Latest news with #Scanlen
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Dope Girls' star Julianne Nicholson on the brilliant 'punk rock' scene that sets the tone for post-World War One London show
Created and written by the esteemed Polly Stenham, produced by Bad Wolf (Doctor Who) and Sony Pictures Television, Dope Girls tells a story of post-World War One London, focusing on the stories of women often left out of what we hear, and see, from that time. Starring Julianne Nicholson, Eliza Scanlen, Umi Myers and Eilidh Fisher, the six-episode series is centred around Kate Galloway (Nicholson), a recently widowed mother who leans into the boom of nightlife to establish her own nightclub. Meanwhile, Scanlen's character, Violet Davies, is one of the London Constabulary's first ever female officers, assignment to go undercover to investigate the city's underworld. This includes getting a job as a hostess at Kate's club. Speaking to Yahoo Canada, Nicholson and Scanlen spoke about portraying women making their mark on post-war, and a particularly "punk rock" scene in the fountain in Trafalgar Square that's a great way to establish the tone for the rest of the season. In Canada, Dope Girls air Mondays on CTV Drama Channel, and the CTV app, and is available to stream on Crave the next day. There's something um that I think comes through, I think right from the beginning is so core, which is that we're getting to see women. In traditionally male spaces in a traditionally male centered timeline and time frame in history, um, was there something particularly attractive about being able to take on a story that is going to show people, I think, a different side of this time period than we're used to seeing? Yeah, it was a huge draw to sort of show the women's side of the story. You know, the men are coming back and oftentimes we think of that as being purely, you know, love and reunion, but You know, women have found themselves out of their homes, in the workforce, independent, and now they're all, you know, for the most part going back into the kitchen, into the home caretaking mode. And that sucks. Um, and so it's fun to be able to sort of, um, play in that world and, and show this other version of, of what might have been happening at the time. Violet's such a fun character to play, um, being part of the police force, and during the war, because there were no men. Um, women did volunteer at the police force and then it was until when the war ended that they were brought out brought on as a kind of experiment and um. Yeah, it was I I think it was a just a very interesting world for me to explore, interesting to think about women, um, in that space and how. They used their femininity as a way to enter spaces that men Um, couldn't necessarily do, uh, so expertly in plain clothes. Julianne, I have to ask about that really kind of brilliant scene, um, in the fountain in Fowler Square, because I think it's such a beautiful moment. I loved that volume stage stuff, that's what they call volume stage, I was reminded today, and it's basically like a great big IMAX screen. I mean, it's like 40 ft tall and wraps around the whole room. And it really just brought a different level of energy to everything. I mean, it felt really special to be able to recreate. I mean, just using your imagination, thinking back to that time, that place, what it must have felt like on the day. So to be able to have these incredible sort of background supporting artists, having these full on stories around us. Um, it just felt very alive and very moving and very punk rock in a way that I feel like you feel throughout the rest of the series. It felt like a great and sort of Um, exciting and abrupt way to to jump into that part of our storytelling. I loved it. I mean, come on, with wings drenched in blood, like it was all, it all came together for me. It was very exciting and just like visually, it was so cool. Yeah. I also even like you like walking out of that scene with, you know, Billy and your daughter, I think is also such an interesting moment and just how they carried themselves after. I was like, oh, this whole moment is phenomenal. I know, I, I love that too, where they just feel like. I, it just feels so raw. I feel like so much of this of this show just feels like people who who don't have the energy to put on an act anymore. It's about survival and so it just gets rough immediately and sort of carries through throughout. Even, even for the good girl in the in the uniform, exactly. Um, as you, I think for your character, something that's really interesting, and I was really kind of interested in figuring out and finding the, the hooks was, um, this kind of, um, clear trauma relationship she has to what happened with her sister, which I think is an interesting kind of element to add. She's someone who You know, feels this desperation to kind of serve in the way that she wants to, but she has this kind of other element that in some ways, um, her superiors kind of use against her in some ways, in some capacities in some moments. And what was it like to have that really interesting kind of element of of her past to be able to kind of use to inform some of the character? Yeah, I think that, I mean, Violet, for Violet, her sister was her whole world and so I think a lot of what she does in the show informed, is informed by, Her loss and um. As much as she tries to convince herself that it's her duty to serve her country. I think also, I'm sure that women at the time too, didn't feel like they had the same opportunities to kind of like serve their country too. She feels a, she feels a certain patriotism for her country. Um, but I think under the guise of that is uh. Uh, regret and, um, self blame for what happened to her sister. Um, so it's, yeah, it is the driving force for her and. Yeah, it's a story of survival too. She's, she's a lone wolf. Julian, for you, um, your character and Billy's relationship is obviously very interesting to see how that develops and this need for Kate to kind of come back and say, You know, kind of like I need to stay here. I need your help. It's like, this is the only place she has to go and to see that interesting relationship and Billy kind of explore this mother that left and she lost contact with. Can you tell me a little bit about really being able to kind of dive into that kind of interesting element of the character? Yeah, one of the things I love about the show is how it dives into the diversity of Soho in that time and, you know, different. You know, different walks of life, different ages, different sexual preferences, different color of skin. Like that was a very beautiful world to explore. And um Umi, who plays Billy is such a talent and so strong and vulnerable at the same time. And it's a very, you know, we don't explore necessarily the whole of their story on camera, but we had a very clear, I had a very clear idea of of leaving her. Kate always thought she would come back for her, be able to come back for her, and her life circumstances changed, and she wasn't able to, and now it's all these years later, but it's been her big regret. She thinks about her in my mind every single day. And so it's, it's the final straw that pushes her back to. Her, but it's very complicated. I know Umi has shared that in Billy's mind, one of the reasons I left her was because she was not white, which is very hard to hear and feels, you know, abandoned as she was. So it was a very rich history that they share, um, and I found it very moving to play those scenes with Ui and explore the potential of finding their way back to each other.
