Trivia / Scream Queens (2015)

• Actor Allusion:
  • Billie Lourd, who plays Chanel #3, is Carrie Fisher's daughter. The earmuffs her character often wears are a homage to her mother's iconic Princess Leia hairdo. Not to mention in the Season 1 finale, she wears her hair in the buns.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the original scream queens, in Halloween.
  • In "Seven Minutes in Hell", Chanel calls Grace "Nancy Drew" as an insult. Of Course, Emma Roberts would know all about Nancy Drew, wouldn't she?
  • Jamie Lee Curtis also creates an almost shot for shot homage to her mother Janet Leigh and her famous scene from Psycho in "Mommie Dearest."
  • In "Haunted House", Grace dresses as Kate Hudson. Her father is played by Kate's real-life brother. In the same episode, she meets a woman whose younger self was played Grace Phipps, who played her best friend on The Nine Lives of Chloe King.
  • In season 2 premiere, Dr.Cascade played by Taylor Lautner diagnoses a woman who has Hypertrichosis aka Werewolf Syndrome. Lautner played a werewolf in the Twilight series. There's also a joke about his body being cold, another Twilight reference.
  • Emma Roberts, who plays Chanel Oberlin, is the daughter of Eric Roberts, who played the Master in the Doctor Who movie. In the season 2 episode Halloween Blues, in a rage, Chanel asks "did this crappy dorm turn into a Doctor Who TARDIS while I was asleep, and transport us all back to Ancient Egypt?"
• Advertised Extra:
  • Ariana Grande appears in just the pilot episode, and a cameo in another, yet was hyped up.
  • A lot of press was given to Charisma Carpenter guest starring. She has just a brief scene in one episode. Coincidentally playing the mother of Chanel #2.
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Ariana Grande was a huge fan of American Horror Story and describes herself saying to Ryan Murphy "I'll do anything you want. I'll be the first one killed off, I'll be the villain" - and so she was the first one killed off.
  • Lea Michele has described Ryan Murphy asking her if she wanted to wear a neck brace and talk about having sex with dead bodies - and she responded "I'm yours!"
  • Ryan Murphy recalls being reluctant to ask Jamie Lee Curtis if she would do the homage to Psycho. He recalls simply sending the script, and getting a text from her which read "we need to do this shot for shot!" Even before that, Jamie took a day to think about doing the show, and agreed without even seeing the script.
• Career Resurrection: Jamie Lee Curtis had retreated from the spotlight after the failure of Christmas with the Kranks, mostly to raise her family, and had spent ten years either in the occasional guest spot or voiceover role. Her Golden Globe nominated performance as Dean Munsch brought her back to the mainstream, and led to her returning to the Halloween franchise in 2018.
• Casting Gag: In "Dorkus", the Chanels think they've captured the Red Devil, but when they unmask him, it's just some pizza delivery guy who was forced to wear the costume and was fitted with a dynamite vest. Said pizza delivery guy is played by Riley Schmidt, who is the man under the mask every time the Red Devil appears to kill someone.
  • Emma Roberts and Skylar Samuels are playing the roles opposite of what they played growing. Skylar was frequently cast in roles more similar to Chanel and Emma played roles more like Grace.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Annie Rojas dubbed Catherine Hobart (Cecily Strong) in the first episode of the second season.
• Celebrity Paradox: In Season 2, Chad references Julia Roberts, who is of course the aunt of Emma Roberts.
• Corpsing:
  • Skyler Samuels describes herself as the biggest corpser on set, claiming she's ruined the most takes by bursting out laughing. But apparently it went the other way around during filming of Grace and Zayday pushing Boone out the window - and it was Nick Jonas who corpsed.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis apparently squeezed thumbtacks in order to prevent herself from corpsing in some of the takes.
• The Danza: Just about. Niecy Nash plays a character called Denise - which is her middle name.
• Dawson Casting: Hester is meant to be nineteen or twenty. Lea Michele was twenty-nine at the time. Overall the main cast is made up of several college freshmen and juniors, and most of them are a few years older. Glen Powell for example is twenty seven playing a character who is definitely under twenty-two. Abigail Breslin, Keke Palmer, Nick Jonas, Lucien Laviscount and Skyler Samuels are all within the right age though (and Skyler was even attending college during the first season). Season 2 has a Time Skip of a couple of years, matching some ages up.
• Directed by Cast Member: Jamie Lee Curtis directed the episode "Rapunzel, Rapunzel".
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Whitney Meyer, who plays Deaf Taylor Swift, is deaf in real life.
• Fake American: Diego Boneta is Mexican, and Nasim Pedrad is Iranian. They play the Americans Pete and Gigi, but speak with American accents naturally - making this a marginal example.
• Role Association:
  • We have a sorority led by Jill Roberts along with her associates Cat, Little Rock, and a few others.
  • Rachel is also part of the sorority, along with Malia's Anger Translator.
  • Nate is part of an all-male brotherhood and is in cahoots with the Red Devil Killer and Laurie Strode is the Dean of the school.
  • Chloe King is really going to need those remaining seven lives.

