Michelle Forbes is a virtual guarantor of must-see TV, after appearing in Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost, 24, Homicide: Life on the Street and most recently in True Blood as the flamboyant and rather mysterious Maryann. With Season Two of the show just out on DVD, we talked to her about the dangers of working with pigs and the British show she really wants to work on. Very minor, non-specific spoilers for season two may follow…
Had you seen any of True Blood before you got involved?
I did the last three episodes of season one, but it hadn’t aired yet. Then I went off to Montreal and did a job for four months. I didn’t have a television and I was knee deep in that job. So when I came back to work I was somewhat clueless about the whole thing, but I had started to hear a lot online. My role was only supposed to be a few episodes from what I understand, so I didn’t expect it to turn into something as lengthy as it was.
She’s kind of the ‘big bad’ of season two, isn’t she?
Well, I think in the second season there were three distinct storylines, and I think that one of the great beauties about the show is that every actor has something to do. Each storyline had a ‘bad’. The Newlins, Reverend Newlin and his wife, are the ‘big bad’ of one storyline. Alexander Skarsgård, as Eric, he’s got his thing going, he’s sort of the ‘big bad’ in his story. And then, I think, at the end of the season all the stories sort of converge.
Did you see Maryann as a bad guy?
Never. It’s not possible for me as an actor to see her as bad. I was actually quite perplexed when everybody started referring to Maryann as devilish and evil and scary, diabolical. I was like “Really?” I was having so much fun playing her, and I found her so delightful and fun, and also all of these evil, rather violent things and actions that she instigates and partakes in – it actually comes from a place of love for her.
I’ve always said that she’s a character about perspective, and what I love about season two is that I feel that it really challenges our belief systems, and there are so many characters whose belief systems are being challenged. Maryann, y’know, she’s not human, so she isn’t a part of the same moral construct that we have. She’s not restrained by her fear, by guilt, by a fear of death. Her spiritual quest is for purity, and in her eyes violence, vice, any sort of grand appetite is really…that is purity for her, that is her path of bliss. So when she is instigating rather violent things in people, she’s doing it from a place of love because she wants people to experience the same bliss that she’s feeling. She wants people to be in their truest nature, so she laughs and giggles at all of the things that terrify us. So it never felt evil to me. It just felt really fun!
There’s a definite sense that what she brings out in people was already there anyway.
Yes. I mean, we hope that we’ve evolved as humans, but why are there still so many wars? Because obviously violence exists in us. We are creatures of appetite as well. Unfortunately, to give in to all of that leads to chaos and destruction. So she’s saying, “Let’s explore all of that in us, and be liberated from the torture and the pain of trying to deny that that’s a part of our human nature.” It’s really fascinating, and it’s a really fascinating journey for me, philosophically and psychologically, to think in a different way.
Maryann’s been around since the beginning of time, and there were cultures that when children were sacrificed it wasn’t a violent act, it was an act of love for their god. It’s really just re-arranging our thoughts about our belief systems. I don’t agree with that obviously, but you can go to certain cultures and mothers are mutilating their children, and they see it as a divine rite. We cannot get our heads wrapped around that, but we don’t live in their culture. So that’s where I had to go, and I’m a vegetarian!
It seems like it’s sci-fi and fantasy TV and films at the moment that are tackling these really big themes.
Definitely. When I did Battlestar Galactica it was the first time I really understood science fiction. That was a very political drama, but set in spaceships so people didn’t really take it seriously. But some really fascinating things were explored in that. If you explored it in a straight-up drama, which a lot of people have recently, it’s too much. But somehow if you go round the corner and do it the future, on a spaceship, which sounds ridiculous, we’re able to look at it and ask these philosophical and moral questions in a way that’s somehow digestible. I think that True Blood does the same thing. It’s interesting that we have to go into the past or the future or another world to examine our present, because in a strange way our present is too painful.
So what’s it like on the True Blood set? It seems like it’s a fun group of people to work with.
People ask me what the appeal of True Blood is and I think there are so many answers to that question, but I think that when there is so much excitement for what you do there is no way that that doesn’t become palpable and comes shooting out like bullets. If you look at some shows that have an ugly feel to them, or a nihilistic sort of feel to them, you’ll usually find a group of cynical, unhappy, miserable people behind the production. If you see a show that’s rather boring, or a cookie-cutter factory show, you’ll usually find some pretty uninteresting, boring people behind it.
So what did you do for fun on set?
Other than just the work? It’s a really extraordinarily intelligent group of people, and everybody’s really funny on that set. And funny things would just happen. I remember one day Chris Bauer and I were doing a scene where there was a pig in a dollhouse and there was a Dutch door. Now there was a lot of working with animals, and a lot of orgies, so you can imagine there was a lot of hijinks and hilarity ensuing with those things going on. So Chris and I were doing the scene and there was this massive pig, and that pig had a problem with Andreas, one of our grips. I don’t know why, but he just could not bear Andreas. Chris and I were just standing there, waiting to do our scene, and that pig just had it. He reared up and broke through the Dutch door and headed straight for Andreas, and Chris and I were just like “Oh my God! We just watched a pig break out of a dollhouse! What kind of a show are we doing?” And this is just a normal day on the True Blood set. Like walking around town in a bull mask and evening dress, or running around a meat tree in a mad wedding dress. We didn’t have to create things, it was just there.
Looking back at your work, you’ve worked on some truly great shows – Battlestar, True Blood, 24, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost. Is this a deliberate policy to aim for the top shows, or is just luck?
There’s certainly been no cunning plan on my behalf. I think it’s a bit of both. I think perhaps I have been really fortunate, but I have had an overall feeling of just wanting to be challenged, really trying to find those writers that excite me and scare me, and just really look for that good writing and be stubborn about it. As an actor, you’re offered so many things that are so bad and there’s a lot of money behind it, and everybody tells you you’re stupid for turning it down. But there’s a big difference between just going to work and working with people you respect and that you know you’re going to learn from. That’s what I look for, and I do feel incredibly fortunate in that regard.
Are there any shows you would like to be on that you haven’t yet?
Yeah, The Wire, but it’s over. But I did do Homicide, which was the godfather of The Wire. And Mad Men is extraordinary, it’s a great show. I think Weeds seems like it would be an enormous amount of fun. I don’t quite know what’s on telly right now over here, but I really wanted to do Spooks for a while, I thought that was a really fun show.
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