‘Scream Queens’ Sorority Queen Emma Roberts Always Wanted To Play A Mean Girl

Emma Roberts is definitely making an impression as the Scream Queens sorority queen, with fans of the Ryan Murphy series as devoted to Roberts’ character as Chanel Oberlin’s own Chanel-o-ween followers. While Emma has clearly achieved a measure of success in her own right, the Scream Queens actress can recall a time when her acting ambitions were nothing more than the far off dreams of a little girl.

As far back as Roberts can remember, she had always been dressing herself in costumes and pretending to be the characters from whatever films she happened to have recently watched at the time. Emma even recalls going to school adorned in a feather boa and giving character impressions for her first grade classmates.

Emma Roberts Wanted To Be The Mean Girl

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Early in her career, Roberts found herself being typecast as the girl next door, the normal girl or the shy girl. Now, only a few years later, Emma has found success as a mean girl, just like she had dreamed early in her career. Ms. Roberts found success as the mean girl first in American Horror Story: Coven, playing the part of Madison Montgomery, and was brought back for American Horror Story: Freak Show to play Maggie Esmerelda.

“I put it out in the universe and it came back to me,” Ms. Roberts told Teen Vogue of her American Horror Story success.

Ryan Murphy was so impressed by Emma’s performances that he brought her in on his new project, promising her the role of the ultimate mean girl in Scream Queens. Now, as Chanel Oberlin, Emma Roberts seems to have her dream role. Scream Queens has already offended vast segments of the audience with the premiere episode, showing Chanel at her absolute worst, while many others love her for that same offensiveness.

“Ryan has written Chanel to be very articulate, clever, and fierce. I actually called him and was like, ‘Is she too mean? Are people going to hate her?’ And he said, ‘No, they’re going to love to hate her.'”

Even so, Emma reveals that she feels uncomfortable due to some of her character’s lines and actions on Scream Queens, compelling her to apologize to her co-stars as certain scenes finish filming. Roberts says she tries to understand where Chanel is coming from, but she finds it difficult when she finds Chanel so different from herself.

Scream Queens‘ Emma Roberts Admits She’s Squeamish

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Scream Queens and American Horror Story aren’t Ms. Roberts’ only experiences with the horror genre. Emma also was involved in Scream 4 (2011) and, more recently, Emma just finished filming on the thriller Nerve, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. But, off camera, Ms. Roberts says she’s much more cowardly than her on-screen personas.

“My friends don’t even want me to see scary movies with them, because they know that they’ll have to sleep over after or that I’ll be calling them all night thinking that a ghost is in the house.”

Emma describes herself to People magazine as a “girl’s girl,” and the Scream Queens actress says she’s grateful that she now has girlfriends she can rely on and trust, because she really needs that kind of female bonding. Ms. Roberts says that she has had more than her share of competitive and fake friends and, although she regrets having to let some of those friendships go, Emma knows it was for the best.

“I think it’s hard for any girl growing up — you definitely find out who your friends are.”

The next episode of Scream Queens airs Tuesday, October 20 on FOX.

[Featured image: Emma Roberts courtesy of Jason Kempin/Getty Images]