We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
As an award-winning musician and writer,Cyndi Lauperneeds little introduction.
“I’ve got to say, this show is fun,” she tells The List.
It was fun to do because it was scary, it was funny, it was a little sad.
[It] had a little of everything, and a good story.
It was a solid story."
Returning to acting for Dolores Roach
What drew you to “The Horror of Dolores Roach”?
I watched the entire series yesterday, and I loved it.
It’s a binger, right?
Once you start, it’s like, “Oh, man.”
The storytelling is filled.
It’s terrific writing, and the story is a good story with a landscape of wonderful characters.
They have these wonderful actors in it.
They look like real people.
You know me I was always big on that.
We want it to look like New York," so everybody could see themselves.
The population of their story [in “The Horror of Dolores Roach”] is diverse.
The people behind the scenes were diverse.
And the writers it was such a creative process.
To stand behind the camera and watch, they used really modern technology to do it.
You notice how pretty it is?
It doesn’t look like anything else that’s on the screen at the moment.
Aaron, he’s a fantastic writer.
That was really a lot of fun for me.
I wanted to have gray hair.
I went shopping for a wig because I get wigs sometimes.
Got to have gray hair."
I based my wardrobe [for Ruthie] on ushers that I had seen.
I thought getting to know them was great, and then getting to play one was even better.
My character, Ruthie, she’s the usher.
Broadway and Shakespeare [are her passions].
Also, she’s a PI.
She never don’t find them.
How fun is that?
[It] goes through all of it, and it’s pretty.
I’m really excited about it.
Justina Machado is a wonderful, wonderful actress.
I thought they all were.
You spent a lot of time acting opposite Justina Machado.
Was it fun collaborating with her?
Yes, I had a lot of fun, and the director was fantastic.
The director was from Mexico.
In Mexico City, there’s a whole artist community of incredibly gifted filmmakers.
The director that directed my part of it was a Japanese Mexican woman, and she is fantastic.
The [director of photography] was fantastic.
I’m checking out the lights.
I watched the guy edit.
The cameras are totally different now, which is amazing.
In the end, I said, “You have a song for here?
I think you should let me write one.”
They’re all like, “Oh, yay.”
So I [did] it.
It’s funny because when I recorded it, I went and did it old fashioned.
The way he hears things and the equipment that he had it’s just his ears.
It’s not a big thing.
It’s not a big fancy place, but boy, his sounds.
He just hears it.
He’s one of the classics, so I got him to master “Oh, Dolores.”
I wrote it with Ben Hopkins from Pwr Bttm …
He played all the guitars, including the bass.
We wrote it together.
I wrote it on one of the instruments that I have sitting by my piano.
That’s my lane open fifths, love them.
He did a great job [writing], and he did a great job playing those guitars.
Then we got my friend Shawn Pelton, who played drums.
He’s a wonderful drummer.
I have a singer that I work with in my band, Elaine Caswell that’s her husband.
That’s where you’re doing a lot of your stuff.
What does it mean to you to be an advocate?
Being a woman, these are our civil liberties.
These are our rights.
Everybody’s crazy about [saying], “I don’t believe in this.”
It’s a really hard and a very big decision.
It’s your body.
Or are we going into “The Handmaid’s Tale”?
The truth is, if you don’t have control over your own body, then who does?
The lady down the block?
Should we call up the church lady and ask her when we can bleed and when we can’t?
Is that what we’re going to be doing?
it’s possible for you to’t tell me what to do with my body."
But it’s okay to tell a woman what to do with hers?
Of course I’m going to stand up and say something.
Honestly, wake up.
you could tell me, “I’m not a feminist.
I’m a bad feminist.”
Let me tell you something, darling.
If you went to college, thank the feminists.
If you go to a bar at night, thank the feminists.
If you belong to a health club, thank the feminists.
If you’re a lawyer, thank the feminists.
If you get your own paycheck, thank the feminists.
Because women did not [get to do those things before].
You have to know your history.
You have to know where you came from to understand what’s being done to you right now.
…
We’re half the population.
We don’t have to take it anymore.
You vote them out.
What do you do?
Get rid of them.
It’s called being fired, not hired.
It is not the truth.
I don’t believe that we should not know the truth.
I think you should know the truth.
It’s not like “Dolores Roach.”
That’s a creative story, but in real life, there is fact-checking.
There is a reality that we live as women.
We don’t get paid the same.
We don’t get the same opportunities.
Anyway, don’t get me started on all this because you know me.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Watch “The Horror of Dolores Roach” on Prime Video beginning July 7.
