Niecy Nash-Betts Is 'Absolutely Not a Horror Fan', Made Wife Jessica Look for 'Boogie Man' After Filming Creepy “Grotesquerie ”Scenes“ ”(Exclusive)
Despite not being a fan of horror, the Emmy winner tells PEOPLE she was "blown away" by the new Ryan Murphy thriller series
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Niecy Nash-Betts in 'Grotesquerie'Don't let her resumé fool you — Niecy Nash-Betts is a total scaredy cat.
The actress stars in yet another Ryan Murphy series, Grotesquerie, as a small-town detective trying to solve a series of frightening murders while also battling her own inner demons. Ahead of the show's premiere, Nash-Betts, 54, tells PEOPLE she is "absolutely not a horror fan," but she's still "just obsessed with this show."
"I would get off work and go home and have to do a sweep of the house," she admits of the lingering effects of filming such creepy scenes. "[I'd] open the closet doors, make sure the windows are locked, look around. I'm not a fan [of horror], but I'm a fan of Ryan."
She also relied on her wife, Jessica Betts, to do some of the safety checks around the house after particularly long days on set.
"I'm happily married, so anytime I got to come home to my better half, I just felt safer," she says. "I felt like, 'Okay, you go find a boogie man, I'm going to bed.'"
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Jessica Betts and Niecy Nash Betts at the premiere of FX's "Grotesquerie" held at Spring Studios on September 23, 2024 in New York City.Ironically, her wife "loves horror," she says, which ended up working out perfectly because Jessica "got to play a little role in this with me."
"So that was nice. Bring your spouse to work day," she jokes, before calling mixing business and pleasure her "favorite thing."
Despite not being a fan of horror herself, Nash-Betts was "blown away" on set of the FX series. "When I got to see some of the crime scenes actualized — you just don't even know how he comes up with this."
"I'm just obsessed with this show," she continues. "When we were filming, we would have days where the cast and crew would just be talking on set about who we think Grotesquerie is. 'I think it's this person. I think it's that person. What about this? What about that?' You can't help but lean in, because it is the perfect whodunit."
Prashant Gupta/FX
Niecy Nash as Lois Tryon in 'Grotesquerie'Murphy aside, the other pull to the show for Nash-Betts was the complexity of her character, Detective Lois Tryon.
"I've never played a character like this. Her home life is a wreck. Problems with her husband, problems with her daughter. She's abusing alcohol. She has so many demons of her own that she's fighting, but at the same time, she's really good at what she does," she says.
"I thought it would be interesting to give my instrument over to her and see what would happen. And I loved it."
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Grotesquerie premieres Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX and will be streaming the next day on Hulu.
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