What if you are an actor or actress that wants to be beloved by America, but also hates being scared? For those gentle angels, The Ellen Show poses a difficult conundrum.
On one hand, Sarah Paulson is right to be horrified that an Ellen DeGeneres interview basically guarantees she will be pants-peeingly scared at least once. On the other hand, that’s Ellen’s whole deal. It doesn’t matter if you want to remain not-scared on The Ellen Show. You have to assume a clown has been crouching inside a box for at least an hour, waiting for the exact moment you decide to relax.
The clown may even wait for you to sweat through your entire interview, show off your Cher impression and play a bemusing little game before he reveals himself. Ellen might be engineering her own special breed of daytime-talk-show scare clowns with extra durable knees and lower oxygen requirements. You just have to anticipate the terror, Sarah Paulson. Why? Because it is simply Ellen’s way to scare.