• Hostility on the Set: Reports surfaced that Emma Roberts and Lea Michele were constantly at each other's throats on the set.
• Lying Creator:
  • Ryan Murphy said that each episode would have a major character death. Actually up until the final, only minor or secondary characters and one main character have died.
  • He also stated multiple times that only four or five characters would survive the season and appear in season 2. Grace, Zayday, Hester, Chanels #3 and #5, Chad, Denise, Wes and Dean Munsch, and Chanel (ten people) all survive. Further, at least seven are slated to be returning, and possibly more.
• Meme Acknowledgment: Skyler Samuels references the jokes about her hats during her Reddit AMA, and loves it.
• Orphaned Reference: Dean Munsch's obsession with Wes is a leftover from when Joe Mangianello was going to play him - as he has a reputation for being a Mr. Fanservice. While Oliver Hudson is by no means unattractive, his physique certainly pales in comparison, making it feel like Informed Attractiveness at some points.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Lea Michele was last seen on Glee as Rachel Berry, a fame-chasing diva but all-around decent person. Here, she's Hester, a death-obsessed girl who wants to call the Chanels "mom" and appreciates being called a psychopath. And she turns out to be a Magnificent Bastard who acted as the brains behind the Red Devil killings.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis was a horror movie Final Girl in her early days but later became as a Reasonable Authority Figure, quirky housewife or the Only Sane Man in a lot of her projects. Playing a Dean Bitterman who's also a Dirty Old Woman is quite different for her.
  • Abigail Breslin was a child star, playing various Woobies or precocious children. Playing a vapid ditzy Beta Bitch is a real change.
  • Skyler Samuels who was best known for her earlier roles as Alpha Bitches on television gets reversed here where's she's the Nice Girl foil to The Chanels.
  • Technically Emma Roberts, who was known as the Teen Idol of Unfabulous for years. Thanks to both this and American Horror Story, she is now primarily known for Alpha Bitch roles.
• Production Posse: As soon as Glee finished filming, the entire crew and some of the cast moved to Louisiana to make this. There are also a few cast members who are on American Horror Story.
• Real-Life Relative: Rodger and Dodger are played by twins Aaron and Austin Rhodes.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Chad has longer hair in Season 2 because Glen Powell was filming Hidden Figures at the same time.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Chanel #2 was going to have a significantly bigger role - appearing in nine episodes - but Ariana Grande had to go on tour and thus she was killed off in the pilot episode.
  • Skyler Samuels returned to college in 2016, having taken a semester out to film the first season. As a result, Grace is written out of Season 2, later explained that she's in Stanford (the university Skyler attends in real life), only to find out it's not the university, it's a mental asylum that shares the same name.
  • Chad being killed off was because Glen Powell was cast in Hidden Figures and wasn't available.
• Romance on the Set: Billie Lourd and Taylor Lautner dated after meeting in season 2.
• Star-Making Role:
  • It was ultimately Glen Powell who got launched onto bigger things from this. Beforehand he had bit parts in The Dark Knight Rises and The Expendables 3. Afterwards Everybody Wants Some!!, Hidden Figures and eventually Top Gun: Maverick.
  • Billie Lourd also did extremely well thanks to the series, as her appearance in The Force Awakens was relatively minor. Thanks to being one of the best received characters, she soon made appearances on American Horror Story and Billionaire Boys' Club, as well as getting more prominent roles in the Star Wars trilogy.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The show's YouTube channel has Scene Queens which is the cast talking about the latest episode to appear and speculating who they think the killer is. While it's not so bad in the US, the UK airs the show about 6 weeks after the episodes air in the US so it's advised to watch the show first.
  • On a more serious note, the Scene Queens episode lined up with Ghost Stories has a picture of Boone in a Red Devil costume. This is a massive spoiler.
• Typecasting: Niecy Nash had played a police officer on Reno 911 as well.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The network ordered fifteen episodes for the first season to begin with, but it was later cut down to thirteen.
  • An early trailer showed that the house's initials were KNT, though the trailer was later remade to be KKT, for Kappa Kappa Tau.
  • Julian Morris was cast as Pete but had to drop out before filming, and was replaced by Diego Boneta. The role had previously been offered to David Henrie, who turned it down.
  • Joe Manganiello was also originally cast as Wes but backed out due to his Magic Mike commitments, leading to Oliver Hudson being cast.
  • Ryan Murphy claims that once he met Whitney Meyer, the actress playing Deaf Taylor Swift, he liked her so much he considered sparing her and killing off another character. But he ended up sticking to the script.
  • Melissa Gedeón auditioned for the dubbing part of Hester Ulrich/Chanel #6. Leyla Rangel got the part.
  • Annie Rojas auditioned for the dubbing part of Chanel #3. Jessica Angeles got the part. She even confirmed this on her Twitter account.
  • Ricardo Bautista, who often dubbed Nick Jonas for Disney projects, auditioned for the dubbing part of Boone Clemens. Jose Antonio Toledano got the part.

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