Special Reports

5 Behind-the-Scenes Stories From the Cast of Rocky Horror

Laverne Cox, Victoria Justice, and more of Fox’s stars tell us what we won’t see on our television screens.

On October 20, a new generation will discover the glory of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and learn the Time Warp 2.0 when Fox's starry reboot hits the air waves. The television special features Ryan McCartan and Victoria Justice as Brad and Janet, Laverne Cox as "Sweet Transvestite" Dr. Frank N. Furter, and Reeve Carney as Riff Raff, among others who fill out the debaucherous castle. In antici…pation of the TV debut, TheaterMania asked the cast to tell us some behind-the-scenes stories that we won't be seeing on our television screens Thursday evening. From April Fools' pranks to raunchy rehearsals, find out what the stars of Rocky Horror will remember most from their time over at the Frankenstein Place.


Reeve Carney (Riff Raff)

(© Steve Wilkie/FOX)

I pride myself on being quite the prankster, but Ryan McCartan may have topped us all. He had some really good April Fools' jokes we played on Staz Nair, our Rocky. He convinced him he had to reshoot the most difficult scene from the film. They had a letter printed out from the network and everything. It was a good prank. He almost broke down.


Ryan McCartan (Brad Majors)

(© Steve Wilkie/FOX)

We were in production on April Fools' Day and I love April Fools' Day. It's my favorite holiday. And we shot basically all-nights so there were two shooting days on April Fools' Day. The first night, I convinced Staz [Nair] (who plays Rocky), who had a big shooting day that day, to just leave — just be like, "You know, Kenny, I just can't do it anymore" and just storm off. And Kenny, bless his soul, was like, "OK, we're wrapped! I'm sorry, we're done!" And then Staz was like, "April Fools'!" But then I teamed up with Kenny to convince Staz that everything that he shot that day couldn't be used because of a copyright issue. Kenny told him that news and he was just so sad — just could not believe. So I got both of them. And I also told my makeup artist that I was allergic to something she put on me. I had a really good day.


Victoria Justice (Janet Weiss)

(© Steve Wilkie/FOX)

We filmed at an actual castle. And we did a lot of night shooting because the castle would reopen at nine o'clock in the morning, so we had all night to shoot and then we had to get out of there. To keep ourselves awake, the cast and I would be playing Heads Up! on my phone. I got everyone addicted to Heads Up!


Laverne Cox (Dr. Frank N. Furter)

(© Steve Wilkie/FOX)

I remember our first rehearsal of "Don't Dream It, Be It." We were all in the pool — me, Ryan, Victoria, Annaleigh, and Staz. I won't say which actor, but one actor was like, "Kenny, we need to be able to kiss and touch and we need to have a moment where we just go for it." Kenny was like, "This is Fox, we can't go too far," and one of the actors was like, "Can we just try it? Let's just go for it." And I'm game so there's one moment during rehearsals where we're all in the pool making out like hard-core. Everybody's kissing, everybody's touching everybody. You're not gonna see people grabbin' all up on me, but it established a different level of trust and intimacy with the actors.


Ben Vereen (Dr. Everett von Scott)

(© Steve Wilkie/FOX)

My favorite moments were sitting on the stage and watching the crew create magic out of nothing. They'd come in like four or five hours before the actors got there. Every single day, those men and women — Kenny Ortega would have this vision and they would make sure he got it. You and I in the audience only see a minute of what took hours to do. They set the stage for us actors to come out and do our thing. They have to light it and shade it in a certain way and set the set up and all the things they do to make that moment magical for us. Whew! It's a lot, baby!