The Big Picture

Collider talks with Jennifer Tilly, co-star of Syfy’s
Chucky
series about Season 3.
Tilly, who plays herself and Tiffany Valentine in the show, discusses her toxic love life with the killer doll, how she really feels about Fiona Dourif’s Nica Pierce, and how Tiffany would transform the White House as a killer First Lady.
The actress also talks with us about her groundbreaking role in
Bound
30 years ago, making her an LGBTQ+ icon in Hollywood,
The Real Housewives
, and more.

To us at Collider (or at least to this writer), there’s no one more dazzling — both in a fashion sense and personality — than the iconic Jennifer Tilly. The Academy Award-nominated star is a jack-of-all-trades, not only as an actress in classics like Bullets Over Broadway and Bound, as well as on the vocal call sheet for Seth MacFarlane’s animated juggernaut, Family Guy, but also as a World Series of Poker champion and a close friend of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Sutton Stracke. Tilly has demonstrated over and over again that she’s not someone to be underestimated, and she’ll be more than happy to prove it to you — possibly also taking all of your money while she’s at it.

Tilly can currently be seen reprising her role as Tiffany Valentine in the third season of Syfy and USA Network’s hit series, Chucky, a character that she’s played for more than two decades since the release of the 1998 film, Bride of Chucky. Along with chatting about what Tiffany is up to in Season 3 and her tumultuous relationships with both the titular slasher doll (voiced by Brad Dourif) and Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif), Tilly also shared the importance of her queer cult classic feature, Bound, and what it means for her to have been involved with such a cinematic staple. You can check out the full interview with Tilly below.

Chucky After a vintage Chucky doll turns up at a suburban yard sale, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos as a series of horrifying murders begin to expose the town’s hypocrisies and secrets.Release Date October 12, 2021 Cast Brad Dourif , Alyvia Alyn Lind , Alex Vincent , Christine Elise Main Genre Horror Seasons 3

COLLIDER: Hey, I’m Britta. Good to meet you.

JENNIFER TILLY: Hi, Britta. Nice to meet you. Somebody at Collider wrote a really great article about me the other day, and for that, I’m grateful.

Oh, excellent. I have written a lot of Chucky articles so that tracks.

TILLY: We love Collider. Collider is Chucky’s friend.

Thank you so much. Jennifer, I feel like I speak for the entire Housewives community when I say that we really appreciated seeing you on Beverly Hills this season. I just want to put that out there.

TILLY: Oh, my gosh. I’ve always been a Housewife super fan. I’ve watched it from the very beginning. Sutton [Stracke’s] my best friend. I’m sure you saw her last season playing my best friend on Chucky, which she was a natural. She’s never acted before, but you could never tell. She was great. And she loved being on Chucky, and I loved being on Housewives.

We’re hoping to see you with the rest of the ladies this season. I’m just putting that out there.

TILLY: You never know. Chucky keeps me pretty busy. Killing is hard work! [Laughs]

It’s cleaning up all the blood.

Jennifer Tilly Celebrates Milestone Anniversary as LGBTQ+ Icon in ‘Bound’
“At that time, there were hardly any lesbian representations in mainstream cinema.”
Image Via Gramercy Pictures 

Before I bounce into Chucky, I just wanted to say that you’re about to celebrate a pretty big anniversary for Bound. It’s coming up on 30 years.

TILLY: 30 years, my gosh.

It’s joining the Criterion Collection this summer, which is huge.

TILLY: It’s so fantastic.

Looking back, how does it feel to be such an icon in queer cinema?

TILLY: You know what? I love it so much. Bound was very groundbreaking at the time because I feel like we set the path, because at that time, there were hardly any lesbian representations in mainstream cinema. I mean, they had the Red Shoe Diaries, they’re sort of like popcorn kind of situations, but just to have two people that happened to be in love and they both happened to be female was pretty groundbreaking. [Lilly and Lana] Wachowski said to me, “You would not believe how many actresses refused to come in and read because they thought it would be very bad for their career.” They were telling me some of the actresses, and I was like, “I cannot believe that these actresses don’t want to come in and read for the two best female parts that I’ve read in a very, very long time.” Of course, we were a little worried, Gina [Gershon] and I, that it might be pornographic — I mean, more pornographic than what we want, but the Wachowskis were so respectful.

At the time it came out, it was sort of mismarketed and nobody really saw it. It was in the theaters for, I think, a week. We were very gratified to find out it became a cult film and it’s coming out in the Criterion Collection, and I think it was on a lot of the streaming services, because it sort of went away for a while. But I think it’s an amazing movie. It’s one of my favorite films I’ve ever done. It’s like your basic film noir. It’s a classic film noir with a twist, if I might say, and we’re really happy to find it’s found its audience. And last year on Chucky, also, Don did an homage to Bound where he had Joey Pantoliano and Gina Gershon come in, and we sort of did a storyline about that, which is really kind of an inside thing because most of the Bound fans are also Chucky fans. They love Tiffany. So, my whole world, it kind of comes full circle. The Criterion Collection, though, I think it’s gonna be super high definition and a lot of extras, and me and Joey and Gina, like, talking smack about each other in the commentary. It’s gonna be a great thing to see.

“Death on Denial,” I think, was the episode last year. It was so good.

