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Raef Harrison

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Preview: Hulu’s New Original Series ‘Harlots’

February 17, 2018

“Downton Abbey” fans excited for Hulu’s new hour-long period drama “Harlots” should be warned — Lady Sybil Crawley is not in attendance. Instead, Jessica Brown-Findlay plays Charlotte Wells, a fiery and glamorous courtesan… And the eldest daughter of bawdy brothel madam Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton), who’s using the world’s oldest profession to help her family climb 18th century Georgian London society.

But like Lady Sybil, whose life was changed by the burgeoning women’s lib movement of 19th century England, Charlotte Wells is a character full of vitality and rebellion, unwilling to settle for the station she’s been cast in. “Put out” since the age of 12, Charlotte has spun her special skills into London celebrity — and even managed to snag herself the comfortable position of mistress to a Baron, though she actively rebels against his possessiveness and jealousy.

Despite her mother’s insistence that men only respect property, Charlotte refuses to see herself as such.

Margaret, meanwhile, has a house full of other girls to worry about — including her youngest daughter Lucy (Eloise Smyth), whose virginity she’s preparing to auction off to a growing stable of frothing suitors. With the proceeds, she anticipates moving her girls into a finer part of town, where she can finally run a proper brothel and enjoy a higher station in society… But in the midst of this social gambit, Margaret suddenly finds herself in a turf war with a high-class madame, and bitter rival, by the name of Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville).

For a show about such a titillating topic — sex and those who trade in it — this smart period piece takes an even-handed approach: There is no moralizing or victimizing of either side of the bed; no easy answer as to what, or who, is righteous and justified. Conversations, even stories, about sex workers in any era are customarily told from the outside: Even the most sympathetic or energized show or film telling a story of sex work comes to us through the lens of a third party, which can’t help but assign a moral value — whether it prescribes rehabilitation, demonstrates the dangers of living as a woman as though they’re necessary consequences, or in the majority, tries to plumb the deeps of a deep sadness, abuse, or whatever it is we’re meant to take away.

“Harlot’s” thesis, on the other hand, is simple: The most common currency in the world is power, and the power these women have is sex.

It’s a risky position, implying as it does both female agency and a value-neutral subjectivity — and so, it should come as no surprise that the enterprise is helmed by an all-female production team, led by Executive Producers Debra Hayward and Alison Owen and Executive Producer and Co-Creator Moira Buffini… Or that every episode of the first season’s ten is directed by a woman.

The sex in the show, of which there is a lot, is surprisingly genuine: Neither glamorized nor fetishized, we’re invited to look at the job like any other, as a matter of function and obligation. These women may be in the profession of fulfilling men’s fantasies, but the viewpoint never shifts to the customer’s point of view — and there’s no reason it ever should.

With “The Handmaid’s Tale” arriving April 26, Hulu is cementing itself in 2017 as the home to strong female voices — and thus fitting partner for “Harlots” to get in bed with: Hulu’s small but growing roster of original shows includes work from the unique minds of creators like Amy Poehler and Julie Klausner (“Difficult People”), Mindy Kaling (“The Mindy Project”), Jessica Goldberg (“The Path”) and Bridget Carpenter (“11.22.63”).

This article was originally produced for Screener.

In Entertainment, TV, Feature Writing Tags Entertainment, TV, Feature Writing
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Is #PoorMartha the original Barb?

February 17, 2018

Alison Wright had been holding onto the secret for a while by the time Martha made her surprise Season 5 cameo on “The Americans.”

In a panning shot of a Moscow grocery store in the March 21 episode, “The Midges,” Martha — the much-too-trusting wife of Matthew Rhys’ two-timing spy Phillip Jennings— is seen combing the shelves for whatever food is left, wrapped in drab headscarf and shawl. A tangible and collective “She’s alive!” erupted across social media as soon as it happened.

“I am just so touched that people cared about her,” Wright tells us — to say nothing of the relief she felt that it’s now out in the open, and strangers aren’t stopping her on the street poking around for answers. “I was also lying to my friends, to people close to me!”

But to Wright it was inevitable for the show to give us a sign that Martha was actually okay. It was clear to her that fans weren’t satisfied with just being toldshe had made it to Moscow — theories were beginning to swirl that she’d actually been pushed out of the plane over Cuba, or met some other dastardly fate: “I think it was something that had to happen, to relieve that pressure.”

And while Wright was obviously tight-lipped on future cameos, she’s optimistic about Martha’s fate.

“Look — she’s clearly getting out of the house, at least! She’s managed to wash her face, had a shower… I think she’s surviving.”

And the fact that she is surviving is partly why audiences cared so much about a character who, in the grand scheme of the series, didn’t take up a whole lot of screen time. But the scenes Martha was in, she commanded. She offered a bit of innocence and humanity in world of moral ambiguity and cynicism. She was, for all intents and purposes, us.

Martha draws parallels to another recent break out character who ended up dominating the conversation based on very little actual screen time, or even dialogue — Barb, from “Stranger Things.” After Barb’s two-ish episode arc where she mostly just fretted after her BFF Nancy Wheeler, the character became a movement.

