It's time to get to know Scream Queens most awful -- or should we say Hoffel? -- new nurse!
It's time to get to know Scream Queens most awful -- or should we say Hoffel? -- new nurse!
Hmm, on second thought, she's actually not awful. In fact, she's fiercely fantastic and she's played by TV icon Kirstie Alley.
ET was the first to interview the former Cheers star on the set of Fox's horror comedy, and we've got the exclusive behind-the-scenes scoop on how Alley joined the killer cast for season two.
"My agent told me that Ryan Murphy wanted me for Scream Queens, so I called my friend John Travolta because he had just worked with Ryan on [The People v. O.J. Simpson]," Alley spilled to ET.
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"And John said, 'Oh my god! You will love him, you will worship him and he is going to love you!" she recalled. "So then when Ryan called I was very flattered and I was excited and here I am."
Alley made her Scream Queens debut as Ingrid Marie Hoffel, the head nurse at the C.U.R.E. Institute, a.k.a. Dr. Dean Munsch's new hospital. The 65-year-old actress admitted that she's both thrilled and "inhibited" to be sharing scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis.
Alley also revealed the surprising way she first met the Scream Queen matriarch. "When I first moved to Los Angeles, and I wasn't an actress, and I needed money desperately, I went on The Match Game and Jaime Lee was on the panel of stars," the blonde beauty spilled.
"You weren't really allowed to talk to each other because you had to make sure that there wasn't a tricky stuff going on, you know? But I do remember, I was walking down the hall and she said, 'Hi!' and I was like, 'Aghhhh!' and I still have that that same feeling now!" she added
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"She's so good!" Alley gushed. "And the girls, Emma [Roberts], oh my God! They're all so grooved in and so good. They speak very quickly, so I'm working on getting that style down."
Since Alley joined the series after Fox had already filmed the season two premiere, she had a limited amount of time to nail her quick-paced cadence with the Chanels.
"In the first episode it was, 'OK, for all your [scenes] you have one minute and 45 seconds,' And I had rehearsed it, but I just have to talk really fast to keep up," she said. "It's been, like, the best and the worst! So I am learning to speak quickly because there's a lot of dialogue that you need to say, but I'm excited!"
As for her Hoffel demeanor, Alley confessed that channeling her inner mean girl is not hard for her to do. "I'm very nervous on this set," she said. "It's such a good show, it's so well written and all the actresses are so phenome, so I'm actually very inhibited. I guess [in my mean scenes] I'm just pretending like I was yelling at myself to 'Snap out of it!'"
Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.