- Hello, it's Nicole Scherzinger here,
and I am in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
- All right, here we are, season two of The Masked Singer.
It's so exciting.
- We're doing it.
- Okay so, so far, because we've had
a couple of episodes now.
- We're back.
- You're back.
- Thank you to everybody who watches and supports.
- How have your guesses been so far?
How are you doing?
- I'm doing better this year.
I'm doing better this year.
I think now that I've got my sea legs,
we've got a point of reference,
we're all doing better.
It's gotten a lot more competitive.
Ken somehow is getting a little worse.
But yeah, I'm picking up on
the subtle clues in the clue packages.
- So, do people like, do Ken like,
does he throw you off every once in a while?
I feel like there's like,
some influencing. - He throws himself off.
He throws himself off.
He goes on these long tangents
and then he doesn't know where he goes
and then somehow he brings it back in.
It's always the most wildest fun guesses.
But he keeps us entertained.
And he's like, for me, I have the best job
because I get to sit next to him.
- Do you think that you and Robin have kind of an advantage
being that you're professional singers?
- I mean, to a point.
I mean, for me, that is my biggest clue skill I think,
is to be able to, Robin as well,
to hear if the person's a trained singer or not,
guessing the age range if they're professional,
if they have a different profession.
But you'll be surprised.
That's why people come on this show
because they have these really raw, hidden talents.
You're like, oh my gosh, this is something that
you're completely not known for,
and now the whole world gets to hear your beautiful voice.
- Do you ever live in fear that they're going to,
like the producers are going to intentionally punk you
by putting somebody you know on there?
- I don't live in fear,
but I will tell you I have been very
floored this season on some of the people
that I have found out that have been on the show
that I was like, I had no,
I had no idea.
- Wow.
(laughter)
- I think it's happened to all of us
because we all realize like,
we forget that a lot of those people
are friends underneath the masks.
But you have no idea.
Then they unveil themselves, and you're like, what?
I had no idea.
And they're like, I've been hiding from you all along.
- Last season, who did you know the most?
Who was it that you knew outside of the competition
and you were the most surprised that you didn't,
you maybe didn't get it?
Or did you get it?
- I was, I think we were all the most surprised with T-Pain,
the winner, because no one guessed him at all.
Just what a beautiful story he told
and how amazing did he sound on our show
and have the courage, all of the contestants last year,
to have the bravery and the courage
to come out and be the first to do something
so new on this show and take a chance
and to be so bold to tell their untold stories
from their points of view, not just from the media's
point of view or what you read in papers.
So yeah.
- Have you ever been tempted to try
one of those costumes on?
- No.
(laughter)
If I don't have enough time to go for a nice steam
or an infrared sauna, I should probably just
put one of those on and sweat it out.
But I would love to maybe sing,
maybe sing and surprise my fellow judges
underneath one of those one day.
- Is there something about when people sing
versus when they talk?
You've done voice acting.
You were in Moana.
People are usually pretty good at recognizing
celebrities' voices.
But when they're singing, is it a different deal?
- It is a different deal,
especially if, a lot of these people come from
all platforms of media,
so a lot of them you've never even
heard their singing voices.
You've only heard their speaking voices
and still that's hard enough already.
And to be able to hear these voices, you can't always tell.
Half the time, when people are from England,
they sing and they sound like they're from America.
- [Marya] That's true.
- So it's like, you really don't know.
- What is your top three people that you would love,
like bucket list, that you would love to see
hiding under one of those costumes?
- I mean, it would be kinda stupid
if Stevie Wonder was underneath a costume.
- That would be amazing. - But we'd all know his voice
right away, we'd be like, that's Stevie Wonder,
you know that's Stevie Wonder.
Babs.
Come on out, Babs.
Take off the mask.
Oprah.
I'm just getting silly now.
- I'm sure she has, I'm sure her singing voice is amazing.
- Really?
- Yeah, Oprah?
- Yeah?
- I feel like it.
I feel like she's got such a beautiful sing-songy voice,
but we've never really heard her sing.
- She probably has like, probably a soulful, rich voice.
- And she can do anything.
- Yeah, that's true. - She can do anything.
Do you really think that Nick Cannon does not know
who the singers are?
- Oh yeah, for sure.
They keep everything on lockdown.
It's like, no joke.
- But he gets so close to them.
- If there's anyone who's going to guess it first
between all of us, it would be Nick
because he is the one that's standing next to them.
He kinda gets their physicality,
and he gets to hear them speak sometimes.
So he guesses before us.
But he never tells us who it is
if he thinks he knows it, who it is.
- Okay, so I know you don't want to get into the costumes
just for the discomfort of it all, but
say you're a contestant. - I could do it.
I could power through, I could get in a costume.
- Okay, so say you're a contestant.
What's your song choice?
What's your costume?
- Oh my gosh.
What's my song choice and my costume?
Maybe I would sing Never Enough from The Greatest Showman
as a sushi roll.
- (laughs) That's great, I love it.
- It could be anything.
It could be a California roll, it could be tuna.
I just want a little wasabi hat.
- (laughs) Amazing.
So I mean, these masked singers,
they're enjoying this brief moment of anonymity.
Do you ever wish you could be anonymous?
- Sometimes when,
like for example,
just gotten off another 15-hour flight,
landed in Australia, went and did a workout,
decide I have enough time to run down the street
to try to take a picture with the Sydney Opera House
behind me, and I swear I hear clicks and I'm like,
god is that, am I going crazy?
It's really, it's nine in the morning.
Surely, there's not a camera.
No one would even know.
I just ran over to this random street.
And it's times like that when you're like,
wow it's so weird that you never know who's watching
or who's documenting you, it's quite invasive.
But I,
I realize it happens to everybody
when you're in the, when you've reached a certain point
in the limelight or whatever
and that it's a part of it.
- One of the things that's beautiful about The Masked Singer
is, like I said, for a brief moment,
these celebrities are experiencing anonymity again.
They're being judged also purely on their singing voice.
Is that kind of a cool thing
to be a part of a show that
judges people based on their beautiful singing voices
and not on their looks or what they've done before
or any of those things, just for that moment?
- Yeah, I love that because
not to compare it to The Voice but I know that
with The Voice, they're turned around
and they're only judging them off of their voices.
So not only is it based off of their raw talent
but it's actually based off of their stories.
And I think that's the beautiful part of it,
is that these people get to tell you
a little bit of who they are without any
stereotypes or what everybody has said about them
or written about them.
And you realize through this show,
we're a lot more connected and all a lot more alike
than we realize, that we're like,
wow we all go through very similar struggles
and battles and we all feel this way about things
and we're just, it's kinda beautiful.
But then you have the lightheartedness
and the fun of the show, so I think that people,
not only are they engaged in the guessing game
but they connect to that real human aspect of it.
- Well, we always love watching your energy, Nicole.
You're the first one out of your seat every time,
and it's a beautiful thing.
- Hey, I'm here for it.
Show up, 100%, all the time.
- Thank you so much.
We'll be looking for you on Fox.
Masked Singer, check it out.