The Independent
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Eliza Scanlen: ‘I'm at this weird age where l'm still getting jobs for 17-year-old girls who have never kissed someone'
E liza Scanlen wasn't technically a child when she became a star. The Australian actor had just turned 18 when she landed her breakout role as Amy Adams' feral baby-doll sister in HBO's hit series Sharp Objects – but looking back now, she knows she could've done with a few more years under her belt. 'It all happened when I was quite young,' Scanlen says today, still only 26. 'I wasn't really prepared for that kind of attention and when something like that happens, once you get a break, there is this pressure to take advantage of that momentum and run with it. I found it very overwhelming and in some ways, I withdrew – whereas if I was a bit older, I'd have been more confident and ready.' You get the sense that even now, with tentpoles like Little Women, M Night Shyamalan's Old, and now BBC's sure-fire hit Dope Girls, to her name, Scanlen is not particularly suited to the discomforts of fame. This chimes with the person that I meet today, who is happily without pretence or affect – or even a handbag. Scanlen arrives in a black puffer jacket and a denim button-up shirt. We both apologise awkwardly when she goes for a hug at the same time as I stick out my hand. It's all very un-Hollywood, which is how she likes it. The idea of moving to LA elicits a groan; living in London, she says, is a nice middle-ground between her remote home of Australia and the industry den of California. Scanlen grew up in Sydney with a twin sister (also called Annabel; 'Same spelling as yours!' she says) and an older brother. Her parents co-founded Storage King, a successful storage facility business in the city. While at school, she started taking weekend classes at Nida, the performing arts college whose alumni include Sarah Snook and Cate Blanchett. No one in her family, bar a second cousin once removed who she heard was a screenwriter, knew a thing about acting. There was no visible route in, and yet equally there was no plan B. 'It's that beautiful age where you don't have self-doubt,' she laughs. 'I was like, this is easy!' As is the trodden path for Australian actors – Margot Robbie, Heath Ledger, the Hemsworth brothers – Scanlen got her start on soaps. She was 17 and in her final year of school when she played an angel-faced stalker on Home and Away. 'I got to the green room one day and the scripts had come through and they said I had to kiss someone,' she says. 'I absolutely freaked out. I was terrified. I almost quit acting.' In the end, she got through it; now her barometer for taking a job is how much it scares her. 'It sounds masochistic, but the more scary it is, the more satisfying.' That first guest part on Home and Away identified in Scanlen something directors would go on to utilise throughout her career. These days, she continues to land roles that play on her perceived sweetness and ability to flip it as fast as a switchblade, because while it's easy to compare her short crop of blonde curls to a halo, infinitely more interesting is the sinister curl of her lips. Shades of that brattish performance served her similarly well on stage in last year's highly acclaimed, high-camp production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Other times the multitudes are more subtle, as in 2023's The Starling Girl, in which she plays a 17-year-old girl whose religious foundations are shaken when she begins a transgressive romance with her handsome 28-year-old youth pastor. There's duplicity in her latest role, too, in BBC's Dope Girls, which stars Julianne Nicholson as the aspiring owner of a nightclub in 20th-century London. Scanlen plays Violet, one of Britain's first women police officers, who is sent under cover into the underbelly of Soho. Nasty and delicious, the series has been hailed a 'spiritual successor' to Peaky Blinders. In preparation for her part, Scanlen listened to Siobhan Finneran's podcast, trying to emulate the actor's northern accent. It's the hardest accent she's done yet, which is saying something given how little she gets to use her natural Australian lilt. Beyond that, Scanlen tried not to study too hard for the part as she has been wont to do in the past. 'I tend to use research as a crutch to allay my anxiety about a job if I worry that I'm going to be bad,' she says. 'In recent years, I've realised that it can be quite stifling. Obviously there are some historical elements that inform your acting, but those things can get in the way sometimes.' As Violet, Scanlen doubles down on the menace of her earlier roles, more blatantly ruthless and self-possessed. On screen, it's clear she's savouring the change. 'I'm at this weird age, too, where I'm 26 now but I'm still getting jobs for 17-year-old girls who have never kissed someone,' she says. 'I love coming-of-age stories, but it is starting to feel further and further away.' With age has come confidence, which isn't to say that Scanlen wasn't savvy early on. When she arrived at the screen test for Sharp Objects fresh from Schoolies (a week of hard partying that is a rite of passage for Australian students after sitting their final exams), her voice was hoarse and ragged. 