On last week’s episode of the Fox Country Music drama “Monarchs” Luke Roman (Joshua Sasse) found himself dealing with a diva situation when, backstage at his mother’s memorial service, Shania Twain (playing herself) stunned. refused to perform. Twain didn’t want to hit the stage because he and the late Dottie Roman (Susan Sarandon) were frenzied in this universe after – Dottie said “Man! I feel like a woman.”
“Your mom was never nice to me. The bitch stole my song,” Twain quipped at mother-in-law’s character, Luke. And the whole scene turned out to be a very unique experience, the mother-in-law said.
“It was enjoyable. It was awesome,” Sasse told TheWrap. “We didn’t really talk before moving in, she just came from Switzerland, where she lives. And as the day approached, I was already waiting for him to be in the dressing room, and so we went straight to our rehearsal. And so comes Shania. But she is Shania. Playing Shanaya And so, it was very real.”
Sass, who starred as the title character in ABC’s 2015-2016 musical series “Galvant,” has worked with a number of trained singers in her career, but acting opposite an icon like Twain was a new experience.
“I’ve been very lucky, I’ve had a really diverse career,” he continued. “In ‘Galwant’ we got to work with many big, real names, but they were [playing] Pot. And so with that, when she’s playing herself, and she’s doing whole numbers, it was just surreal. it was very nice. And she’s very charming, and was a lot of game for laughs. And some of that scene was ad-lib. She was very good. I felt like I was being outplayed.”
Matriarch Dottie (who appears in flashbacks during the season) series in Fox’s new fall drama “Monarch”, about the first family of country musicals trying to keep their family legacy alive After the death of the premiere, Sass takes on the role of family businessman Luke. , Although the actor is known to have an amazing singing voice, and his character would occasionally sing on the show, Luke had no ambitions to be in the country music spotlight. Instead he wanted to go in the direction Dottie pushed him – running the record label.
“She’s not out for attention. I think it’s really important to both her sisters and her parents. It’s not necessary for her, maybe that’s why she [wasn’t] Inspired to do so,” said Sasse. “And through some plots [on the show], it was clear that he has a really good sense of music and knows how to keep a track and plays the piano or guitar with artists who come to teach him to do stuff, but there’s a lot of arrogance to show that The role is much more important to have some connection to reality and run the business. And I think, because the show is centered around this music label, it was really important that what Dottie left her was a legacy of keeping everything under control and making sure her dream lived on. And that can’t happen to people who have fireworks everywhere.”
Sasse sees Mama Roman follow one of the key themes of “Monarch” while pushing her son into business.
“I think a lot of the show’s themes are about sacrifice,” he said. “And so I think for Dottie, there were a lot of sacrifices that she had to make, and she knew that maybe university and learned economics and crafts and business and it took her away from her father’s whole ethos, which was a part of the show. So it was really important to have this belligerent nature between these two people.”
While Luke has major issues with his father (who is abusive to him), he is close to his sisters – Gigi (Beth Ditto) and Nikki (Anna Friel). But, that didn’t stop the character from having an affair with Gigi’s wife, Kayla. When asked why Luke crossed that threshold, especially with the wife of a sister he’s so close to, the mother-in-law said, “The thing is, he didn’t think.”
“Most of the things that happen in this show are focused, and … often, cutthroat decisions are being made. And when all this is happening, sometimes the left hand, you know, takes control, And I think it kind of played out because we thought Luke and Gigi had this really close relationship,” he continued. “It kind of lends itself to a whole other level of drama, you know?”
“Monarch” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.