Warning: This article may contain spoilers for Scream Queens .
Scream Queens is up and running and, while everyone has their favorite character, there’s no denying that Lea Michele is a scene stealer as “Neckbrace” Hester. The two-hour premiere of Scream Queens revealed that there was so much more to Hester than either Michele or series creator Ryan Murphy had previously revealed. Interviews and clips revealed Lea’s Scream Queens character as a quirky and somewhat dorky homebody, which alone is such a drastic change from Ms. Michele’s Glee role that it was enough to shock fans, but the premiere revealed that this Scream Queens character was also freaky and wonderfully creepy.
It’s always the quiet ones.
Among Hester’s odd interests is her interest in death, though it seems Ms. Michele’s character is fascinated by anything of the macabre. The revelation that Hester has a taste for death only adds an aura of mystery to that neckbrace, making many Scream Queens fans wonder just how she ended up in that contraption in the first place.
However Lea’s character came to wear the neckbrace, Lea Michele revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Hester will be getting a break from the device, beginning with the upcoming third episode. The removal of the neckbrace comes as part of a makeover, which came as a complete surprise to Ms. Michele.
While the Scream Queens actress didn’t know about the makeover ahead of time, Lea does have advance knowledge concerning the return of the contraption.
“It comes back. When I opened that script, I was like, ‘What? Excuse me?’ But it plays an important role in its return, and you will see,” Lea said.
Scream Queens is about to prove that even freaky, death-obsessed girls need love, and Michele’s character seemingly finds in Chad (Glen Powell) just what she’s looking for, or so she thinks.
“She’s super freaky deaky. Super. But at the end of the day, what I really like about her, is that she’s super obsessed with Chad, like 100 percent…I definitely think that she forces a relationship,” says Ms. Michele. “She makes it sort of impossible. I can’t tell you the amount of stuff that I have to say on this show. I write Brad and Ryan at night and I’m like, ‘Uh, seriously? Are you guys, like, kidding?’ But I love it. I really do.”
Ms. Michele found something surprising in Scream Queens as she began studying the scripts and she confesses to loving the strong “girl power” subplot shown as the season progresses. Hester even loses interest in pursuing her love interest, when she begins to connect with Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) and her other sorority sisters. Taking it even further, Lea reveals that Scream Queens is a strongly female-driven story and, with so much female bonding going on in the story, Ms. Michele can’t see the season deviating from that in respect to the plot.
“I think that it’s all about the girls here, which is why I think that the killer is a girl and it’s why I think that the hero is a girl,” suggests Ms. Michele.
The girl power theme doesn’t go away when the cameras stop rolling, either. Scream Queens ‘ Lea Michele revealed to Playbill that she has grown close to many of her co-stars and that she enjoys spending time with her newly found friends off set. Ms. Michele specifically mentions Emma Roberts, which comes as no surprise, considering how often the pair is seen in one another’s company.
“Emma and I, we do Pilates together every week and make sure that we’re taking care of ourselves here in New Orleans,” Lea Michele said. “We’re away from our families, so we really are relying on our cast members to sort of be our connections and help to make this experience as fun and as exciting as possible.”
Scream Queens airs on Tuesdays on FOX.
[Featured image: Lea Michele courtesy of FOX/ Scream Queens ]