TILLY: And my real sister, Meg Tilly, played my sister. Now, every time on my Instagram, I post a picture of Meg, all the fans go, “We thought you killed her.” My mom’s like, “What?” And it’s like, “Oh, nothing. Tiffy killed Meg!” [Laughs] But she had such a ball. She doesn’t even watch scary movies. I mean, she doesn’t really watch Chucky because she doesn’t like blood, but she loved doing those two episodes. I don’t think she watched the second one where she gets viciously slaughtered, but she did watch “Death on Denial,” and she had such a fun time doing it. It’s the first time we ever worked together.

Oh, that’s crazy. Well, it was a great episode, so kudos to that. Diving into to Season 3, it’s really excellent.

TILLY: Thank you.

Jennifer Tilly Reflects on Chucky and Tiffany’s Complicated Love Story
“This is what drives Tiffany’s love.”

Chucky and Tiffany are obviously horror’s number one couple, but we did see Tiffany kind of veer off of that pathway with her unrequited obsession for Nica. Do you think that down the line, if Nica ever turned her 180 feelings, do you think that Tiffany would leave Chucky for Nica?

TILLY: Well, I always was saying to Don, even when last year’s Tiffany is trying to slaughter Chucky and saying she hates him and cuts his head off — [laughs] you know, relationships — I always said it’s a love story, and Tiffany must love Chucky very much if she hates him so viciously. I think what she fell in love with in Nica is that Chucky was in Nica, but then Nica had that soft side that she never got from Chucky, the compassion and the caring. Now Nica hates Tiffany just as much as Tiffany hates Chucky. She’s somehow annoyed that I cut off her arms and legs. Like, you gotta do what you gotta do! But you’ll see on this season, obviously, because of this big vendetta to get revenge on Tiffany.

But Tiffany, she’s in love with Nica, but Nica is another side of Chucky. I always said to Don, “She’s in love with Chucky. It’s a big love.” I think you’ll see some of that when she is persuading Chucky not to give up, and he’s in the White House, and he can go down as the greatest serial murderer of all time. I think they belong together. We used to say, “Oh, they’re like Mickey and Mallory [Knox], but they understand each other.” I think that she wants Chucky to have a little more Nica in him, to show that he cares about her. That’s all she wants. This is what drives Tiffany’s love. She wants Glen and Glenda to love her, she wants Nica to love her, and she wants Chucky to love her. It’s very much a driving passion when that’s what you want. So it sounds really weird because Tiffany has probably murdered 57 people in her lifetime, but Tiffany is all about love. She wants to know that somebody cared about her, and I think the fans are gonna really like Tiffany and Chucky getting back together.

Tiffany Valentine Would Add Her Own Flair as First Lady
Image via USA Network/SyFy

Definitely. So like you said, Chucky’s in the White House. He’s obviously not the president or going to be the president, but if he were the president, what changes to the inside of the White House do you think, as the First Lady, Tiffany would make?

TILLY: Oh, if Tiffany was in the White House, she would redecorate it. I mean, she’s not into tasteful neutrals. I think she would do a lot of Goth-inspired decor, like red velvet walls and black leather sofas and things like that, like jeweled chandeliers. Tiffany likes everything over-the-top. Of course, some of the rooms will have to be redecorated to go with your outfits.

Obviously.

TILLY: So, I think that’s going to be her main concern, is redecorating the White House. Then I also think that they’re going to make a special room. You know how Candy Spelling has a room just where she can wrap gifts? Well, Tiffany and Chucky are gonna have to have a room in the White House where they put the bodies. So there’ll be like a little chute, you pick up the chute, the body goes down into the basement, maybe to fall into a vat of acid or something. But you’ve got to have a place to store the body. It’s really important.

Yes, and with such a big house, it’s perfect. So much space.

TILLY: So many rooms! I love the whole Chucky in the White House conceit, though. I actually went out and bought that book that the little kid was reading called Ghosts of the White House. I always wanted to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom and see the Lincoln ghost. And the fact that there are so many ghosts there, obviously. It’s been around for so long. I love how Don sort of seamlessly blends fiction with reality, and by reality, I mean ghosts, because I totally believe in ghosts. I don’t even know how he came up with these ideas, but it seems like the perfect place for carnage to take place, for Chucky to be running around. I’m sure the White House has lots of bloody, dark secrets as it is.

No Body, No Crime – And No Proof That We’ve Seen The Last Of Jennifer Tilly
Image Via Universal

At the end of the season, we saw Tiffany go back into a doll, and they were talking about getting rid of Jennifer Tilly’s body, but we didn’t see a body disappear. Is there a possibility that she is still with us?

TILLY: I think all things are possible. Don called me to frantically warn me, “No spoilers, no spoilers.” But you brought it up. The fans kept going, “Oh, poor Jennifer. She didn’t deserve that.” Because remember Jennifer’s soul was in Tiffany’s body and got hit by a car. To me, I always think of that as Tiffany, so supposedly Jennifer Tilly is gone. But you know, I do know that Don Mancini, he loves a little Tiffany doll, but he loves having me in the flesh on the set at all times because I make jokes, I buy snacks for the crew, I order cheeseburgers, I give him one. I know which side my bread is buttered on. So I’m sure he’s always gonna find a way for there to be a human Tiffany and the doll Tiffany because he loves both.

Absolutely. And it adds a flare of glam, which we need.

TILLY: Yes, yes, yes. We need the glam, for sure. I think there will always be a little place under the stairs for Miss Jennifer Tilly in Don Mancini’s Chucky opus.

Seasons 1 to 3 of Chucky are now streaming in their entirety on Peacock.

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