How does Bailey become a nanny? She’s devastated when the band she’s been in wants to find a younger, hipper singer. When her ratty old truck breaks down near a ranch, the door opens to a houseful of kids who have gone through several nannies—similar to Sound of Music—and she thinks, Well, my life has just completely been ruined, so maybe I should try this nanny thing. Will she sing in every episode? There may be one or two episodes that don’t have music. We have a few dream sequences, similar to what Smash did. But typically the writers found ways to get the music into the show naturally. You’ve just had your first child, a boy, with husband David Foster. Did you learn anything working with the kids on the show? I’ve learned that I’m probably going to be a pretty strict mom. Working with kids, there’s a balance of them having fun and also trying to get them to stay focused when the time is important. So, I find myself very motherly, like, “Hey, everyone, time to focus now,” like a schoolteacher, and then also wanting to encourage them to have fun. How does an L.A. girl get cast in a show called Country Comfort? I definitely don’t have my roots in country music, but my agent sent me this really cute script and he said, “You should take a look at this. It’s for Netflix.” I thought I was auditioning for a pilot. I thought I was auditioning for a single-camera show, which would be like a regular shooting schedule, not a multi-camera. I had no idea it was a sitcom. I just honestly read the script and fell in love with the role and the comedy of it, the clever writing. I just literally loved how sweet and funny and clever the script was. I auditioned for it, and then I had another audition for it, and then I pretty much just got it. I was so shocked when they told me, “So, you’ll start on this day, you’ll have 10 episodes, and it’s a sitcom.” I was like, “What?” My mind was blown. I had no idea it was a sitcom. I had no idea it was more than the pilot. The way we used to do things before all the streaming was you did a pilot and then you’d have to sit and wait. It was lots of surprises for me. How good of a nanny does Bailey turn out to be? The journey of her through this show is really showing what a terrible nanny she is, but the one thing she has is care for these children. She really does care for them and has compassion for them. She may not be the best at managing time and separating her career desires from the children, but she certainly has a lot of love for the family and the kids absolutely adore her despite all her shortcomings. One of the things people say is it is difficult working with kids. Is that your experience? The kids are so well behaved. I also played a mom on the last show that I was on, Scorpion. When you’re working on a set, you’re there to work. There’s a balance to working with kids to not make them feel like it’s just work, work, work the entire time. You want them to enjoy themselves. But there is a level of having to hone in on the attention spans and things like that. Obviously, you have one of the most talented music producers at home with husband David Foster. Will he be involved in the music for the show? You know what’s so funny? My showrunner, Caryn Lucas, who I’ve become really close with, comes to me and talks about which songs I want to do. David’s usually very close by my side after hours away from work, so they have an ongoing joke back and forth about how David is dismayed by the fact that Caryn has not yet written a part for him in the show. He’s been looking at Acting 101 and trying to get his acting chops up. Actually, we have a great group of people, whose roots are more based in country music. David always gives his opinion and helps. It’s kind of great because I can come home and say, “This is the recording,” and he’ll say, “You should really fix this or that,” but for the most part, he lets people just do their job. When you look back on your American Idol days, what’s your take on it now? It’s such an amazing platform. For me, I really looked at it as a talent competition, which it is. I didn’t realize going into the competition that the most important thing to do was to find yourself, your artistry within each genre of the week, because, ultimately, what America was going to buy later as a product of you was your artistry within. One of the things that I did get to do on American Idol was to sing lots of different styles of music, without really knowing that that wasn’t actually the end goal on the show. The end goal was to find your own style. I kept fitting into every style each week, like I sounded a little country here, or a little jazzy there. That worked to my benefit in some ways, but not in terms of overall figuring out myself as an artist. But as an actress, it works great because you can just morph into lots of different types of characters. I always think Carrie Underwood was the perfect example. She found her country voice within every genre each week. That was how she not only had an amazing voice, but made it work for her. She was telling the world, “I’m going to be this consistently.” I was a little bit more all over the place, which actually makes sense, because I really desired to be more of an actress. Of course, I didn’t want to say that because you’re on a talent competition. But it worked out for me because I didn’t have that much performance experience. So, I credit it with giving me a huge platform and giving me a huge crash course in live performing. I didn’t really have that experience. I wasn’t in high school playing in bands on the weekends and things like that. I was more in my room fantasizing about this scenario or that scenario, and I just loved to sing. For me, it was an amazing, amazing platform. It did give me huge recognition, but I had a lot of work to do after the show, really, which was to continue to tour and find myself as a performer, and also start auditioning for things that I was interested in, like movies and TV shows, which later got me the shows that I did get. It was probably the best college I could have and didn’t pay for. Of everything that you’ve done what are you most proud of that you’ve achieved? Broadway, probably. The whole experience. I’m repeating myself, but I also got to open Waitress in the West End. It was a huge honor being one of the few Americans to go to London and live there and open the show in the West End. It felt pretty special for them to entrust in me the integrity of the show. I got to work with Diane Paulus, who directed Waitress, on a much deeper level than when I first came into the show. That was a huge honor for me. You were on Broadway with Waitress just before the quarantine shut everything down. Was Broadway an aspiration? It was. I really did patiently wait for the right show. I had been offered other Broadway shows coming off of American Idol, but I wanted a show that hadn’t been played by 100 different women. It was a very small group of women who played the role of Jenna in Waitress. I felt like I was part of something really special. How did you survive the quarantine? Still surviving. We’re in California, so it’s one of the worst places to be at the moment. I find ways to be creative around the house and connect with friends and family on the phone. Listen, there’s so many worse scenarios, so it’s all about perspective, I think.
