When she’s not winning Tony Awards for producing Broadway shows or directing top-tier music videos, Alyah Chanelle Scott is busy playing my favorite character in Sex Lives of College Girls — soccer and STEM queen Whitney. Thank goodness season 3 is finally upon us and thank goodness I got to meet Alyah and ask her hard-hitting questions at the Betches office!
Fun fact: My own alma mater, Vassar College, costarred with Alyah in season 1 of the Max sitcom. She played Essex College and she was robbed of an Emmy for that performance. So yeah, Alyah and I both have experience pretending to pay attention and do work at that stunning Poughkeepsie, NY campus.
Fans of the show are painfully aware that season 2 ended with Kimberly making an unhinged decision (surprise, surprise) to kiss Whitney’s ex, Canaan, and then lie to her about it. At the start of season 3, Whitney very generously forgives Kimberly, but would Alyah forgive a bestie for such a heinous crime against girl code IRL? “Absolutely not,” she told me. “Never. Not a chance. On TV, we do things we wouldn’t do in life.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
The actress noted that it’s been a whole summer since the girlies have seen each other, so it would be “crazy” for Whitney to still hold the same level of grudge. “Although that’s what I would do in life because I’m not the most healed,” she clarified. Yup, retweet.
In addition to our Sex Lives of College Girls discussion, Alyah and I chatted about Wicked, Reneé Rapp, frangipane, and Smurf fashion. The essential topics.
It’s an honor to welcome the iconic Alyah Chanelle Scott into the Hall of Betches!
HALL OF BETCHES INDUCTION:
ALYAH CHANELLE SCOTT
Okay. It’s Wicked season. So I was wondering-
What a lovely start to this.
How are you holding space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”? And also, which song on the Wicked soundtrack best describes or fits your current era?
Well, currently… I guess the song’s lyrics don’t fit the era, but “What is This Feeling?” has become my boyfriend’s favorite song as of late. It’s the song that we are constantly singing as a bit and also not as a bit. If we’re in two different rooms, we’ll just be like, “What is this feeling?” It’s really bad.
How am I holding space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”? I don’t know what that means. And nobody knows what that means, unfortunately.
That’s true. So, Reneé is leaving the show, sadly. Do you have a favorite on-set memory with her? And would you collaborate on more music videos in the future?
Yes, definitely collabing on anything and everything with her. She’s great. Favorite on-set memory? This season, it’s already out. The scene where Bella is using gay slang and she’s sitting at the table and she’s like, “Your alpha dom femme top energy.” Reneé and I genuinely could not get through one take of that. We were dying laughing every single time to the point where they were like, “Okay guys, we need to move on from this. Can you please just keep a straight face to let her get through the line?” Because gay slang is just really funny. Bella using gay slang, that just was a hilarious bit for the writers.
It was so funny.
It was so good.
Who would be at your dream celebrity dinner party?
Fuck. Okay. Well, I’m obsessed with Martha Stewart. She’s my idol and my queen. I’ve seen every documentary, I’ve read every book. I have her new book. It’s like she’s everything to me and I want to be her inside training and all. She didn’t even do insider trading, she was a scapegoat.
You have to say Beyoncé. She’s someone who I’ve been obsessed with forever. Beyoncé, Michelle and Kelly, honestly, all three of them would be at my dream dinner party. Jenna Lyons, she’s great. Love her. New favorite housewife. Shonda Rhimes. I fear I will never meet her unless I force her to come to my dinner party because she famously doesn’t go anywhere and she loves to talk about it.
I think she’ll come with that group. What’s your weirdest obsession?
Okay. I like to bake a lot and recently I love almond croissants and I specifically love the filling of an almond croissant. And so I did a deep dive into what that was. It’s a French treat called frangipane, and I have started to make it, and you can put it on bread and make this thing called bostock. It’s a whole thing.
That sounds so good. What would be your death row meal? And it can include frangipane.
It would probably be some form of a frangipane, tart or toast, chocolate chip walnut cookies, chocolate cake, ice cream. I probably wouldn’t eat many savory things. I’d probably just eat sweets. If that was it for me, I’d just load up on sweets.
I would too. Do you have any major fashion regrets from your youth?
I grew up in Texas and we had school uniforms. You had to wear a collared shirt every single day, and I used to hang out with all these girls who would wear color-coordinated outfits and all of them had every single color of Converse, every single color of Vans, every single color of Polo. So we would literally run around school in orange shirt, orange shoes, yellow shirt, yellow shoes, and I would try to one-up them by having the same colored pants. So I would go to school wearing pink shirt, pink pants, pink shoes. I really thought I was eating the girls up until one day I came downstairs and I had all blue on and my dad was like, “What are you doing? You look like a Smurf.” I literally cried and I was like, “I’m never doing this again.” I was so mortified.
Not your dad bullying you.
He ate me up. He read me for filth. He was like, “Why are you dressed like a Smurf? Where are you going?” I was like, “Dad, this is the look.”
What’s the last thing you Googled?
Let’s see. Scarlett Johansson makeup brand, because I was talking to my boyfriend about how celebrity makeup brands are wildly successful. The one under that though is actually quite cool and impressive. It’s a French film that I watched last night called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It’s a French musical operetta film that’s beautifully shot and now one of my favorite movies ever. So that makes me seem cooler.
I’ll include that one. Okay, picture yourself in the backseat of an Uber.
Okay, I was just there.
On a rainy day. What song is playing in your head?
Oh God. Anything off of Lizzie McAlpine’s latest album. I like “Vortex,” I like “The Elevator.” She’s an icon.
She’s amazing.
And an idol, and someone who I’m trying to make my friend, by forcing her to hang out with me. It’s not really working out so well. No, we’ve hung out a couple times. She’s great. She’s wonderful, and I am obsessed with her music and desperately want her to write a musical. I’m like, “Girl, you need to write it to make it and we’ll all be there.”
What would the title of a movie about your life be?
She Tried. We’ll say that. We’ll say She Tried.
