Samantha Ware from Netflix’s What/If dishes on that bonkers ending

Samantha Ware from What/If on Netflix opens up about that big season finale, what she’s watching, and her thoughts on Buffy.

Some of you might recognize this beauty from her time on Glee, but most of us currently know her from our latest obsession, What/If on Netflix.  The soapy drama tells the story of a young, struggling couple, trying to get the wife’s medical tech startup off the ground. They encounter a successful older woman, played by the radiant Renée Zellweger, who offers them a gender-swapped indecent proposal.

Ware plays Angela, the wife’s best friend, but she definitely isn’t relegated to the sidelines. Ware’s Angela is a smart, confident medical resident, whose affair with her mentor turns dangerous when she tries to break it off. I don’t want to give too many spoilers for the ending, but trust me when I say Angela gives her abusive and violent ex-boyfriend and boss exactly what he deserves.

Samantha Ware was kind enough to sit down to talk with me about everything from her juicy role as Angela on the breakout Netflix hit, to her time on Glee, to what she’s loving on TV right now, to connections with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She’s soft-spoken and patient (I’ll admit, I was fan-girling out a little bit), but her answers were poised and confident. I dug right in about that season finale, and she was gracious enough to answer all my questions.

When I asked Ware about her character’s ending, which is bonkers in the best possible way, she offered some insight into how it was to act through those scenes. The bloody and intense stand off between herself and her abuser ended in a vindicating way, but she says, “It was easy to tap into the humanity of a woman who has been, in the last 48 hours of her life kidnapped, [and] sent to the woods.”

She reminds me that she was “really tied to a chair” and “manhandled” in the course of shooting, so it became easier and easier to access her anger as a woman in this political climate. She also admitted that even though David Annable, who plays her antagonizing ex-boyfriend, was kind in the scenes, it was still a pretty physical shoot.

I wanted to understand how she became involved in the sleeper hit of the summer. What/If intrigued critics with its genre-bending structure, while simultaneously appealing to fans’ thirst for a guilty-pleasure. It’s been hailed the worst best show on right now, and Ware’s storylines are just as bananas as the rest. She auditioned for the series and was cast a few days later. Before she knew it, she was moving to Los Angeles and starring in a giant hit Netflix series. She describes it as happening in “a few moments.”

Ware is no stranger to a hit series, however. She starred as Jane Hayward on FOX’s smash musical Glee. By the way, she’s a bit of a triple threat, as a singer, actor and writer, and she really got a chance to show off her background in theatre as her role as Jane. She honed those musical chops in big theatre roles in The Book of Mormon and Nala in The Lion King. 

With all these roles under her belt, she’s all too familiar with the stan culture happening all around us. The Glee fandom is among the most loyal and committed, and I asked Ware about her experiences with stans along the way. She remarks that it’s social media that keeps the fans connected, along with the occasional gay bar, in which folks come up to her to say, “You’re that girl! You’re the girl Warbler!” She always replies with a coy, “Yup. That’s what I did,” because she admits that fame isn’t so bad, most times. She appreciates her fans, old and new.

However, since What/If debuted on Netflix, she’s beginning to get recognized a lot more often, and by more folks than Glee stans. It starts to tip over from fun into surreal, when her fans intrude on moments she’d rather keep private. She says, since moving to LA, “It’s been really interesting to see how people just invade your space without permission.” She says it’s super “cool” but fans forget she’s a real person, citing their thinking as, “you were just on my TV for eight hours and now you’re right here.” She definitely understands the experience from the fan side, but it’s becoming something she has to think about more now that the show is such a success.

You can’t talk to anyone about having stans without asking what they’re loving these days. She and I have more than our love for cats in common, and when she told me what she was watching, I thought we might become best friends. Of course I asked her if she liked to watch TV, and when she answered, “Oh hell yeah,” I dug right in.

Right now, Ware is watching (like we all should be) Killing Eve.  We talked about that incredible cliffhanger in season 2, and she was as shocked as I was. She admitted that she has been “a fan of Sandra Oh since I was 14 years old, and I will never get tired of her.” All I can say to that is “same, girl. Same.”

Some other shows she loves include Good Girls and Fleabag, but she doesn’t care much for reality TV. She prefers a good soapy drama, which is probably what drew her to What/If, and even bingeing The Real Housewives of Atlanta wasn’t enough to sway her to the trashy side.

I could have chatted with her forever, but before I wrapped up, I wanted to know what was next. She wanted me to mention her involvement with the movement started by Jouelzy, #SmartBrownGirl.  Ware is an advocate for diversity and equality for people of color and #SmartBrownGirl acts as place for “celebrating the diversity of women of color by igniting discussions on complex cultural issues and inspiring women to find power in their voice.”

She’s also multi-tasking in the music industry. As we all know by now, she is an amazing singer, and she just wrapped her first music visual, Sameya that will drop this summer. Keep an eye out on your favorite streaming platforms very soon.

Before we said goodbye, I asked Ware what her dream job is. As in, if she could wave a wand, and have any role she wanted, what would it be. Her reply surprised me a bit, and I fell a little more in love with her. She said her dream job, at the age she is now and her current ability, would be a “Buffy reboot.” Specifically, she specifies it would be cast with women of color because “we’re badasses too.” She does not have to convince me of this.

What/If, this summer’s juiciest, best/worst show, is on Netflix in it’s entirety. You can also see Ware in Glee’s sixth and final season, which is also accessible on Netflix.