Amazon isn’t Princess Celestia, but she does play her on TV.
Are you all ready?
“Yup!” Amazon said, sitting back on the interview couch. She took up nearly the whole couch herself, her namesake well earned. A mare who stood a head taller than most stallions and with the frame to match, Amazon towered over the interviewer. She was strong as well, with clear muscle definition along her sides and a charger’s physique, but not to the point that it detracted from her feminine allure. A snow white coat, a gentle bearing, and a regal muzzle did a lot to blunt her intimidating aura, and the net effect was of a pony powerful but friendly. It fit her cutie mark well, depicting a heart and a set of brass horseshoes.
Why don’t you start by introducing yourself?
“Sure!” she nodded. “My name is Amazon, I’m thirty-four, and I’m from Lijiang. Most ponies know me as Xena, but I also play Clobberella in Attack of the Beast Tamer, Batmare in Dark Horse Rises, and Unit JX-227 in My Life as a Killer Robot.”
And Princess Celestia on Friendship is Magic?
“Huh?” Her ears perked up a moment. “Oh, yes. I also play a lot of bit characters. Princess Celestia in FIM, Red Scare in Yet More Superheroes, Doctor Lancaster in Majority Report, etc. I’m also an extra in Game of Saddles, but that’s mostly a cameo gag.”
You described your role in Friendship is Magic as a ‘bit’ part. Could you tell us more about that?
“Uh…” She narrowed her eyes just a little, peering at the interviewer. “I’m not sure how much there is to say. I think I’ve had all of like ten minutes of screen time in that show’s last four seasons. Don’t get me wrong, Princess Celestia is a fun character. It’s nice to play a pony who doesn’t throw punches all the time. It’s just not really my show.”
In our interview last month, Star Power said that you’d had quite the positive impact on the FIM cast, particularly the child actors who portray the main characters. Is that true?
“Who?”
Star Power.
“Yeah, that’s not… like. It’s not ringing any bells.”
She plays Princess Twilight Sparkle?
“What? You mean Candy Floss?” Amazon frowned. “She’s not a child actor.”
No, the other princess.
“Blue Shift? I heard she quit acting to go study particle physics.”
No, the other other princess. The main character of the show. The purple one.
“Oh! The purple one!” Amazon nodded. “Right, sure. We’ve spoken a few times. She was just hanging around the prep room asking if I had any advice for a young actor. We talked about what it’s like to do your own stunts. I uh… I gave her a cupcake.” She paused. “Not really sure what you’re getting at here?”
Are you familiar with the FIM shipping community?
“And, we’re done.” Amazon pulled off her mic, rose up, and with one last glower at the camera, left.
Later, it was revealed that she had a crippling cocaine addiction and her dog died, though to be clear, this was largely irrelevant to her role as an actor and mostly just made ponies sad.
Candy Floss isn’t Princess Cadence, but she does play her on TV.
“It’s unbelieveable. Just unbelievable,” she said, gesturing emphatically as she spoke. “It’s like, the studio thinks they own your body. Iget that they want the character to remain consistent, but come on. Gain weight? Contract violation! Cut your hair? Contract violation! I think they’d have probably written Princess Cadence out of the show entirely when I got pregnant, except the law says they can’t.”
I understand they later integrated it into the show?
“Ugh. Yeah.” She held her hoof to her face. “It was nice of them to try, I admit, but the execution just got bungled. So…” She removed her hoof, and swirled it in the air. “They decided, okay, actress is pregnant. So the character has to get pregnant. So Cadence and Shining are going to have a foal, sure. Except then they delayed the season by four months, so instead of shooting when I have a baby bump, we’re shooting when I’m approximately the size of a car. And I’m up there on stage, every day, trying to do the lines. And then do you know what happens?”
You had your child, as I understand it.
“Yup!” She threw up her hooves in the air. “Right in the middle of the recording season. We’re lucky my water didn’t break in the studio! Needless to say everything had to get reshot or thrown away, and we ended up with this weird split where Cadence announces she’s having a foal, and next we see her, there’s the kid. But she’s never pregnant on screen because we cocked that up.”
I’m very sorry to hear that. But you must be very happy to be a new mother.
