Comix Asylum’s Peter Van Horne sat down with Orla Brady to discuss Into The Badlands, now airing Sundays on AMC.
PVH: I want you to know I am really enjoying Into The Badlands as well as your character, Lydia.
OB: Oh are you? I’m really pleased to hear that. You know, you sort of lead with so much of the fight stuff because obviously it is central to the show. Wonderful Daniel (Wu) and Stephen (Fung) are so much the beating heart of the show, which is the warrior and his story. So I guess whatever stories around that are helping to create a textured world that supports and enriches that story. So I’m glad you’re telling me that.
PVH: It’s true, I enjoy the action and the sword play, but I really enjoy the character of Lydia and your portrayal, especially with episode three it was nuanced, restrained and emotional, and there’s a lot beneath the surface for her.
OB: I got to watch episode three yesterday and there is some time between filming and broadcast so I was in a way seeing the story with you and seeing it anew. What I noticed was the ladies got going in this episode, so it was a very women heavy episode. You start to understand what the driving force was behind Lydia, how she’s kind of been living for this boy (Ryder), becoming Baron for many, many years and how pragmatic she is and how quickly she is to let that go. She completely understands that he is screwing up.
One of the things that struck me was men are coming to women for care in this episode. No one will take care of Ryder, Lydia takes care of him. Jade takes care of Ryder in that she has this fabulous idea with Veil. Veil shows up. There was something about it that was very strong on the women. It’s a very different episode than the previous two, am I right?
PVH: Absolutely. It’s refreshing because it adds depth and layers to a show that could just have easily been about sword fighting.
OB: No one will follow something if it’s just about pretty fights, because you could go on YouTube and look at fights, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s going to be a story that people follow, we’re going to have to create characters that people want to follow. So that was always very much the hope that…what was the question again? (laughs)
PVH: (laughs) Not a real question, rather that the show stands out having women at the forefront and is not just about sword fights, which it could easily fall into.
OB: I love the fact that women are very much fighters. We have in this episode (White Stork Spreads Wings) three women fighting. Angelica (Teressa Liane) puts up this astonishing, beautiful fight and then chooses to die rather reveal the Widow’s whereabouts because she knows she would be tortured and give something up. So she dies trying to be true to the Widow, who is her baron. And the same with Tilda (Ally Ioannides), even though she doesn’t have a heavy fight in that episode; and the same with the Widow (Emily Beecham), but it’s not differentiated by gender. We don’t have women at home while the men are out fighting, we have an even spread of those things.
PVH: Now that Lydia has come out of her shell in this episode, what can we expect from her coming up?
OB: She’s a woman who finds herself in a position in life that many women do down the line, which is that her husband no longer sees her. She’s becoming invisible to her husband, and he is the most important person in the country, he is everything to her. She genuinely loves him and has loved him and supported him all these years, and he is not seeing her anymore. Martin (Csokas) plays it wonderfully of course, he actually doesn’t really look at me in scenes like he doesn’t see her in the room anymore. He’s looking past her at this fabulous young woman played by Sarah Bolger, who is shining in the role.
What I found interesting about Lydia when I read it first and what I think you will see in the next while is this woman is taking a decision that she is not going to go away quietly. She’s not going to go away and say, “Okay, I’ll just sit here in the corner knitting and take care of the grandchildren,” she’s not going to do that. Something is forming inside her, something where she is thinking, “You know, I’ve made this kingdom too. I am part of this; it’s not just him it’s an ‘us’, not a ‘him.” And there’s a righteous anger forming inside her.
PVH: That’s fantastic. We are three episodes in and my favourite line from Lydia is from the pilot when she says to Ryder “I still have his head and heart. Everything south I bequeath to her,” referring to Jade. This really is a person who is in a power struggle.
