The Celebreality Interview - Lina

“In every show there is always someone who you love to hate. I personally don’t want to be that person,” Scream Queens cast-off Lina tells us below. And it’s true: on a show teeming with horror-movie monsters, Lina came off as a real-life villain. She’s been accused of racism and homophobia, and says she’s even received death threats, all of which she finds unfair. Below, she talks about her disenchantment with reality TV, and describes how she feels her sense of humor was distorted to make her seem hateful, when from her point of view, she’s merely sarcastic. Is she really offensive, or are people being too sensitive, perhaps too unsophisticated for her subtle humor? Read her explanation below and you be the judge:

You’ve been receiving death threats?

Yes, I have and it’s getting a little out of hand. I am not racist.

Explain why you aren’t racist.

All of my racial comments were out of sarcasm. People don’t get it. You have to have half a brain to understand my humor. Most of the time, I’m laughing afterwards, but that doesn’t really make it to air. I think my portrayal was pretty one-dimensional. You don’t get to see anything funny that I did. On the show, I’m not the funny girl, I’m the mean diva bitch. You didn’t get to see Tanedra calling me “Eggroll” and Sarah telling me to make her fried rice and me telling girls I’ll do their nails for them. I’m not trying to offend anyone, but whatever has been taken as offensive was equal-opportunity offensive. It was all in fun and joking with friends. I think that you didn’t see that side and that everything I said came off as being so serious is why people have mistaken me as a racist.

Part of the perception of your racism comes from the sense that there was tension between you and Tanedra. Were you on friendly terms?

We were always friends, joking around and being silly. She wanted to play things up for camera, I agreed. We both decided to cause drama for the show. It was for ratings and entertainment. People have to realize that a reality show is still a show. Even me calling her “Soul Train” was a joke. And we’re still friends: we talk like once a week.

Even if the vibe of the house was politically incorrect, we still saw how nasty things could turn: Jessica told Sarah she looked ugly because she was Jewish.

Jessica’s was vindictive and mean because she felt attacked. She’s had issues with her body image, so yeah, the first thing that came to mind was to say Sarah was ugly. I don’t agree with what followed, it was just uncalled for. But Sarah and Angie and…all the girls, we were just silly and we’d talk trash. I guess this is the type of stuff that you’re only supposed to do privately.

What about when you called Tanedra a “token black girl”?

I was a token Asian girl! There’s always going to be a black girl or an Asian girl, and we usually die first. It’s politically incorrect to say it, but let’s be realistic: it happens. As much as we’ve grown in society and we’ve accepted every race and religion, there’s still typecasting. And it is what it is. You can embrace it and laugh about it and use it to prove people wrong, or you can be pissed off and cry about it. Entertainment is entertainment and if every comedian can joke about it and people laugh, why am I being attacked?

Did you regret not being up front about your reservations about kissing a girl?

When you go into an audition, you know what you’re auditioning for. I went in auditioning for the three roles that I liked. To me, it’s like, they always want to get the Asian girl naked or tied up in f***ing cattle rope or they want us to be hookers. I just wanted to do something a little different from what they wanted. To be honest, I don’t have a problem kissing a girl. My first kiss was a girl when I was 6-years-old, experimenting or whatever. I have no problem kissing girls and I have no problem with girls kissing. To each his own. But the way they wanted to do this was tasteless to me. It wasn’t an Oscar-caliber love story. It was a cheesy, campy hot tub scene. It’s funny because I just got a call for a lead in a horror movie and they told me that there’s going to be a nude hot tub scene. I said, “Absolutely not.” But if it was an incredible script with an
award-winning director and talent, I would consider it. There has to be a purpose to it beyond exciting horny boys who are watching VH1. It’s just stupid. A lot of girls do it for attention, and I just don’t respect that.

It’s surprising that your attitude is “to each his own,” because on the show you said, “I don’t think girls should be kissing girls. It’s just not normal.”

I don’t even think I said that! Sometimes the interviews go on for so long and at some point, you just say whatever they want you to say because you just want to get the f*** out of there. I did talk about kissing a girl in the past but it wasn’t included. Look, in every show there is always someone who you love to hate. I personally don’t want to be that person, I would prefer to just disappear in the background and to not be remembered at all.

Before you saw the finished product, how was the experience of doing this show for you?

It was torture. We were there for three weeks or more. 10 girls, 1 bathroom, 4 rooms, with no sleep, no music, no TV, no books, no pen and paper, no Internet, news, little food, a bunch of alcohol. There was no outlet. We were going out of our minds. They wanted drama, they got it.

Did you find the challenges helpful?

As good of an acting coach that John Homa is, I felt like most of what we were supposed to learn was ridiculous. I didn’t learn anything in class. Most of the things seemed more like Fear Factor than acting. We were put in positions like jumping out of a window, and I was freaking out because Scott said we could go paralyzed if we landed wrong. It was crazy. Not much was about acting, it was more like facing your fears and be as uncomfortable as possible with cameras watching your reaction.

What’s coming up for you?

I just wrapped Repossession Mambo with Forest Whitaker and Jude Law, I’m a producer and have a role in Thorns from a Rose with Tiny Lister, and I did Liberty with Michael Ironside.

Are you resentful of this experience?

I am happy I have made friends with the girls so I’m not angry, but I just have to ask myself, why did I do this show? I’m already working, I didn’t need to do a reality show. I never wanted to do a reality show. When I got the opportunity, it came down to good exposure. I felt like it wasn’t going to hurt, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I was wrong. All I got was a bum rap. In the end, I regret it. I wish I never did it.

Keep up with Lina via her MySpace and her official site.

Related content
Scream Queens show page
Scream Queens videos
Horror Hotties (a photo gallery of fright-flick actresses)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 2:22 pm