Ariana Madix on Her Broadway Debut & Relating to Roxie Hart’s Resilience (Exclusive)

Ariana Madix is getting ready for her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in “Chicago.”

“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi spoke with Ariana about her “lifelong dream” to star on Broadway.

She shared, “It is literally the reason why anything else has ever happened. It's the reason why I majored in theater, it's ultimately, it's the reason why I lived here so long ago. It's ultimately even the reason I moved to L.A. in the first place so it's crazy.”

She noted, “I'm 38, and so a lot of things that I dreamed of when I was younger, I kind of, assumed that time had passed and I, after living in L.A. for a minute, I realized that the only way for me to move in any direction was to just say yes to opportunities that were in front of me and I thought those opportunities were so wonderful and they were just going to take me down a different path and I was going to be happy with that, too… I definitely thought that this was something that wasn't going to happen.”

As for finding out that she was being considered for the part, Madix revealed, “Well, the moment I found out that I was even being like, you know, in talks and consideration, I was on my way to Raising Cane's in El Segundo with one of my best friends and we cried, we screamed, we probably scared the driver.”

Ariana opened up about what resonated her about her character. She dished, “I think her story of wanting to be a dancer in vaudeville and thinking that all these opportunities had passed her by… her story of perseverance and the way that she just picks things up and learns really quickly just how to constantly have something that's like getting her to where she wants to be.”

“Just Roxie's resilience and the way that she is she's if she's down she's not down for long you know and I love that about her,” Ariana emphasized.

Madix pointed out that “Dancing with the Stars” was the “best boot camp” to prepare her for the grind of rehearsals. She explained, “It was a grind in the best way but I loved that rehearsal process and I love this rehearsal process and so I think that ‘Dancing with the Stars’ was like the best boot camp in a way to be ready for something like this.”

Ariana is working hard to get ready for her big debut, saying, “We might have like four hours right but they're broken up in different ways so the first two hours we might be working on music and then the second two hours, we're working on staging, blocking, choreography, stuff like that… The days off, you know, I'm in vocal lessons and things like that and then on the days off, I'm like really trying to like focus on resting because I really want to be ready physically to conquer something like that. I think it’s all about stamina.”

She went on, “I think the toughest part right now for me is just believing in myself and knowing that when it comes time for that debut on January 29 that I will be ready.”

Ariana confessed she has some nerves about the curtain going up. She admitted, “I'm a very anxious person so I think just in general sometimes I can like talk myself into being like way too anxious and I have to like talk myself off that ledge.”

Madix is looking forward to her family and friends being in the audience, saying, “A lot of family a lot of friends uh my mom everybody's going to be coming out and it's going to be great.”

Ariana’s “Vanderpump Rules” family will be there, too! She said, “Oh, yeah, absolutely and what's great is because it's going to be I'm going to be performing while the ‘Vanderpump’ season is airing so a lot of them will be coming to New York for Watch What Happens live so I'm like you can just come see me, too.”

Ariana also had a message for her fans who have been supporting her after Scandoval. She said, “We're all in this together that's not just me and hopefully if they get to come see me that I'll be able to meet them, can chat about it.”

Ariana is back to living in NYC for now. She commented, “Some parts of it are like riding a bike… taking the train and walking everywhere things like that, I was like, ‘Okay, I remember how to do this’ and then other things are just it's a different city than when I lived here before cause I was here pre-Instagram, pre-iPhone, pre-social media… It is very different in a lot of ways but I think that that's just you know the world at large.”