Kiwi screen star Tandi Wright looks death in the face in her first American series. She talks to Lydia Jenkin.
If you lost your 15-year-old child in a tragic bus accident, only to have them walk back into the kitchen four years later, how would you feel? That was the key question facing Tandi Wright as she prepared for her first American TV series, a starring role in The Returned, which is based on the acclaimed French show Les Revenants.
"It was pretty strange to work on actually, because there's no way you can really prepare for a role like that," she smiles, sitting down to chat with TimeOut over a pot of tea in Grey Lynn.
"It's not like I could go and interview someone whose child came back from the dead, right?" Instead, she drew on her own feelings as a mother, and also looked to a favourite book of poetry to help find the right headspace to play Claire.
"I don't think I could've done this role if I wasn't a mum already, just those depths of terror that you feel as a parent and the overwhelming sense [you have] of trying to protect your children. It was a really emotional, intense role, and I felt like I really had to dig, dig, dig deep and pull myself down there. I had this poetry anthology, Staying Alive, which I manically took everywhere with me, because it was the only way I could anchor myself to some of those deep emotions that you don't feel on a regular basis - because it'd kill you if you felt like that all the time."
The series is set in the fictional town of Caldwell, a picturesque but isolated community that seems to have its fair share of tragic accidents and dark secrets. And when a seemingly random selection of loved ones who were long thought dead suddenly turn up again, things get progressively more unsettled and eerie.
"It's a really good premise I think, it gets you by the short and curlies instantly," Wright nods. "For me, the show is about grieving really, about how different people go through it. You meet a bunch of characters, and they're all at different stages of some sort of grief, and then the miraculous happens, and how they react to their loved ones returning tells you a lot about them. I found it fascinating.
"And I think for the writers, that premise creates a great kind of galvanising incident, because if your child or partner comes back from the dead, your character could pretty much do anything in response - it really is totally open. It's like the ultimate electric shock. Maybe they go completely mad, maybe they jump off a cliff, maybe they're frightened or scared or angry. They could do anything, so we can have great fun with that." She'd seen the first four episodes of the French series, "but then I'd become too freaked out, so I couldn't watch the rest of it!" she laughs. That left her in quite a good position though - it meant she knew enough about the character of Claire to help her nail the audition, which she taped here in New Zealand, but also left her plenty of scope for imagination and the freedom to make the role her own.
"I knew something about the series and about the tone, but I didn't feel that someone else had total ownership over the role or the story, and still felt free to do my own thing with it. And I found Claire fascinating. I think she's basically been shut down for about four years. Grief has become what defines her in a way, and her world has become very small, and that grieving is now her comfort zone.
"And her relationship has fallen apart with her now ex-husband, and she's really not being a very good mother to her surviving daughter. So there's a lot to play with."
The show does diverge from its French origins though, Wright explains. Even though the setting and even the actors all bear an uncanny resemblance to the French version and many of the plot points remain, the American showrunners decided to change the ultimate direction.
The Returned is on Netflix now.
"Initially it's very faithful, and then in about episode 6 it diverges pretty strongly, so the end is different. It was interesting talking to the showrunners about it, because they were very clear that they wanted to keep the show in the real world, so they didn't want zombies really. There's less of the magical realism, so it becomes very much a character-based drama."
It certainly had to be a juicy role to encourage Wright and her family to up sticks and move to Vancouver for four months (the series is shot in Squamish, 60km north of the city), and to do so with two days' notice.
"The whole situation felt quite extreme. I found out I got the part on a Friday night and was on the plane to Canada on Sunday evening, and once I was there I was instantly into hair and wardrobe and meeting everyone, the cast and crew, the showrunners, the studio and network executives - it was pretty full-on.
"I felt a bit like my head was exploding so I kind of let that be the case for Claire, too. It was useful really. Obviously her circumstances were much more extreme than mine but I thought, there's a sense here that I can use, that feeling of a lack of control, and like the ground is constantly shifting beneath you, and just having to grip on for dear life.
"I think I might've gone a little bit mad while I was doing it, but I think I also knew that, so it was all right," she laughs.
Wright found working with a North American crew and cast a refreshing and educational experience, and enjoyed the opportunity to see how a big-budget network show (it screened on A&E in the US) works behind the scenes.
"There's a seriousness and rigour about their work that I loved. There was this sense that everyone was pushing to do something really ambitious and artful, and that was so lovely. It felt like there was a lot at stake. It was hard to get a sense of how it was all going to come together sometimes, because it's essentially a thriller, which means it's all in the framing, the music, the editing, and sound, and so I really had no idea how it would come out."
But it's come out very well - initial reactions have been positive, and though they're yet to hear whether or not a second series has been green-lit, Wright is very excited that New Zealanders can now see the series for themselves.
"I feel really, really proud of it, and I want people to know it's out there, and they can watch it. It's quite different from anything I've done before, but I'd love people to get their free month of Netflix and see what they think."
Who: Actress Tandi Wright What: US television series The Returned Where and when: Available on Netflix now
