking points from the studio I would call it a sexy thriller with a wicked sense of humour."

That brand of candor can be refreshing -- or just problematic in Hollywood, where, as producer Jason Reitman observes, "Everyone is, to some extent, full of s---."

But thus far -- her sparring with Transformers director Michael Bay notwithstanding -- Fox has managed to avoid much blowback. "The Megan that you see is Megan," says screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno). "She's not the typical sort of ingratiating young starlet that's here to please. She's just a very interesting, intimidating, edgy person. She's amazing. She's really independent."

Recalls Reitman: "I had no idea what to expect. I saw Transformers, thought she was fine in it, and I sat down to have lunch with her in LA and I was blown away by the woman across the table ... She's smart enough to be 100% honest and that's always intimidating."

Yet she wasn't always this confident, the Tennessee-born Fox insists while reflecting on her own high school years growing up in Florida.

"I was never evil," she says to laughter from the assembled members of the media. "Why are you laughing? It's not a joke. There were actually evil girls in my high school -- and I went to a Christian high school, go figure. But girls can be really cruel and really awful ... I was really shy."

And she is equally timid, she adds, when it comes to the horror genre itself.

"I'm not big into these movies. I don't like seeing blood. I don't like slasher films. I don't like violence ... I'm a big 'fraidy cat."