Tia Carrere Says She Still Hears Wayne's World References 'Often,' Nearly 30 Years Later

“Schwing!” Though it’s been nearly 30 years since the Wayne’s World movie first came out in 1992, according to actress Tia Carrere, who played the rock goddess Cassandra in the film, people still love to shout familiar Wayne’s World catchphrases at her.

“Daily might be a stretch, but it’s often,” says Carrere, 53, who’s now starring as the villainous Lady Danger in the Netflix series AJ and the Queen. “I think it’s just because that movie coined so many popular catchphrases that are still used today.”

The one people like to say to her the most?

” ‘I’m not worthy!’ seems to be used quite often,” she says.

As for her new series, which stars RuPaul as a down-on-her-luck drag queen traveling across the country in an RV, Carrere says she’s relishing playing a baddie, and adored working with RuPaul. (“He’s so kind and generous … more wonderful than I’d even heard,” she says.)

“Lady Danger is a bit damaged, but she’s a business woman first and foremost,” Carrere says of her role. “She believes she deserves everything she takes. I’d been hoping and praying to play a character that meets me right where I am age-wise, and with my depth of life experience. I was thinking she’s sort of like if Cassandra from Wayne’s World fell on hard times and lost her moral compass.”

While the mom to teenage daughter Bianca, 14, says she assumes people will tune in for the campy drag scenes, she also thinks there is a feel-good element to the writing. “They might tune in for the camp or the laughs and over-the-top fun aspect, but they will be truly touched by the human moments of love and connection, and finding our people that really ‘get us’ in this great big world,” she says.

As for people who “got her” in this great big world, Carrere counts the late Luke Perry as one of her closest friends.

“It was such a sad sad shock,” she says of learning of his death from a stroke at age 52 in March of 2019.

“I had invited him over maybe a week or two prior and I was certain I’d see him again soon though he couldn’t make it that day,” she recalls. “You always think you have tomorrow, that you’ll have another time, more time, but you don’t.”

She adds, “He and I had such real conversations about life and career and self-doubt. We both became successful rather young, and we shared a unique perspective on that and sustaining a long career and balancing it with life and family. I’m so sad he’s gone.”