Niecy Nash-Betts Is ‘Not a One-Trick Pony’

Niecy Nash-Betts has no appetite for horror. So it’s hard to fathom her decision to star as an alcoholic detective in the FX horror series Grotesquerie, which opens with a murdered family hogtied and stuffed like a roasted pig. But presented with an irresistible script by Ryan Murphy — with whom she’s collaborated four times since 1999 — and taking on an executive producer role as well, how could she say no? 

The show, which concluded Oct. 31, follows Nash-Betts’ heavy-drinking detective Lois Tryon, who recruits a nun (Micaela Diamond) to help her investigate a string of heinous murders. As the bodies pile up, Lois’ daughter Merritt (Raven Goodwin) struggles with an eating disorder, her husband Marshall (Courtney B. Vance) falls into a coma, and she falls into a budding romance with a hospital orderly named Ed (Travis Kelce). And there’s at least one big twist along the way. To keep herself distracted from the melodrama, guts, and gore, Nash-Betts says she cracked jokes on set with Kelce and Goodwin and filmed TikToks with crew members in between takes. 

“It’s a lot of energy to give them the ‘good time’ version of you, and then also hold space for this broken person experiencing all of this trauma at the same time,” she says of the filming process. “So I [went] home tired. A lot.” 

Over the last decade, Nash-Betts has deftly toggled between comedy and drama, playing roles as varied as civil rights activist Richie Jean Jackson in Selma; Delores Wise, mother of accused teen Korey Wise in Ava DuVernay’s dramatization of the Central Park Five story, When They See Us; and whistleblowing neighbor Glenda Cleveland in Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, for which she earned her first Emmy. She’s been a swindling nail salon owner in Claws and an officer of the law in the satirical cop procedural Reno 911! (“you can’t fight crime if you ain’t cute!”).  

“What’s important to me and my legacy is that when you look back on it, when I’m dead and gone, you see range,” Nash-Betts says. “That’s what’s important. I am not a one-trick pony. I want to have something in my library for everybody.”

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In Grotesquerie, Lois goes from a lead detective tackling a string of grisly murders to a comatose patient herself, with a diluted sense of reality. What was it playing someone who went through such wild swings?
We meet Lois when she is deep in her addiction. She’s an alcoholic, and in that disease it’s hard to tell [you’re addicted]. You never know, or I would never know. I used to have to unpack it with Ryan: “Where is she today? Is she hungover? Is she plastered? Is she tipsy? Does she really want to drink and that’s what’s driving the rage?” So it really is something that flowed throughout her entire journey. Trying to track that and still play it very grounded was a challenge.

In the finale, Lois still questions whether she actually woke up from her coma or if she’s stuck in a nightmare. Which is it?
Isn’t that wonderful that art makes you think? It makes you curious. You gotta go back to your friends and say, “Well, what did you think?” I think that she’s awake in the last half.

Were there any scenes that were difficult to stomach? 
Oftentimes I’ve been in a place where I have to tell another actor, “Charge it to my art and not my heart.” [I] have to say things, and my job is to make those words come across real. So when I’m sitting at that dinner table full-on drunk, and I’m having a conversation with Ed and Merritt, played by Travis Kelce and Raven Goodwin, and I have to say all these mean things to them — that’s upsetting to my being, not Lois’ being, but I don’t like it. So, that was just a challenge. I don’t ever want the other person to personally feel that my wrath is real.

When Lois is in a liminal mind state, she imagines Merritt stars on a show called “Half-Ton Trauma,” and throughout the series directs fatphobic comments toward her. 
We touch upon a lot of things that are happening in the world. Fat-shaming, women not having agency over their own bodies, climate change, a Black woman trying to rid the world of evil… We touch on so many things that we are all experiencing together in real time. 

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Religion is a huge one. The power of religion to affect and manipulate populations.
Oh, yeah. That too!

The show felt really timely because of the presidential election. You mention climate change, it also dealt with access to abortions… Why was it important to have that series out this fall? 
That’s what art does. It’s very telling. It’s the sign of the times. It’s all woven throughout the series. Ryan doesn’t shy away from anything.

