Yahoo Lifestyle Jennifer Tilly compares “RHOBH” to playing poker: 'Everybody's playing a game... Who's playing it the best?'
Tilly also compared "Real Housewives" to being at war: "And I'm just ducking and dodging and trying to avoid the shrapnel."
Nicole Weingart/Bravo
Camille Meyer, Sutton Stracke, and Jennifer Tilly on 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'Jennifer Tilly might be new to the drama of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but she's no stranger to the world of strategy.
The Oscar-nominee, and newly minted full-time cast member of the reality series, has revealed that her role on the show is more of a challenge than expected. Thankfully, her years spent as a professional poker player have prepared her for this moment.
“I like to play with the best in the world. I like the challenge. It ups my game,” Tilly recently told The Hollywood Reporter, pointing out that poker and Housewives have more in common than you might think.
"Everybody’s playing a game. It’s like, who’s playing it the best?” she explained. “That’s that one who’s going to come out on top. But the thing is, the stakes [on Housewives] are that you’re playing your real relationships.”
A longtime shark at the poker table, Tilly has accrued over is $1 million in lifetime earnings and was recently inducted into the Women's Poker Hall of Fame. If her poker career is anything to go by, Tilly should have no trouble surviving the Beverly Hills drama. But even she can admit that learning the ropes hasn't exactly been a walk in the park.
“All of these girls have history. I mean, they barely sit down at the table before they just start yelling at each other," Tilly shared. "And I’m just ducking and dodging and trying to avoid the shrapnel. I like all the girls, but being a loyal and faithful friend, I don’t know if I’ll ever get close to those girls that are just, mortal, mortal enemies.”
She added that while her prior onscreen experience has certainly come in handy, nothing could prepare her for the realities of the show.
"It’s really easy when you go on a talk show to be funny and delightful for seven minutes,” she said of the Housewives shooting schedule. “When they are filming you for 17-hour days, the real you starts to creep through.”
Phylicia J. L. Munn/Bravo
Jennifer TillyRelated: Jennifer Tilly forgets who King Charles is, then says he was 'really into' her
Tilly previously appeared on the show as a friend of Sutton Stracke, but this season marks her first as an official cast member. Ahead of the season premiere, the Oscar nominee revealed that she is a longtime "superfan" of the show and compared joining the cast to landing a role with Martin Scorsese.
“I was so excited about her being on the show because I’ve been obsessed with the Housewives ever since the very beginning. I was a Housewives superfan,” Tilly told THR. “When Sutton got on, I thought, ‘This is so strange, I’m obsessed with the show and now I’m so close to it.’”
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Aside from her burgeoning reality career and her stint at poker tables, Tilly is a celebrated screen presence, whose 40-year career in Hollywood includes starring in Bound, the cult classic and the directorial debut of the Wachowski sisters; a role in the Woody Allen classic Bullets Over Broadway (for which she earned an Oscar nomination); and her frequent appearances as Tiffany Valentine — the bride of Chucky — in the Child's Play franchise, about series killers whose souls are bound to dolls.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
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