Interview: Patricia Quinn of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW at Balboa Theatre

When Patricia Quinn first met Richard O’Brien, she wasn’t particularly interested in Magenta. What caught her attention was a song — yes, that now-iconic song: “Science Fiction/Double Feature.”

At her audition for The Rocky Horror Show, O’Brien sang it for her, and Quinn loved it so much that she left the audition “skipping down the King’s Road in Chelsea, London.” When her agent called within half an hour to tell her they wanted her, Quinn was excited, but not necessarily because of the character.

When Quinn joined the original stage production, the show was still being developed, and the script she eventually picked up at the stage door of London’s Royal Court Theatre was barely written. Magenta had only a handful of lines.

“I had no interest in her at all,” Quinn said. “I heard a song. That’s why I’m doing it,” she recalled.

The Rocky Horror Show opened on June 19, 1973. Quinn remembers it simply: “We did it upstairs at The Royal Court Theatre, in a room with 60 wooden seats, no stage, no curtain, nothing.” The production transferred to the Chelsea Classic Cinema on Aug. 14, 1973, before continuing its expansion.

By then, Quinn had already left the stage production for another acting opportunity.

Two years later, the film adaptation arrived, with Quinn reprising her role as Magenta. Unlike the stage production, the film gave her considerably more camera time, and the character took on a life far beyond anything the original cast could have anticipated.

More than 50 years later, Quinn is still discovering just how enormous the world surrounding Rocky Horror has become. Although Quinn had experienced the enthusiasm of fans at Comic-Cons, she said touring with the film gave her a completely different perspective.

When she was asked to join the Spooktacular tours, Quinn looked at a list of 15 or 20 states and initially wondered how long she would be spending in the car traveling from one to the next. Instead, she found herself confronting “the vastness of America.”

She had expected small cinemas in different cities, however, she found herself performing in beautiful theaters seating 2,000 to 3,000 people — some of them in surprising locations. Quinn remembers visiting communities that felt deeply conservative and religious and wondering how the show would be received. “Christ, they’ll throw stones at me here,” she said. Yet those theaters sold out.

“It has been astonishing, the following,” Quinn said. “I didn’t realize the massiveness of it.”

The tours themselves can be grueling, with Quinn moving from theater to theater and city to city, but the audiences make it worthwhile. “The adulation is the only thing that keeps me going, because it’s wonderful for the soul,” she said.

It’s easy to forget that The Rocky Horror Picture Show wasn’t an immediate phenomenon.

Quinn described the movie as a “complete sleeper” during its first two years. The film initially struggled before midnight screenings helped transform its fate. A regular midnight run began at New York’s Waverly Theater in 1976, where audiences began dressing up, talking back to the screen and interacting with the movie. The practice then spread to other cities and college campuses.

When O’Brien and others came to see what was happening, Quinn remembers being astonished by the experience.

Then shadow casts emerged, with fans acting out the movie in front of the screen and creating a tradition that remains a defining part of Rocky Horror screenings today.

Quinn has watched generations of performers take on Magenta. “They don’t play her,” Quinn said. “They imitate the film,” replicating the performances to perfection.

Quinn has now taken Rocky Horror on the road for three consecutive years, and the response continues to surprise her.

Audiences still stand and scream when she appears, and Quinn says the film “is still very much alive year after year. I guess audiences cannot get enough.”

Quinn also reflected warmly on Tim Curry, with whom she shared the original stage production and the film. “It was wonderful to be with him again,” she said. “I caught up with him in LA. We had a wonderful time.” Curry passed away on August 25, 2026, at age 80.

For Quinn, there is something particularly remarkable about having been part of a production that began with 60 seats and a barely written script, only to become a cultural force that continues to bring thousands of people together.

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