After months of rumor and conjecture, Scream Queens is finally set to debut in less than a month and, as we all anticipate that two-hour premiere, Ryan Murphy has come forward with a more detailed interview that really gives fans a deep look at what they can expect. Also new for fans is a series of photographs from the filming of the series and three new promo trailers that give Scream Queens fans more than ever before, creating a Scream Queens package to make even the Red Devil jealous.
Talking with Variety , Ryan Murphy said that much of the Scream Queens characters were written specifically for the actresses brought in to play them.
“Almost all of those parts were created for those actors. We want Jamie Lee Curtis to kick ass, and tell these girls that they’re horrible little monsters. We want Jamie Lee Curtis to talk about what it was like in the 70’s and 80’s, fighting for feminism. Emma (Roberts’) part was written for her,” Murphy said. “I adore her and we worked with her in Horror Story . She kept saying, ‘I want to be snarky again. I loved it when I was bitchy.’ Lea (Michele), I wanted her to do something completely wacky and fun after everything she had been through.”
Ryan said that getting Lea Michele to play the part of Hester in Scream Queens was literally as easy as making a phone call.
“I called her up and I said, ‘I’ve got two words for you. Neck brace.’ She said, ‘I’m in.’ It was literally that simple. She wanted to do it,” Scream Queens ‘ Ryan Murphy said. “Of course, her character has an evolution, so I told her where she would start and where she would finish. She loved that.”
Bustle first shared a collection of Scream Queens shots that give fans a glimpse into everything from the macabre to the questionable fashion sense of Chanel Oberlin.
The Scream Queens actors and actresses are all eager to find out who the killer is and have been kept as much in the dark about the killer’s true identity as the Scream Queens fans themselves. Regardless of how much they question Murphy, the Scream Queens showrunner insists his lips are sealed.
“They don’t. They’ve been blackmailing me, bribing me, writing me. They all have their theories about who they think it is, and none of them have been right, which makes me very happy. I love their enthusiasm, because I feel, hopefully, that the audience will share it,” Ryan said. “When we were directing the first two episodes, Brad and I would always, for the most part, give those actors a take and say, ‘Pretend you’re the killer.’ In the pilot, it’s very clear to me who is the killer. When the killer’s unmasked at the end, you’ll be able to go and be like, ‘Oh, yeah’ and link all that stuff together.”
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Mr. Murphy does let fans know that the flashback scene in the first episode of Scream Queens plays an integral part in the mystery and understanding what transpires in the past will help Scream Queens fans solve the question of who is hiding behind the Red Devil mask.
“That’s part of the mystery: Who is the baby in the bath water? Did that baby grow up to be one of our people? The mystery of the girl dying in the bathtub and the baby is played out through the whole season,” revealed the Scream Queens creator. “Skyler, who plays Grace — her character is convinced she is the baby. Convinced. She’s trying to solve that mystery, because she feels like if she can figure out if she’s the baby, there is some link to the killer being connected to that crime at the beginning. In the second episode and third episode, it’s established that Jamie Lee’s character was involved in it, too. It’s all an interwoven mystery.”
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Moving away from the thriller aspect of the show and discussing the more graphic nature of some of the scenes, Ryan Murphy admits that he has had conflicts with the Standards and Practices department, regarding what will be permitted on Scream Queens .
“We researched how do sororities haze? What do they do, what are they doing right now? One of the things we came up was the poo-belly mayonnaise shot challenge, which you’ll see in the second episode. It’s awful. They force the pledges to strip down to their bra and panties, and they take a marker and write on their bodies where they need to be skinnier, and then they make them take mayonnaise shots. So some of the language that they wrote on the bodies was historically true, but that was a problem,” Ryan Murphy said. “We also found the vodka tampon challenge, where they put the tampons in vodka and then insert them. It’s an easy quick way to get drunk, and it can also lead to instant death, and it has. You can’t believe this s–t exists. So we were trying to write that. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but I do feel that the show is brave in that way. I am proud of that. That stuff is there for a reason. It’s not just there to titillate.”
The Scream Queens season premiere airs on September 22 on Fox.
[Featured image courtesy of Fox/ Scream Queens ]