When asked if this comparison was a legit one, Wright was quick to point out that while she is an obsessive fan of the show, #PoorMartha was definitely the original. “And I would tell that to David Harbour’s face,” she joked. She attributes the breakout success of these characters to their relatability. In the surreal settings of Cold War spying and mythical Upside Down worlds, they’re both grounded, everyday women — and we can see ourselves in them.

“That’s key,” Wright says. “That — and they both display incredible fashion sense, which probably doesn’t hurt.”

And like the actress who plays Barb (Shannon Purser), Wright is successfully leveraging her newfound notoriety into other top-tier projects. Most notably another FX series making waves, Ryan Murphy’s “Feud.” In it, Wright plays Pauline Jameson, the right-hand woman to director Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina) — who has ambitions of becoming a director herself in a time in Hollywood when female directors weren’t really a thing.

In a big Pauline-centric episode which aired the same week as Martha’s cameo in “The Americans,” the character comes close to realizing her dreams when Aldrich appears to support her ambitions, agreeing to help produce a script she has written and wants to direct. In the end Aldrich backs out, consumed by his own problems — and revealing that he’s just not ready to admit women can hack it.

The nexus of this episode was supposed to be centered around Joan Crawford (a Jessica Lange tour de force) getting an Oscar nomination stolen from her, but by the time the camera fades to black on Pauline sharing a sundae with with Mamacita (Jackie Hoffman), Joan Crawford’s housekeeper and confidant, you suddenly find yourself pulling for the pair’s quiet friendship more than anything else.

“I want Pauline and Mamacita to have their own sitcom! Jackie Hoffman is so funny.” Wright says of the episode. But while the two actresses may eventually hang out in real life (they are both currently in plays on Broadway in New York City) Wright was again tight-lipped about any future lunch plans between Pauline and Mamacita in the rest of the anthology’s season.

“I can’t talk about the two of them doing anything together, but they are both still around in the show,” Wright assured us — and we can’t wait!

This interview was originally conducted for Screener.

In Entertainment, Feature Writing, TV, Interview Tags Feature Writing, Entertainment, TV
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An Interview With Maria Thayer

October 20, 2016

Maria Thayer has a voice that makes you instantly feel like you’re friends with her. Light and energetic, she sounds as if she just walked in the door and is ready to gossip, as opposed to being on a conference call taking questions while also prepping for a major press tour and attempting to not be late to a screening party for the season two premiere of her TrueTV series, Those Who Can’t.

Maria Thayer also has a face that instantly looks familiar, which makes sense seeing as she’s been popping up in hit movies (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and TV shows (Cougar Town, 30 Rock, Eagleheart) for years. But when she appeared in two Hulu Originals in the past year — The Mindy Project and Difficult People — we felt a star-crossed connection and wanted to check in. 

The daughter of bee farmers in Boring, Oregon (a town that sounds like something straight out of a sitcom’s writers’ room) Thayer spent her high school days in Minneapolis before moving on to study acting at Juilliard in New York City. “I didn’t do all that well in high school," she claims. "And it was the only college I got into that people reacted to, so I went.” After graduating with a newfound background in classical theater, it was a chance spotting in a school play by actress/comedian Amy Sedaris that gave Thayer her first real acting role. Sedaris wrote a part for Thayer on her experimental show for Comedy Central, Strangers With Candy; a role that set her on a professional course of farcical comedy. “Leaving Juilliard I thought I would be playing Juliet on stage," she laughs. "But now I’m doing comedy, which is great. I love comedy.”

And comedy loves her. Thayer’s latest role as Abbey, an accidental librarian and sometimes fourth wheel to a band of misfit high school teachers in Those Who Can’t, seems inherently perfect for Maria. Her natural delivery and perfect blend of intensity and apathy gives the character credibility when she’s roid-raging over the lack of red vines in the teacher’s lounge or loudly shooshing whispering students in the school’s library. “She’s the loudest one in there, for sure.” 

While we had her, we got to dig in a little deeper into the role of Abbey, and what to expect from this new season.

Abbey is paired with a pretty incompetent threesome — do you consider her part of their gang?

She’s probably the most intense of all four of them. I feel like she’s on the inside and outside of the other three — she can’t decide if she’s part of the gang. Sometimes they’re too stupid for her and sometimes she’s the dumbest one, getting in all the trouble.

Why were you excited to do this show in the first place?

It was so funny. It’s so well written. People ask if we do improv on set, and we do, but the scripts are amazing in themselves that we don’t really have to. It’s all there on the page.

Season Two — what’s on deck for us?

I really think that this season is better than the last one. It’s more exciting, it’s funnier, it’s faster paced. I honestly think we topped season one. I’m just excited for people to see the crazy directions that we go in.

You have some pretty great guest stars this season…

We do! Cheri Oteri is on this season for a couple of episodes. Will Sasso is coming in, who is just one of the funniest people. Everybody loved working with Will.

Do you have any memories from high school or high school teachers that relate to the show?

I guess I more had situations that were similar that I could draw from. If anything I thought about how badly I behaved in high school and how patient my teachers were. I would not last one day in a high school. Not one day.

This interview was originally published on Hulu’s blog.

In TV, Interview, Feature Writing, Entertainment
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