Actress Alicia Witt was revealed as the Dandelion on the April 12 episode of The Masked Singer. After singing “Over The Rainbow” last week, Alicia wowed the crowd with her rendition of Muse’s “Starlight” while playing the piano. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Alicia about why this experience was so special for her.
“When I was invited to be a part of this, the first thing I thought was, this is an extraordinary gift,” she said. “Specifically, with my own music, what I’ve wanted more than anything is this chance to connect with other people through my voice and through song. This fact that I am known for acting has been without question a huge blessing in starting my music career, but there’s also been you can’t get away from the fact that people have seen you in another medium. I’ve always felt like there’s a way that I feel more comfortable communicating through songs than through doing words even. But the opportunity to do so without my face being visible and without my identity being known, and just focus on telling a story and connecting to human beings with only the voice… that’s kind of what I’ve always wanted to do.”
She continued, “No matter who you are, you see a face and a persona, you have preconceived notions about who that person is whether they’re known for something else or not. It’s just an amazing way that this show puts the focus on the voice and how different the voice can sound when you take it out of context. It’s just an incredible concept. For me, it was an absolute no-brainer. The more time I spent working with the producers and working out different arrangements of songs and the care with which they work on the productions and the arrangements making sure that it’s everything you want it to be, it just was a dream experience from beginning to end.”
The Dandelion costume was truly a sight to behold. From the sparkling green catsuit and tutu to the gorgeous dandelion ligules, so much thought and care were put into that costume. Alicia revealed that the designers were working on the costume “right up until the moment” she took the stage before her first performance.
“I was in the middle of working on a movie in Vancouver while we filmed my appearances on the show, so I wasn’t physically in LA for fittings and rehearsals that we would have done the previous week and all of that stuff. It was a lot of going back and forth,” she explained. “The original version of the headdress was much smaller, so when I got there and put it on the day of the performance, it had grown by about five times. It gives me this magical added challenge of balancing the heaviness. I felt a little bit like Lucille Ball in that episode where she’s one of the showgirls, and she can’t balance the headdress and goes flying down the banister.”
The Twin Peaks alum noted that a Muse song had never been used on The Masked Singer until her appearance. “I was overjoyed that Muse allowed us to clear it for me to play,” she said.
In addition to The Masked Singer, Alicia has also released a new song titled “Witness.” The actress and singer told HollywoodLife that the song is a “very personal anthem about having come through some of the hardest times I could have imagined and being on the other side of it and feeling such gratitude and such strength and love for the people who walked by side with me while I was going through that chapter and hoping to connect to anyone who has gone through anything that was difficult. It’s so important to document and remember what you’re capable of in these moments.”
She wrote the song with Matt Wynn and was inspired to pen the track after suffering the loss of her parents and battling breast cancer. “When we sat down to start writing it, it just was a seamless process but also very important because sometimes you write a song and it’s inspired by something that really happened, but it turns out about something different,” she said. “This song is 100% honest and accurate in terms of my experience. I’m starting an EP release tour in May to celebrate this new music. I really have always looked forward to playing shows, but I think these series of shows are going to be the most personal and the most celebratory I’ve ever played.”