- 6 days ago
Actors Carice van Houten, Colette Dalal Tchantcho and Kosar Ali talk to The Inside Reel about characterization, perspective and intention in regards to the first season of their Starz drama series: "Dangerous Liaisons."
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00:22Thank you!
00:26It's like the love for war.
00:28There's nothing between.
00:30It's war.
00:33Perspective, especially with your character, you know, is about, you know, that push and pull of control versus chaos.
00:42At least that's what I saw.
00:44I mean, when you were looking at her, how did you have to look at that physically, intellectually, emotionally?
00:53As me playing her character, you mean?
00:56Yes.
00:57Well, I think she's a mixed bag of emotions.
01:01Like, first of all, she's a very suppressed woman, I think, you know, like many of these women were back in the day.
01:09And still are.
01:11There is an element of, there is a very, there's a true goodness about her. Like she cares about kids. She, there's a big secret that she carries as well. So that weighs very heavy on her.
01:29Um, we basically meet her quite depressed and, you know, suppressed and depressed.
01:35We're looking at the emotional point of view, but obviously she sees a strategy in her piousness in many ways, you know, I would think. Or do you think that's just her instinct to be that person after what she's gone through or what she's not trying to see per se?
01:51I don't want to give too much away. I don't want to give too much away. Yeah, I don't know how much you know of the, um, the, yeah, I do. But I, I'd rather you not give away too much to the audience. But it's, I mean, I think there's a, the, the love for children is definitely a genuine.
02:09Um, that's a given. Um, I do think that she, that the church has become a, an escape for her. And I don't, I don't know if it necessarily has so much to do with God as much as trauma, actually. It has to do, I would think with trauma without giving too much away. Yeah.
02:29And unreleased emotions and, and that's why she always gets addicted to, to, to, to church because that's the only sort of way where she can sort of deal, deal with herself, basically.
02:47Bauma.
02:48Take me away from him.
02:51Have a plan for us. Marry me, Camille.
02:54Marry me.
02:55Tell me, I am your only lover.
03:02The only one.
03:09I'm going to marry him.
03:10You can't trust him.
03:12You know, can you talk about looking at that, her approach, because she can be tempted, but she also wants to tempt in many ways, in that way.
03:20Tim, I feel like your team on Dean, which I like, I love very much.
03:25I think my, my attempt, my approach to on Dean straight away, I felt intuitively that it would be primarily a movement one, because costume is such a big part of her.
03:42Um, but it's also very restrictive, um, in these times that I knew I wanted to spend time finding the little, um, tricks and how I can lure in by not saying, but just possibly showing, but not showing too much and playing with that, you know, push and pull.
04:03Um, so yeah, I had a lot of fun with movement and then manipulating fabric and how she moves her hands and, you know, the way that my body might move as I, you know, use the corset to assist, um, some punctuation in my movement.
04:22It was, it was very fun.
04:23My request is small enough, a settlement, once and for all.
04:28Enough for me to buy a piece of land somewhere in the south.
04:33I'll go from Paris.
04:37I do believe you are in love.
04:38What else could cause you to lower your sights on my fortune?
04:45My father's fortune.
04:46Your mother was a spendthrift too.
04:48Do not speak of her.
04:49Your father would tear out what little hair he had left as she gave to every pawpaw in town.
04:54Give me something.
04:55Some advice then.
04:57She's like a hunter.
04:58I love when you put your arm through with Alice and it's almost like she's prey.
05:03There's the prey aspect of it, you know, and of course it's about prey versus predator.
05:07Or whatever subtle manipulation either Alice is doing of other people or your character is doing or Valmont.
05:14Could you talk about that idea of prey versus predator in that situation?
05:18Because that adds to the sort of control versus chaos.
05:22The power or no power at any given point.
05:25Oh, yeah.
05:25I used to, you know, um, Nicholas and Alice were on set before I was.
05:31And I was, um, watching them and how they worked and what they did.
05:37And trying to incorporate and almost master some of their tricks that they acquire along the way.
05:43And come at it from a place of expertise.
05:47So, um, I think a lot of the time when we were playing around with each other, I would see them, you know, my, my, my homework for the night would be, you know, learning them.
05:59And then trying to find things to trump what cards I knew they had already and then watching them navigate and just trying to keep my cool and see what that offered.
06:10So it was a lot of play, a lot of play.
