Bustle Booth
Joy Sunday Taps Into Her Inner Siren On Wednesday
She might play queen bee Bianca, but she has a penchant for bringing people together offscreen.
Bianca Barclay may be the Regina George-coded queen of the sirens, but according to Joy Sunday, the set of Netflix’s Wednesday was a lot less cliquey than the halls of Nevermore Academy. The actor, who plays Bianca, recalls her birthday party in the early days of filming as an example. “It was the first night a lot of people met each other,” she tells Bustle. “By the end of the night, we were all singing karaoke terribly.”
You won’t find any photos or videos from the evening (“They’re redacted!” Sunday jokes), but Beyoncé’s “Halo,” “We Are Young” by Fun., and some Natasha Bedingfield made the lineup. “That’s one of the first times we all came together and really let ourselves go.”
That night seems to have set the right tone for filming, which took place over seven months in Romania. The historic Cantacuzino Castle stood in for Nevermore Academy, the private school for paranormal pupils like werewolves, vampires, and other “outcasts.” Bianca’s specific brand, a siren, has a preternatural ability to influence others.
Sunday has some experience going to a high school for students with unique proclivities. Years before Nevermore, she attended New York’s LaGuardia High School — the performing arts institution whose alums include Jennifer Aniston, Nicki Minaj, and the Chalamets. Sunday found that her real-life arts and fictional paranormal communities share a similar need for more support and protection. “It’s such a nurturing space for kids to understand their power and to know how to use it for good, to use it for themselves and to empower themselves,” she explains of her high school experience. “I feel that arts education is being chipped away at.”
Fortunately, art is still very much a part of Sunday’s life, years after graduating LaGuardia and attending film school at the University of Southern California. “I’m really excited to kick back into gear with writing and producing,” she says. “It’s been something that’s been affirmed many times over the past couple of months. And it’s a part of myself. I’ve been doing it tit-for-tat with acting and writing or filmmaking, and I’m ready for them to join worlds.”
Until then (and a potential Wednesday Season 2), get to know more about Sunday in her Bustle Booth questionnaire below.
In The Bustle Booth
What's your coffee order?
Dirty chai or mocha latte.
What are the saved weather locations on your phone?
NY, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Bucharest, Osaka, Lagos, Amsterdam, Rome, Sydney.
What’s your sign?
Libra.
Favorite overused movie quote?
“Good night, and good luck.”
What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?
Powerpuff Girls.
What’s one movie or TV show you're currently obsessed with?
I will always be obsessed with Netflix’s KINGDOM.
Who is your celeb idol?
Uhhhhhh, maybe Nina Simone? Don’t know that I idolize much.
If you had to be on a reality TV show, what would it be?
Hell’s Kitchen, just so I could laugh in the corner.
Go-to karaoke song?
“Come Clean,” Hilary Duff.
What’s something that’s inspiring you lately?
The love and support of my friends (:
What is something you would want people to say about you?
That girl reads!