'The first thing Jean-Marc [Vallée] says is, 'Shit, your voice sounds really different…'' says Scanlen, cringing at the memory. In the end, she played it off as some sort of character immersion. 'I told him, 'You know, I'm crazy. I party hard like [my character] Amma!' So it ended up being fine in the end.' Sharp Objects was a ride, adds Scanlen. 'I remember the day of the premiere being so overwhelmed by the whole spectacle,' she says. 'I thought, I can't do this. I was also meeting Greta [Gerwig] on that trip for a screen test for Little Women, and this press release came out like… ' Little Women circling Eliza Scanlen.' It was very bizarre. I wasn't quite prepared for it and I don't think I really understood the enormity of what was happening; it was quite scary.' The screen test went well regardless and she landed the part of Beth, turning in a suitably cherubic, butter-wouldn't-melt performance as the scarlet fever-stricken March sister. But the fear didn't go away – and it's something her Little Women co-star Saoirse Ronan noticed, too. 'I was chatting with Saoirse's mum recently and we were reminiscing about that time, and she said to me that Saoirse came home one day after doing rehearsals and rang her mum, and she said, 'Mum I've met this girl who is playing Beth, and I think I need to look after her on this film. I think I need to look out for her.' And that's exactly what she did,' recalls Scanlen. 'I think she saw herself in me at that age and she knew how the industry can be.' Today, they're close friends. 'Whenever I have a problem or am not sure about something, she's the person I go to,' Scanlen smiles. 'Also, when I just feel f**ked off with the industry.' Her friendship with Kiwi actor Thomasin McKenzie, too, has proven another port in the storm. Still, Scanlen came out of Little Women overwhelmed and homesick. When she got the script for an indie drama called Babyteeth, shooting in her hometown of Sydney, she took it. 'I just wanted to go home at that point,' she says. 'Also I loved the script. I knew I had to do it. My agents were like, 'Really? Are you sure this is the right move?' For some reason, I was sure of myself.' It was the right decision. Anyone who has seen Babyteeth, in which Scanlen plays a schoolgirl with cancer who falls in love with a drug dealer, will attest to its charms. Scanlen shaved her head for the part. 'I should do it again!' she exclaims. 'We all hide behind our hair to make us feel feminine and when you don't have that any more, there's no way to hide and it's so freeing.' It changes, too, how casting agents see you. 'We're so typecast on our appearance,' says Scanlen. 'I tend to get 'shy quirky girl' a lot, and I think having short hair definitely helped change that. Sometimes people aren't that imaginative. A lot of the time, when they're trying to cast things, they're looking for a 'look' rather than a performance.' It's worth noting that Scanlen's latest role as Violet in Dope Girls is anything but shy; she also has hair shorn above the shoulders. When she eventually did make her way back to Hollywood two years later, in Netflix's southern gothic thriller The Devil All the Time, Scanlan was more self-possessed because of her experience on Little Women. 'I spent three months surrounded by so many intelligent, strong-minded women and so I had more confidence in the questions I was asking,' she says. (Fun fact: 'I almost lost out on the role because I was practically still bald from Babyteeth, and Antonio [Campos, the director] had a bad experience with wigs!') And what about Robert Pattinson, whose wild, wicked performance as a Southern preacher sparked rumours of method acting? Scanlen laughs. 'It's so funny,' she says. 'He wasn't really method; we'd always be laughing between every take. He was quite uncomfortable about having to groom us – but he's really sweet. He's one of the least serious people I've ever worked with.' Scanlen does make a serious point about method acting, however, agreeing with Natalie Portman who once said it's a luxury women can't afford. 'We're not given the grace to do that kind of thing,' she says. 'We tend to give excuses, more excuses, for men's behaviour than we do for women.' As someone who has scaled all the rungs of a call sheet, Scanlen is in a well-placed position to say that sets are a 'grossly' hierarchical place. 'And at the top, when you wield that kind of power, it comes with responsibility, so if you see something it's up to you to speak up about it,' she says. 'I've definitely had experiences where I've been on the bottom rung as an actor and it's very disempowering; there was a pressure to just get in and out and not cause any trouble.' Scanlen says she has spoken up previously on behalf of herself and others. 'I'm trying to get better at not sitting on it for so long,' she says. 'When you see it, you need to have the confidence to say it in the moment.'
