Kelly Rowland Talks ‘Empire’Posted by Wilson Morales
October 30, 2015
Source: TheKnockturnal.com
If you have been watching season 2 of the Fox TV hit drama, Empire, you will have noticed Grammy Award winner Kelly Rowland in recent episodes. She’s been shown in several flashbacks as Leah Walker, mother to young Lucious Lyon aka Dwight Walker.
From the scenes shown, it seems that Lucious (played by Terrence Howard) as well as his son Andre (played by Trai Byers) may have inherited their bipolar symptoms from Leah.
While promoting her partnership with baby laundry detergent Dreft, Rowland spoke with theknockturnal.com about her guest starring role on the hit show and meeting its co-creator Lee Daniels.
Here’s a portion of their interview with the Grammy Award winner.
And so you’re appearing on Empire, which I’m also a fan of.
Ok the last two episodes have been really awesome. Yeah they really, really have. Watch it before the new ones come on; have a little binge moment.
How did you link up with the show?
Lee [Daniels, show creator] and I were at a SoulCycle class at the same time, and he was on the other side of the room, and he was like ‘I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.’
Like mouthing it to me. And I said ‘what?’ *Laughs
And so after the class we spoke. You know usually people have ‘Hollywood Talk,’ he meant every word. The next day the folks from Empire asked ‘well what is her availability, we need her to shoot these days.’ I thought ‘now he’s not Hollywood talking.’ I love people from Philly, but this was another level. He’s just true to his roots and [pauses], honest. And I appreciate that.
Did you know who he was when started mouthing at you?
Absolutely!
I wondered if you thought it was just some person yelling at you…
Noooo. No no no! *Laughs
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
No I was a fan of him. And the funny thing is I would just say hi and nod and just smile. But this day he came up and said ‘how are you?’ Super-talkative. I was like yeah!
So how’d you get in character?
I started reading up about bi-polar disorder. And actually looking at YouTube as well. Cause YouTube has people talking about their own journey through bi-polar disorder. I just kind of wrapped my head around it. One thing that I love about my character is her love for her son. She just wanted to be a great mom. And she’s willing to go through anything to make sure that he’s happy. And with her illness sometimes it makes it a bit of a challenge, because some days she doesn’t know what she’s doing; whether it’s herself or her son. But she loves him. She loves him. At the end of the day…
You can relate to that.
Absolutely.
When are you appearing?
I’ve appeared in all of the episodes except for the very first one. And then I’m going to shoot another one.
Fantastic. What are your Halloween plans?
Titan and I are going to dress up. We’re going to go as Micky and Minnie Mouse. And we’re gonna go to about four houses for trick-or-treating [smirks], call it a day. His first trick-or-treating experience. Hope he remembers it but I doubt he will. *Laughs
