The Stars of ‘Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll’ on Rehearsing and Working With Denis Leary

Elaine Hendrix, Robert Kelly and John Ales star as the band members and the three spent a couple of minutes chatting about their roles, the show and more.

The stars of FX’s Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll headed down to Comic-Con to talk up their new show about the lead singer of a legendary New York band, Johnny Rock (Denis Leary). The band was on the brink of becoming famous but broke up because lead guitarist Flash (John Corbett) found Johnny in bed with his wife. 25 years later, Rock is out of work, out of money and out of show business options. That’s when a talented young singer (Elizabeth Gillies) shows up with a stack of cash big enough to bring the whole band back into the studio.

Elaine Hendrix, Robert Kelly and John Ales star as the band members and the three spent a couple of minutes chatting about their roles, the show and more.

Here’s an excerpt from Hendrix’s interview: 

Did Denis create any character history for you guys?

Elaine Hendrix: God, I love working with Denis because it’s not just like, “Hey, let’s write this script and go.” No, he’s very invested in it from top to bottom. So, he had this whole idea about my character, his character, our relationship, the whole dynamic. But then once we get in there, his real genius is being to let that go and letting each one of us bring our ideas to it. So, it became very collaborative and as we went along, we really got deeper and deeper into it.

And he rehearses and we talk and we share pictures and ideas and stories. So, it’s just this big creative soup working with him. It’s really fantastic.

You guy rehearse before you shoot the whole episode?

Elaine Hendrix: Yeah, we do. We’re all busting our asses from he time we get to work. Well, first of all, we’ve done a table reading. We’ve talked about things and we’ve kind of rehearsed before we even get to set. And once we get to set, we rehearse each scene before we shoot them. And not only that, where we shot, it was kind of like the sound stage and almost a dormitory upstairs where our dressing rooms were. And at the end of the hall, they built us a rehearsal hall. So, were were not only doing acting stuff but we were up there playing guitars, drums, singing. It was like a full on studio as well.

Yeah, we lived it 24/7.

Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll airs at 10pm on Thursdays on FX.

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