Candy Floss laughed. “Yeah. Sorry, I know I get carried away ranting about the studio, but you’re right, it is wonderful. And the director has been great about accommodating my schedule so I can care for her personally.”
And what’s her name?
“Patient Zero,” Candy Floss explained.
After a moment of silence, she added: “She’s named after her grandmother.”
Blue Shift isn’t Princess Luna, but she used to play her on TV for a little bit there.
“Yeah,” she said, “I’m not really into acting anymore. Sometimes I’ll come in and do cameo appearances as Luna when they need her to say a few lines. But it’s not really a thing. I’m just not that great at it, and I always wanted to study physics, and you know? I’m happy with that choice.”
Any regrets leaving the show?
“Hah.” She smiled and shook her head. “No way. It’s way too high stress. Physics is nice and relaxing and… honestly?”
She leaned in close to the camera, and lowered her voice: “Have you seen the kind of fanfiction that gets written about that show? No matter how much we change our email or mailing addresses, we just keep getting it. I have a recycling bin specifically for all the creepy shapeshifter torture porn fans send me. It’s awful.”
She swallowed once, and then added: “Well, I mean, morally awful. Some of the porn is actually pretty good.”
She later went to jail for driving without a license, and nopony came to visit her. This was unrelated to the interview or the show.
Meta Humor isn’t Discord, though actually, he might be. It is kind of ambiguous.
Meta chuckled, flipping through the script and collection of papers in front of him. “I don’t get it,” he said, looking back to the camera. “If Discord is CGI in this universe, and I voice him, then aren’t I just the voice actor for Discord? Wouldn’t that just be John DeLancie? Like, in real life?”
With a hoof, he reached down to smooth out his coat. “I mean, I can do my John DeLancie impression if you like. But I don’t think I’m that funny.”
Later, it turned out he had incurable cancer. Again, this was unrelated to his role as an actor, life is just sometimes awful for no reason, you know?
Xerinx of the Black Carapace isn’t Deep Cover, but she does secretly plot the conquest of the earth for her insectile overlords.
“Hey, Deep Cover?” Star Power pushed open the door to the trailer. “I was thinking of buying a hat and…”
Star Power trailed off into silence, staring ahead into the dim space within. Deep Cover’s trailer was utterly bare of any furniture or fittings. There was no couch, and nothing in the kitchen, just a single dim ceiling lamp and blackout curtains over every window. And there in the middle of it all was a creature she’d never seen before, outside of her dreams and nightmares: an insect that walked like a pony.
It’s legs were long and jagged things, splitting down into little hairs that made them seem full of holes. It’s face was an angry mask, of fangs and soulless eyes that had no lids. On its back were a set of gossamer wings, ragged with the weight of centuries, and upon it’s head, a horn that was less a horn and more a knife that twisted and flowed. Her body was covered in an armored chiten, her tail little more than wispy and dying hairs. She turned. Saw.
Her horn glowed sickly green, and a powerful force picked up Star Power. Star tried to run, tried to scream, anything, but she found her body paralyzed. Helpless, aware, her breath coming in panicked gasps, she floated across the room in that chill embrace. Before her was the monster, and in a flash of green light, it ceased to be the beast, and became Deep Cover. The pony she thought she knew.
“Hey there,” she said, with a sultry purr, “Sugarcube.”
Learning forward, Deep Cover’s lips met Star Power, and though Star’s mind knew it to be an illusion, her body was so easily fooled. In her mind’s eye, she pictured those insectile mouth parts rubbing over her face, and the jagged hairs of that twisted leg scraping over her coat. But what she pictured was not what she felt, for what she felt was the warm touch of somepony dear, and their hooves along her side. And she felt something taken from her, but how wonderful it felt to give. The gift that in the giving made her body heat, made her tail rise, made her breath come fast. This was the parasite that claimed ponies lives, but promised them joy in return. And what could she do?
She kissed Deep Cover back.
Then, Deep Cover broke the kiss, dropped her to the floor, and laughed. Leaning down to Star’s stunned face, she whispered: “Nopony will ever believe you.” And with that, she left the trailer.
Star sat there stunned. At a loss. She knew she couldn't leave it at that. She had to do something.
So she went and wrote changeling romance fiction and became an otherkin, which fellow actors agreed was the saddest fate any of them had suffered.