Rebecca Breeds On The Series Premiere Of 'Clarice' On CBS: 'People Are Going To Love It, Time For The Baby Bird To Fly'

(CBS)- Clarice comes to CBS and CBS All Access tonight at 10:00PM ET/PT starring Rebecca Breeds as Clarice Starling. Clarice follows Starling one year after the events from Silence Of The Lambs.

CBS' Matt Weiss spoke to Breeds ahead of the show's series premiere to discuss what it was like being in a Super Bowl commercial, bonding with her castmates through a pandemic and finally sharing her "baby bird" with the world.

MW: Hi Rebecca! Nice to meet you and congrats on the upcoming premiere. Before we talk about that though you also had a cool experience last weekend with the show airing commercials during the Super Bowl on CBS. What was that like?

RB: I was actually in Canada so I couldn't find it on the channels! But it was all coming through on social media. I had like 322 people on my socials sending me recordings and just losing their minds. That was pretty surreal to be honest. It was amazing!

MW: And now from the Super Bowl to the premiere of Clarice this Thursday at 10:00PM. How did you get involved with the show?

RB: It was almost exactly a year ago, late February. The audition came through for my people, I turned up and they liked me. I came back and had about a week of really extensive audition processing. Some of the auditions went upwards of like four hours; they were not mucking around.

It's definitely the most intense process I've ever been through for a role. In fact, the most intense process I know of anyone that has been through getting a role on TV. It was pretty amazing to come out the other side and be like whoa. In fact, the way that my producers called me to tell me I got the role was I picked up the phone to an unknown number and I just hear, "hello Clarice". I was like, what! Oh my gosh! It was pretty amazing. [laughs]

MW: Under normal circumstances, you'd probably hang up and call the police. [laughs]

RB: [Laughs] Yeah, it was the only good way to get that call.

MW: The show picks up after the events of Silence of the Lambs. What will the series really be focused on?

RB: Well one of the key slogans we keep saying is the silence is over. We've heard a lot from the male characters from the Silence of the Lambs, but we haven't heard from Clarice, the hero. She has such a rich back story. She went through such an incredibly traumatic, but incredible experience. Then she just goes silent; we don't hear from her. It's kind of bizarre.

Finally, it's time to tell her narrative and how things impacted her. We see how she continues to function in the workplace, how she goes on, what she continues to deal with, and how she does that. It's very exciting.

MW: Was it difficult at all to find your groove working together on a brand new show during the pandemic and working with all the safety protocols in effect?

RB: The protocols keep us safe. They're structures in place that help us feel safe so I'm grateful for those. What happened was, we were about to shoot the pilot and then all of a sudden it was March and the world shut down. I was back in Australia and I woke up one morning in my bed in my parents' house and just thought was that was that a dream? Did that really just happen?

The great thing is because most of us had already been cast, we'd been doing these Zoom check-ins and little FaceTimes with each other. We joked that it was trauma bonding. By the time we actually came to shoot, we had such an incredible report. We had six months to build this wonderful friendship with each other.

We really were going through, just like everyone else, wondering what is this and how do we do this? Are we even going to get to shoot this show? We didn't know whether or not it was even going to happen. There was a lot of emotions. By the time we got to shooting it, we just had such a "team" kind of feeling. We just have each other's backs and have such a fantastic friendship between us.

MW: Now you said getting the job was the most intense casting you've ever had. Then you had to go through all of that waiting and filming during a pandemic. Now that the show is here, and people are going to see it finally, how excited does that make you feel?

RB: Oh my gosh. I'm so excited! For a while there, up until early maybe this week, this was like my little baby bird and I just wanted to keep it in the nest. I wasn't ready for it to fly yet because we're just in this little cocoon of creating this world and this art where it doesn't matter what people think, we just get to make it.

Now it's like, the whole point of making this is that we get to share it with people. We're so proud of what we've made. We really think people are going to love it. It's time for the baby bird to fly the nest. I'm so excited for this week!

MW: Thanks so much Rebecca, that's all I have for you today. Pleasure meeting you, all the best with the show and moving forward!

RB: Thank you, Matt, appreciate it, enjoy!

Clarice premieres Thursday, February 11th at 10:00PM ET/PT, only on CBS and streaming on CBS All access. Check your local listings for more information.