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NEWS
EXTRAS
EXTRAS
S
ometimes I think
I’m making a
statement
and there’s a lot of
intention behind that
statement,” the
ebullient musician
explains. “But then...
yes, I am addressing
some feminist argument
or ideas, but as a whole, I
would hope that [
My Woman
]
relates beyond feminism and it can
be relatable to all kinds of people – men and
women, people all over the place. That to
me is really important.”
Musically, there's a great filodex of
fascinating sounds across
My Woman
,
from the very Neil Young guitar line in
Heart
Shaped Face
to the sweet grace notes on
an electric Rhodes piano on
Those Were
the Days
.
“I was challenging myself, with a
different instrument [piano], and a different
sound,"Olsen says. "How could my writing
still be meaningful to me? Would my voice
change, and so what if it does? Maybe it’s
supposed to cater to the sound, and be a
part of the sound in a bigger way.”
She and her new band then learned
the songs and just walked straight into
the studio to record live. “To me it’s like a
photograph of the way we’ve all developed
and grown as musicians, after knowing each
other and developing that language on stage
with each other,” she says. “This record is,
in a way, partly a live performance.”
Zoë Radas
My Woman
by
Angel Olsen
is out on September 2.
Angel Olsen’s new album
My
Woman
does invoke a feminist lens
– but it’s not her precise mission.
HEAVENLY
CREATURE
HORROR
ROYALTY
Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the stars of theTV horror spoof
Scream Queens
, couldn't be happier playing things for laughs.
J
amie Lee Curtis
remains one of
Hollywood’s most
memorable scream queens,
thanks to roles in films such
as
Halloween
,
The Fog
and
Prom Night
.
So it could almost be
taken as a given that she
would be cast in a TV show
called
Scream Queens
,
which is from the creative
team behind
American
Horror Story
and boasts a
hot young cast that includes
Emma Roberts,
Glee
star
Lea Michele and tween
icons like Nick Jonas and
Ariane Grande. A very
tongue-in-cheek splatter
fest – think
Means Girls
meets
Scream
–
Curtis plays the devious and devilish Dean
Catherine Munsch, who seems unperturbed
that a serial killer appears to be loose on the
campus; in fact, it soon becomes clear that
she knows more about the murderer than
she is letting on.
For Curtis, the main attraction of the role
was that it had been created specifically for
her – something that she maintains hasn’t
happened often.
“Honestly, people have this weird idea
that actors are sitting there with stacks of
scripts around them, like, you know, ‘no,
I'm not gonna do that one’,” she explains.
“We're all trying to get a job. And it's rare
that somebody calls you up and says ‘hi, I'd
like to write a TV show for you. It's going to
be super-funny, super wicked, really smart,
and you're going to have a great time’. It’s
just not that often that that happens, and
it's happened to me three
times.”
Surprisingly enough,
the other two occasions
were not horror films,
but the action thriller
True
Lies
(“hilarious movie”)
and John Cheese’s classic
comedy
A Fish Called
Wanda
. But much as
she loves comedy, she
confesses she struggles to
keep her own laughter in
check when playing these
sorts of roles, particularly
when her co-star
improvises.
“If it's funny, I will
laugh,” Curtis admits. “I
cannot hold it. I think Kevin
Klein won't speak to me because I ruined
with him when he did something funny that
I wasn't expecting him to do. When I'm in a
scene, with Emma Roberts, or the girls, or
the really funny people on [
Scream Queens
],
I hold a pen under the table, and I jam it into
my hand."
Given the cast is made up mainly of
teenagers – well, at least actresses playing
teenagers – she acknowledges that she
probably comes across as something of a
mother figure on set.
However, she is full of praise for
her young co-stars. “They are wickedly
talented,” Curtis enthuses. “These girls have
shown up because they know they have
been given this precious thing which is great
writing. And they know it and like, slam it.”
Scream Queens: The Complete First Season
is
out on DVD on September 7.