"Empire" Star Kaitlin Doubleday on the Show's Many Twists and Turns

So I'm hugely famous all over the world.

It's hard for me to leave.

You. Well, outside, funny enough, I was trying to park my car and there was just paparazzi everywhere. Everywhere. I know. Screaming fans. You thought like Lady Gaga was here, but it was me.

Well, I knew it was you. I knew it was you.

I'm Oliver Trevino here at the Young Hollywood Studio with the lovely Caitlyn Double Day. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

So I love this girl. I love her. No, like, I love her. Love. How much? So much. Moving on to uh, the biggest show on TV, Empire.

Yeah, it's crazy, right? It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

Season finale over 16 million. I'll meet you live at 9:00 in the war. Yeah. And on top of that, Jamal is going damn crazy. Why would you make him marry some stupid ass backup singer? Now we got to deal with her baby mama. Let's just say But yes, it's amazing. It's really going going into this. I mean, obviously, people like Lee Daniels and Danny Strong behind it. Um, Brian Grazer, you know. This massive huge team. Right. When you get involved in a project like that, is it? Because you never know, nowadays, you know, you never know how it's gonna go. But

No. No, no, no. No. Right. Would you sure being on I don't know. I feel like when I got it, I was like, well, obviously, something's gonna happen with this show. It's not gonna be dead. Like, even if, let's say Fox was like, no, we don't want it anymore. I knew something. Maybe Amazon would buy it or whatever. So, but I didn't know it was gonna become like this sensationalized thing that was like the biggest show in the world. I definitely didn't know that part.

And every person in the world has seen it. And every single person, whether they speak English or not, After we plug it this much, they will. This is great. This is perfect. This is perfect. Seriously.

Yeah. After this interview. It is on in like 40 four countries or something like that. It's crazy. I know. So, I'm hugely famous all over the world. It's hard for me to leave. Well, outside, funny enough, I was trying to park my car and there was just paparazzi everywhere. Everywhere. I know. Screaming fans. You thought like Lady Gaga was here, but it was me.

Well, I knew it was you. I knew it was you. I knew I was coming in to interview you, not Lady Gaga. I knew I was I was like, wow. God, this is really throwing me off. I had some questions about the Monster Ball Tour. Now it's now it's gone completely wrong.

I can answer those too.

Can you? How was it dressing in the the meat suit at the Grammys?

I smelled really bad.

Okay. Yeah, great. Great. And now back to you. Now back to you. It's good. You can play several characters. You're a very good actress. Very good actress. They know. For the five people in the world that haven't seen Empire, it's uh, it's based around the the music industry, the hip-hop world. Yes. Um, and it's it's it's hard core. It's a, you know, it's you see the other side of

It's like a it's it's a soap. I feel like that's what was so like everyone asks, what's the biggest surprise? And I feel like that that I'm so surprised that America wanted like a over the top soapy, like, you know, in the season finale, there's like a 100 twists and turns. You can't go one minute without going like, oh my God. So, it's really fun. I mean, every time you get a script, you're like, Jesus. Okay. Here we go. Right. Right.

Um, the show gets a lot of referrals to Dynasty. Um, how would you say it's a fresh take?

Well, Dynasty is definitely about a, you know, a very wealthy family and like the people are fighting over money and are at odds with each other. And that's kind of it's basically the same thing in that Terrence Howard is going to leave his company. He has ALS, although we find out later, he doesn't have ALS. And for anyone that hasn't seen the hasn't seen the few episodes or seen any more, um, that people will just

Right. That's a spoiler. Spoiler alert. Sorry.

So he's going to leave it to one of his three sons and then, you know, the drama ensues because all three of them.

I really can't believe it because I just started watching the show. You've just told me that. You've just completely ruined it.

Oh, shoot. Sorry. That's terrible. Honestly, because it's so soapy and like a million things happen. Right. That's just one of like a hundred twists and turns.

Okay. I mean, it's a big one. And the the dynamic between uh, Lucious and Cookie is is pretty intense as well. It's a pretty amazing thing to watch.

Yeah. Totally. I mean, they have awesome chemistry just themselves. So I think for everyone they're like, I want them to be together. I want them to be together. And then, you know, for him to be dating Anika, like that's it's really fun to watch her and Boo Boo Kitty, you know.

I'm robbing you for your love. She's robbing me for my love. down. Shake down. Oh, you ain't got to say love. Well, baby, put your hands up then. Shake down. Shake down.

Yeah, when they start performing, that was a that was intense. I was just like, blown away. I thought, oh my God, this is gonna be awesome. I can't wait for people to see this. And it just felt awesome to be a part of it and think, wow, I get to watch these people come to set every day. And all the stars that come out on as guests, it's been like amazing. Right.

Yeah, I was gonna say there are some amazing guest stars on the show.