06:13And those two are so incredibly talented.
06:16They play like no other.
06:17So I'm very thankful that, um, that cat and mouse push and pull and prey and predator was able to come alive in the moment.
06:27Give your soul to God.
06:31Trust in the divine.
06:33Let your faith be your sustenance.
06:37You don't need to thank me.
06:39All of this.
06:40My father's title, his fortune, should have been mine when he died, but you poisoned him against me.
06:44It's not my fault.
06:45He fell in love with me.
06:46Let's call it by its name.
06:47And I earned it.
06:49Every piece of it.
06:51He was a man of great appetite.
06:53I have nothing on Dean.
06:54And it's interesting seeing your character because she's the one that seems to have the best perspective of everything going on.
07:03She gets it and she's not, she, she, she sees through all BS.
07:07And that's the interesting thing about is that everybody else is so embroiled in their own chaos that they don't see what they should see.
07:15Can you talk about that dynamic?
07:17Because your character really brings that to bear.
07:20Yeah.
07:21Yeah.
07:21It's really interesting with Victoire because she, essentially, she doesn't really have intentions of her own.
07:26So she's kind of like, yeah, quite a plain canvas.
07:29So she's here to just see everyone's perspective.
07:32And that's, yeah, that was a really interesting thing with her because then with that, I was like, but then what is her intention?
07:38And I think that's the thing with Victoire.
07:40There's like a lot of mystery around her.
07:41And it was really nice that you got that from her because I think I was having a conversation with someone the other day and they said that she was kind of like the perspective of the audience and kind of helping the audience engage everyone else.
07:53Well, it's interesting because she almost, you know, you're thinking, well, what would her purpose?
08:23And what would her price be in terms of information or something like that?
08:27And it's interesting to see how everybody tries to tempt her.
08:31She's like, she doesn't fall down into the hell that everybody else does.
08:36You know, she's staying just above the surface.
08:38And what Harriet just mentioned, she used the simile or the acronym of Camille is a shark.
08:45And she comes up for air and then she goes back down, but she never stays far enough above water.
08:51It's an interesting sort of, I think, image, but maybe not completely true.
08:56How do you have to see this world these people exist in?
08:59Because the thing is, your character is very outspoken, but she knows the BS everybody from the Leigh of Elmont to, you know, she can see through everybody.
09:09Everyone, you know, but you don't want to, and you want to play that with the audience, but you also want to key in the humor because the humor that you bring to it is what keeps a lot of the series grounded in many ways.
09:21Yeah, I mean, I think she's a very, like you said, no bullshit.
09:25She has a bullshit radar.
09:27I think she grew up in a life that was like, yeah, quite difficult.
09:30She's seen all types of people.
09:32She's met all these people before.
09:33So she knows that she's seen this before.
09:36And she carries a lot of wisdom for a young age.
09:39Yeah, and just humor.
09:40And she's like quite cheeky, but she's also a very strong and grounded person.
09:45So that is, yeah, that is what she brings to the series.
09:47But in terms of, yeah, Victoire, I think she's kind of like a...
09:51I think she's like a dolphin, if that makes sense.
09:55Because, you know, dolphins are like, I feel like people underestimate dolphins because they're just kind of cute and stuff, but they're really smart and playful and really strong at the same time.
10:05Remind me, how many years have you been here?
10:08Because the story that I heard was that Jericho plucked you from a crab pot on the banks of the river when you were just a child.
10:14So I hope you don't mind if I put my faith in love.
10:17Good.
10:19I hope we'll be happy together.
10:20We will be.
10:21With no need of me.
10:23I am glad I'll finally have a bed to myself.
10:26And I was not in a pot.
10:27I was mending them.
10:28And they were lobsters, not crabs.
10:30Of course.
10:33So much more glamorous.
10:36Now, when she looks at the...
10:38Well, when you look at the bigger milieu, and obviously you've been able to do that in many of your projects.
10:43Do you have to know the way that everybody's moving in, where Valmont is, where it's Camille?
10:49Or do you have to just see your journey and sort of encapsulate that and find those details in those moments in between?
10:55What was the process on this one?
10:58Well, I sort of like to know what's going on as an actor, just as an overview.
11:05But I also like to be surprised and to really go into my story.
11:11So therefore, you can be surprised.
11:13And, you know, that's how it was.
