Interview with Fiona Shaw (Carolyn) on Killing Eve Season 3

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Could you talk us through what happens to Carolyn in season three.

The biggest change for Carolyn this season is that we see into her mysterious world of leaving the office and disappearing. This time the audience get to follow her home. There’s also a very emotional arc for her throughout the whole series. I don’t think anyone will see it coming. Certainly I didn’t. The affect is quite challenging because she’s not the kind of person to respond to something so emotional in an obvious way. It’s been quite hard to do.

How did it feel to be back for a third season?

It was just bliss being back for the third season, as it was for the second season. It’s a huge privilege to work with the same people again, the same crew, some of the same directors and of course the same actors. You’ve got this marvellous sense of camaraderie. The writing by Suzanne Heathcote was so new and almost like playwriting. In some respects it makes this series deeper than our previous ones, and a bit more complicated. We all got involved with each other in a much more complicated way. Konstantin and Carolyn have some very interesting scenes. The home life of Carolyn has been the hugest challenge, and there are some really surprising aspects to it.

Carolyn is a figure whose past is shrouded in mystery. Do you create a whole backstory to help you understand her better?

This type of writing works best when there is an aura of mystery but there are lots of logical things that get you to the moment. Clearly Carolyn and Konstantin have had a huge relationship in the past and that gets really exposed in this series. But of course, people remember things slightly differently to each other. What Carolyn remembers about the relationship may not be what Konstantin remembers. I think that’s true of many people.

There’s more reference to Carolyn’s earlier relationship, her marriages. With each series you dig up the hinterland of the characters in a bigger way and by the end there’ll be quite a tapestry of the past that the audience have never seen.

Carolyn and Konstantin’s relationship is far from straightforward…

Carolyn and Konstantin are the two adults of the series and they have a more sophisticated and ambiguous relationship. Within their work life, which is the instability of all spy worlds, you trust a person only as far as you trust them. Maybe not as far as you throw them. Carolyn both trusts Konstantin - he lived in her house last season - and doesn’t trust him. So they have this strange intimacy that is both intimate but also slightly hostile. It’s full of nooks and crannies and mountains and troughs.

How has it been working with Kim?

I have adored working with Kim over the last three years. He’s a very unique actor who works from a very strange process. He is almost in constant rehearsal. Where I usually try and mine the language for as much meaning as possible, he barely works from the language. He works from feeling and it gives him this unique and remarkable manner in every scene. You literally don’t know what he’s going to do next.

How has it been working with Sandra and Jodie over the last three years?

At the very beginning when we started Killing Eve, Sandra was always screaming at me about Medea which she had seen me perform on Broadway. I always felt very much the elder of the group. But we’ve all now grown up together so we’re very much like a family in that regard. Sometimes Sandra and I go to the theatre together on our nights off, though that becomes a bit public now. We’ve got to know each other very well over time. This season I have my very first proper big scene with Jodie. I’d been looking forward to that no end and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Jodie and I have had great fun together but we mainly meet in makeup trailers. We go to ceremonies and opening nights which is not a bad way to know someone and we get on very well.

What do you think people love about this show?

I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge gave us characters that never behaved on a track, it was always something oblique. Particularly my character which always had some non-sequitur or something seemingly irrelevant to say. But it opened doors in the mind about who the person was. In that way the writing is quite Shakespearian, in that you know the people are not just functionaries of the plot, but are much bigger in their mind. When it got off to that great start, it meant that the audience enjoyed spending time with those people. Even the most banal scenes to do with office work suddenly become delightful because you know that they are witty people, they are interesting and slightly zany. But they are not trapped in that either. I suppose it’s both serious and funny.

What can we expect from Killing Eve this season?

The audience are very quick and know everything that could possibly happen but I think they’re going to get something that they didn’t expect this season. It’s quite remarkable in that it’s become more serious and, in many ways, more funny. It’s as if the elements that already exist have been expanded. We start pulling at the characters and making them failures where they seem successes, serious where you thought they were funny or despondent when you hoped they were optimistic, cynical when you thought they were hopeful. It has been very interesting seeing them morph and develop and watching how the worlds that they’re in are beginning to close in on them.

What are your favourite costumes from the show and why?

I was so surprised when Phoebe de Gaye, who was our first Costume Designer, began to get the most astonishing items. We went to Liberty and bought a militaristic but kingfisher blue coat and everybody loved that coat. Maybe the coat became the character, it was slightly army-ish and beautifully cut, but it wasn’t a coat that I’d have ever worn in my normal life. I’ve worn some gorgeous items. In the second season, I had an Armani jumpsuit that I liked so much I went and bought one myself. This season, Sam Perry, has really moved the thing forward. Carolyn is no longer wearing slightly academic shoes but is now in Doc Martin-y, clumpy shoes and loafers. The characters probably couldn’t have started there but once they’ve got there they can wear those things.

What has been your favourite or funniest moment on set?

When we laugh, we laugh all the time. There are so many funny things like the usual when we go wrong or see the opportunity to say something else but there’s quite a clock on this series so we concentrate like mad to get the scenes as good as we can. Damon Thomas (Director) is just hilarious. He laughs at things and makes things very funny. He puts everyone at ease.

Source BBC One

April 10, 2020 8:20am ET by BBC One  

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