Yeah, like when Gladys Knight was singing at the funeral, I was just like, my character shouldn't be crying 'cause she's like a bitch. But I was literally like,

Okay. Okay. Yeah, you're you're Rhonda. You're Rhonda in the show. We haven't covered that yet. Um, quite a strong, sassy, determined woman.

I know. It's so different. You've never missed out. You've never missed out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.

Um, and when when you're reading that, is that that's a role you'd like to play, obviously. Um, yeah.

I don't think I've ever played somebody as like manipulative and cold. Like I don't consider myself a cold person. I'm pretty Only with people that I that I that I like. I'm really warm with.

Okay. It's with people you don't like. Right. Yeah. Okay. So you might have a different experience. Anyway, going back on. Okay. You and Andre have this lovely, like, probably the only nice couple in there.

Yeah. Yeah. You're the only. Yeah. Yeah. We Yeah, we're like the bad guys, but we're actually the only functioning relationship on the show. So, it's been fun to explore that. And Danny Strong told us when I got the part that it was based on King Lear with the three sons and then Lady Macbeth and Macbeth for our characters. So, he has um a mental illness and can't really do much without her. They've been together 10 years and she pulls the strings and he's she's like the puppet master for whatever Andre's doing. I have a feeling that they're gonna become the good guys because at the end he sort of finds God and she does this awful thing and then they find out something else that's crazy about their life. I kind of liked exploring how kinky they their relationship was. Not at first I was like, oh, I hope that they're just not having sex every episode. But then it was kind of awesome to see people's reaction to it like, wow, he cheats on her, comes back home and there's like that moment where she's like, what were you doing? And it's like call me her name. Everybody loves that and it's not on TV really. So it's kind of fun like being that risky and like having somebody like Lee Daniels who loves to push buttons. Right.

Absolutely. And we mentioned the uh obviously huge factor of the show is the music. Which is Timberland part of. I mean, it's just the power behind the show, you're saying.

Yeah. Totally.

Um, and it's the number one album.

Yeah. It's unbelievable. I remember when I when I was auditioning for it and and testing with Andre, we were leaving and Danny Strong was talking about, you know, who else was cast and what it was gonna be like. I hadn't gotten it yet. I felt like I was gonna get it. And I was walking out to the car because the last thing he said to me was, oh, you didn't know we we hired Timberland to do the music. And I remember like walking out to my car going, because I at that moment I was like, oh, this is gonna be something. And I grew up on Timberland, like 100%.

You do a lot uh with animals as well. Um, there's a there's a recent article out that you sold your dog to a drug dealer.

I did not sell my dog.

Okay, someone else sold the dog to a drug dealer. But yeah, that's that's a pretty crazy story. What was that?

It is. I mean, I was uh it was so long ago. Yeah, he was stolen and then we I put up all these signs everywhere for a reward and then these kids called and said, we kind of have your dog but we gave him to our drug dealer. And we're gonna try to bring him back, but we need to get the money from you. Then we went to the cop station and said, do we have to give them this $2,000 reward?

Because they basically stole our dog and sold it to a drug dealer. And he's like, I'll help you out. So, we didn't know this, my boyfriend at the time and I. And he the cop set up like a sting operation, jumped out, arrested the kids. They were using our cellphone to call the drug dealer to try and lower the the $2,000 down. This is a show in itself. Unbelievable. And then so the kids get arrested and we're like, what the hell? Now we're never gonna get our dog back because they were like the go between. Exactly. You got it. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So now the drug dealer's never gonna call us back 'cause he's gonna think he's gonna get arrested. So I literally started calling him 30 times a day. I was like, oh, meet me anywhere. I will not arrest you. I'll give you anything. It was. Couldn't sleep. It was awful. We hired a private investigator who we went out to dinner with and we're like, if you find him, how are you gonna get him back? At this cute little restaurant in Larchmont and he went like this and he had two guns on him. And I was like, this is insane. Okay. So cut to the next day, we get a call from Batho the drug dealer's girlfriend saying, hey, I think there's a misunderstanding. I think I have your dog. It's been like a week. And I'm like, what? Oh my God. Yes. Yes. Yes. Get the dog back. We give her $500 because we're stupid and we just wanna be nice. And we get the dog back. And then this old man calls like that night. And I was like, hello. And he was like, hey, I heard you got your dog back. And I was like, yeah. He was like, well, that's because my grandson called. He's in the he's in a some famous gang that I hadn't heard of. And he said that this guy was gonna get jumped in jail if he didn't give you the dog back. That's why his girlfriend called and gave me the dog back. The end.

That, viewers, is Caitlyn Doubleday. That's who she is. She loves her dogs. You do love your dogs. You love your animals. You work with shelters and so on.

I do. I work at NKLA all the time and I I love it.

Just don't ever take her dog. Don't ever take her dog.