Before Amber Riley became a successful actress and a champion on “The Masked Singer” and “Dancing With The Stars,” she starred on one of the first shows to explode in the modern social media era: “Glee.”
In a recent appearance on the “Zach Sang Show,” Riley, 40, opened up on how the pop culture phenomenon came to be, and how the pilot episode hit close to home for her. Real close.
“When we actually shot it, I was like, they spent all that money on location. We shot most of the pilot at my little brother’s school,” she told Sang. “A real high school in Long Beach. That’s where the show is modeled after, the look of the auditorium … they shot the auditorium, and they shot all the football stuff at the real high school, which is my little brother’s high school.”
Ultimately, after filming the pilot episode, Riley had no idea whether Fox had picked up the series. “I mean months, like it was months and months, and I’m like ‘Oh well, I guess it didn’t do anything,'” she recalled. “Mind you, the money that they had to have spent on that pilot, bro, is crazy. We shot the pilot for like a month. That’s not normal.”
Riley added that television episodes are usually shot within a week, but the attention to detail eventually led to one of the “greatest pilots of all time” and stamped Riley as someone to watch in Hollywood.
“When I saw it, I was crying. I had seen nothing like it,” she said. “This is coming from someone who loves TV. I love television. When I saw that pilot… when I read the pilot, I was blown away.”
How Riley became Mercedes Jones has its own lore, too. After originally auditioning with “Tell Me Something Good” by Chaka Khan and Rufus, a casting director made her pivot, asking her to sing “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls,” one of the signature ballads in all of theater and film.
“I surprised myself,” Riley said about nailing the song, prompting the casting director to find anyone within earshot to hear Riley sing the song.
Riley would become synonymous with Mercedes Jones for six seasons between 2009 and 2015, eventually having spinoff moments for “DWTS” and later “The Masked Singer.” But it all comes back to “Glee” as the show still remains a cultural touchpoint for millions of fans across the globe.
“‘Glee’ was the beginning of the whole social media thing, and you can instantly see what people think about you. I never had to deal with that growing up,” she said. “Having that access to know exactly, instantly, what people thought about you was just so nerve-wracking to me.”