What was it like to work with Travis Kelce?
I love Travis. We just got off the phone together. I love his family. I love his mom, mama Kelsey is my girl. I’m a fan of his [podcast] with his brother, Jason. He’s lovely and he wants to do well. He shows up with an eagerness. Makes you remember when you were a fresh actor starting out and you were so excited to be a part of the world and get baptized into whatever these scenes are. I’ve had the opportunity to go visit him on his job too, and watch him play for the [Kansas City] Chiefs. I just think he’s lovely. 

What went through your head when you realized your character would have a romantic relationship with his?
My only thing was, “OK, Ryan, are we going to talk about it or are we going to show it?” Some people have crazy fans, and I don’t even know what’s going to happen. I’m always professional. He’s so professional. But I just wanted to understand how it was going to play out. So, we know what happened, but we didn’t see it happen.

This isn’t your first police procedural. You played a deputy in Reno 911! and a detective in The Rookie: Feds. Did those roles influence your performance as Lois?
I never gave them a second thought. It just dawned on me right here in this moment, that Raineesha [from 911] and Simone, from The Rookie: Feds, were so dolled up to be cops. Raineesha didn’t know any better. Of course, Simone, being sexy was her superpower.

Which is so interesting, because Lois in Grotesquerie is the kind of role you would expect to be written as a white, middle-aged man. 
That is a role that was typically reserved for somebody who didn’t look like me. So my hope was that the takeaway is, “Oh, maybe we can think differently about some of these scripts. Maybe we can flip it on these familiar tropes and lean into a different way, a different lens, and see what we get.”

In When They See Us, you play the traumatized mother of Korey Wise, who was wrongfully convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case. Why did you want to be a part of that project?
I have been obsessed with the story of the Exonerated Five from the moment I heard about it and I literally sent a text, I sent a phone call, I left a message, I took two cans and tied them with a string just to get a hold of Ava [DuVernay] to say, “I will be anybody in this series. I’m not too proud to audition. I want to be a part of telling this story. I’ve been obsessed with what happened to these children since the time it happened.” She was like, “What? I’m gonna send you this: You’re Korey’s mother.” It was a blessing and a weight to be on set, and some of the Exonerated Five would show up. You had the onus to want to get it right. 

What about Dahmer?
I said yes to Dahmer before even knowing what it was. Ryan Murphy called me and said, “I’ve got this thing I want you to do.” And I said, “OK.” Then he sent the script, and I was like, “Zoinks! OK, this is what we’re doing.”

Your first role in a Ryan Murphy project was a talking lobster in the teen series Popular. What has it been like working with him over 25 years?
He’s a great collaborative partner. He’s so creative. I still don’t know how his mind works. How do you come up with this stuff? To a lot of people, he’s mysterious, untouchable. He walks on the set, and people are in awe, and I’m just like, “Hey, Ryan, how you doing!” I don’t care about any of that. I love him as a person, and I couldn’t ask for a better partner.

Shows like Dahmer and Grotesquerie that center serial killers bring a lot of gore. Is there such a thing as too much? Do you ever feel that sometimes Ryan needs to reel it in?
The short answer is no. I just don’t feel that way. There’s so much art in the world, and it’s very subjective, and you lean into what you’re interested in, there has to be something for everybody. That’s the whole point about art. You don’t put borders on it. You let the mind go. Those genres wouldn’t exist if people weren’t watching. Most people don’t pass an accident and look away. Everybody slows down. They want to see what’s going on.

What do you like to watch?
To be honest with you, this is crazy — I don’t like horror. But I’m obsessed with true crime.

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In Grotesquerie, Lois says, “Dreams are the closest you get to truth.” Have you reached your dreams?
I live them every day. To love, to be loved, and to be able to have the job that I feel like I was created for, I live it every day.

I don’t take my job lightly. It is not something you pursue for fame and fortune, because there are a lot of working actors who are not famous and who don’t have a fortune. It is a passion, and I am grateful every single day that I responded to the whisper.