11:15So I like the fact that she is a sort of, yeah, that very suppressed, aloof woman who awakens, something in her awakens by meeting Valmont.
11:34And this sort of wild-spiritedness and his attraction, his, you know, the fact that someone actually cares for her.
11:41Because she's also in a loveless marriage that doesn't help.
11:43So I think that something wakes up and you see a, almost like a, that's how I try to play it, but like a childlike excitement about feeling alive again, you know.
11:58And I think that's also a very sad part of her story that she, that there is no, none of that anymore in her daily life.
12:07There is news from a plantation.
12:10Your husband, Marquis, has left Sandamon.
12:13He will return before the month is out.
12:19I find myself much burdened.
12:29I, I brought the cards.
12:31I thought that might provide a welcome distraction.
12:35It's a miracle I need now.
12:37Because at times she can be very, and I mean that, I don't mean this in a critical way.
12:48She can be ignorant of what she's seeing.
12:50And that's sort of the irony of what's going on.
12:53But yet the desire, you can see this desire brimming underneath the surface because she wants to break out.
12:59And that's sort of the irony of the character, that dichotomy.
13:03Did you try to find that brimming point?
13:05Was there little details underneath the surface?
13:08Like when you come into Valmont's apartment at one point, you see that, where it's just like you guys are just close enough, but just far apart.
13:16And that can be some of the greatest tension in chemistry and moments in film, in TV, all things like that.
13:23I mean, anything that, that's why I like suppressed, to play, I don't like suppressed.
13:28I like to play suppressed emotions because there's so much you can play.
13:32There's, you know, it's like keeping a ball in the water.
13:34The more you try to keep it in the water, the more it will pop up.
13:37So, and that's what a lot of people with trauma or with suppressed feelings do.
13:41You know, they, they, they try to hold it together.
13:43And that's, of course, a great tension to look at because, you know, there's something underneath there.
13:48There's something underneath.
13:49You see that she's probably excited by this young body, but cannot act upon that at all.
13:55And, you know, it's all that sort of restrictiveness and, which is great to play.
14:02Like, and I, you know, as much as I love Harriet's writing and I love good writing in general,
14:08it may be, it might be my, my silent movie background that I was raised with.
14:12But I, I, I love, and I love scenes where there's no talking.
14:17Like, let me do the eyebrow thing.
14:19Let me do the switch of the, you know, your eyelash.
14:23I, I, I, I love those quiet moments as well.
14:35What would you give to have me back?
14:38Everything.
14:41I want to give you another chance.
14:47Tell me what to do.
14:48Well, because it's a different approach.
14:51Like, uh, I was asked, I asked Alice Nicholas about this is the aspect of, you know, you see where their trauma comes from.
14:59You see where, and the empathy has to trickle in at very sort of key moments to keep them remotely, like, likable.
15:07You have to be able to root for them.
15:08But yet we're rooting for your character because we see, in a way, what she's gone through to get where she is and the kind of BS she's had to deal with.
15:17But also, you know, that she's had to make choices.
15:20Can you talk about that?
15:22Because that sort of power element between family and society, especially in that time, was no small feat.
15:28Everybody's trying to stab you in the back.
15:31Absolutely.
15:31I think you're right on, Tim.
15:33I think it's really interesting when you have two people that want the same thing and the reasons are just as strong as each other.
15:42And in that comes so many interesting strategies, because if you both went at it like this, you know, you just, I mean, that doesn't create any interesting drama anyway.
15:53Right.
15:53And I see this society as such a chessboard and you want to manoeuvre and you want to place yourself at the right time and be at the right place.
16:03So it's very interesting.
16:04Instead of losing your cool, there were other strategies to play weren't there.
16:08So I think just having a lot of fun and sitting into that just gave so much opportunity to really empathize with these characters.
16:21I think you hear some clues about Ondine's backstories.
16:26And of course, as the actor, I've gone deeper into that.
16:30So my reasons are even more stronger, you know, within.
16:34And I hope that spills out, you know, at times, not too much, but enough to know.
16:40Like you said, she's fought her way and she's not about to give it up for some little kid.
16:46To get what you truly want in this city, you must destroy everything.
16:51And everyone that stands between you and it.
16:56You have something that belongs to me.
16:59Your dignity.
17:00You can't win against that sort of power.
17:03You know how dangerous this is.
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