‘SMILF’ Star Rosie O’Donnell Reveals Her Most Difficult Scene Was Cut

Rosie O’Donnell gets to show off her dramatic acting skills on “SMILF,” but her most difficult scene didn’t even make it into the final cut of the episode, she told International Business Times.

The actress, who plays Tutu on the Showtime dramedy, said that the storyline with Bridgette’s (Frankie Shaw) sexual abuse will continue and it affects her mother. O’Donnell’s most difficult scene was in the finale, where she had to listen to her young daughter tell everyone about her abusive experience. Though we briefly see Tutu question if Bridgette needs to be calling everyone she knows, it seems there was more to the scene originally.

“It was actually very difficult. That was the hardest scene to shoot,” O’Donnell told IBT at a “SMILF” For Your Consideration Emmys event. “Everyone’s like, ‘Was the sex scene hardest?’ I’m like, no. I didn’t end up in the scene on TV, but while we shot it, I was on the phone with them when she was telling everyone about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, and it was very difficult, that whole day.”

She praised showrunner and star Frankie Shaw for tackling the storyline. “I think she’s so brave to do what she’s doing in her art to explore those deep caverns in your soul where you don’t like to go,” O’Donnell added.

Shaw’s storytelling is really what attracted the former “View” co-host to “SMILF,” where she has her first role as a series regular in decades. Though she’d seen Shaw in “I, Robot,” she wasn’t familiar with her work. After seeing two of her short films, O’Donnell was in.

“I was absolutely in shock that it was a 28-year-old woman who wrote, directed and starred in this herself, and I said ‘I’ll do whatever she wants.’ So we got on FaceTime. Her artistic vision and her innate connection to the truth, I think, has made her a defined quantity already. She takes risks…. I think it’s so honest, and that’s all you can ask for in art, right?”

“SMILF” Season 2 is about to begin filming in Boston. Having only read the first episode, O’Donnell couldn’t give us much scoop on what’s in store for Season 2. However, she promised that Tutu’s mental illness storyline will continue “throughout the whole series because as anyone knows who is either living with or loving someone who has mental illness, that it’s a constant rollercoaster,” O’Donnell explained.

“You can hope to get in a groove when your meds are right and it’s not too cloudy out and everything works, but on the whole, it’s rocky. And for somebody like Tutu who never had a chance to get mental health help, it’s something that we will definitely be exploring all the time,” she said.

“SMILF” Season 1 is available on Showtime Anytime. Season 2 is expected to return later this year.