Kristen Chenoweth told Insider that she asked for her costume to be intentionally uncomfortable to help with her role in Apple TV+'s "Schmigadoon!"
In the series, Chenoweth plays a judgemental conservative, Christian, Mildred Layton, who tries to steer the town of Schmigadoon away from progress.
In an interview with Insider, the Broadway star described how her costume helped bring her character to life.
She said: "I needed the maniacal Joker lips because she's crazy and I needed not a hair out of place and I needed her to be buttoned up from here to here and I'm telling you it was so uncomfortable but it helped me be uncomfortable. I'm pretty basically an overall happy person. I needed to be uncomfortable and I was!"
This is not the first time the award-winning actress has played a villain. She played Maleficent in Disney's "Descendants" and Velma Von Tussle in NBC's "Hairspray Live!" Coincidentally, both projects starred her "Schmigadoon!" co-star Dove Cameron as Chenoweth's daughter.
Chenoweth added that she regretted the decision after a couple of weeks.
"I had a love-hate relationship with my costume," she said. "I asked the designer: 'The corsets. Can you make it a little tight?' I wanted to be uncomfortable. That was a cute idea at first and then in week three, I'm like, 'This isn't funny anymore. I can't breathe."
"Schmigadoon!" is a musical comedy that parodies the golden age of musicals — musicals made in the mid-20th century such as "The Sound of Music" and "Oklahoma!" Chenoweth told Broadwaydirect.com that her character was an "amalgamation" of many Broadway characters including Laurie from "Oklahoma!" Chenoweth's solo song in the series parodies "Ya Got Trouble" from "The Music Man."
Chenoweth told Insider that despite the difficulty of the four-minute solo song, she was able to perform it perfectly without any cuts on the first take. Coincidentally, the Tony award-winning actress starred in the movie version of "The Music Man" in 2003.