OB: She is, and she says those words in the beginning because she’s a pragmatist as well. She understands he’s accidentally smitten with this girl, you know, who wouldn’t be. It’s allowed in that society and he can pretty much make up the rules as he goes along anyway because he is so powerful. And she thinks, ‘as long as I remain the closest confidant, as long as I have his head and his heart’ essentially. As long as I retain my position as his right hand woman which is the position she’s had all these years, then fine – he wants to sleep with her that’s fine. I accept it because I have to accept it. It’s not that it doesn’t hurt her, but at a certain point you can’t make somebody attracted to you again if they’re not, and we all know this sadly (laughs).
PVH: Yes (laughs).
OB: And so she has to accept it, so she has adjusted her expectations and she is just trying to hold on to her power position.
PVH: I get the sense that she may accept the situation but she is not resigned to it, and as you mentioned I think she has skin in the game. She’s already walked away from Ryder at the end of episode three because he is his father’s son, but I foresee, and you don’t have to comment on this, she’s going to make a power play. Quinn’s not going to last, he has the tumour, and she is going to want to hold on to the power herself. If it’s not already planned out, though I am sure the showrunners have it worked out, I think it makes for an interesting storyline where she decides “You know what? Forget this, I’m going to take control of things.”
OB: Ooh, I love that storyline. That’s a very, very good guess and I think the hope is that’s in her future. I think you’re possibly way ahead of where she would dare let her coats wander, if you see what I’m saying. It’s like if I said to you in real life, ‘You know, you could be President,” and you say “Not me, no, don’t be silly” and it may take you five or ten years and you might wake up and think, “I could be. There’s no reason why I couldn’t. It would take me time to get there,” but I think she is pre that moment when she could understand that, you know?
So her power, her place in society is vicariously got through husband and son because that’s what the system is, and I don’t think she has thought outside the box enough to question that as a structure. But I’m glad that you see she is capable of it because you know when you sometimes see it in your friends and we think “ooh, greatness” and they don’t know it yet, they don’t have the confidence yet. Do you know what I’m saying?
PVH: Absolutely, and hopefully we’ll see something come from that. We talked earlier about some of the fight sequences and they are visually appealing. Are we going to see Lydia take part in any fighting? Is that something you ever wanted to be part of?
OB: Are you kidding me? I’m almost foaming at the mouth I’m so jealous (laughs). I used to go to the fight sessions and stick around drooling at them (laughs). Again, I’m glad you like Lydia and you’re very much there in terms of your thinking about what they would ultimately like us to discover about Lydia. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that or not. These six episodes are the beginning of our journey, so right now you don’t know anything about whether she can or can’t fight. That is to be revealed later.
PVH: Got it.
OB: And that’s of course if we were ever to go into another series (season), it would be revealed whether Lydia has a skill in her past or not, but I’m not allowed to say (laughs).
PVH: (laughs) No problem, I totally get it.
OB: I love watching Emily and Ally do their fight sequences and grow in strength and confidence is amazing to watch, and how equal they are, because it’s about skill, not about strength. It’s amazing to see how evenly matched a man and a woman can be, and I love it.
PVH: The costumes and sets are visually stunning, and even though it’s set in an undeterminable time in the future it looks a period piece. Have those helped you get into character?
OB: Yes. At a glance it looks like a period piece, but it’s very much a mish-mash of very different periods, from the seventies to the eighteenth century to an Eastern look. I think the idea was to go back to how dressing very much indicated status. Because it was very much based on Japanese feudal society, peoples’ status is indicated by their clothing.
So they wanted to indicate peoples’ positions in life with clothing, so in the case of Lydia, she wears purples and maroons, very regal, rich, colours, yet they’re part of the colours of the house. You can tell her status by the fineness of the clothes; it is a throwback, but it’s also a future construct. There’s something about having entirely different clothing than one normally wears; you stand differently, you think differently, you move differently in those clothes. It gives you a grandeur that you could never get in a pair of jeans. (laughs)
PVH: Thank you very much for taking the time to chat, and best of luck on the show.
OB: Thank you for a lovely chat, that was really nice.
Into the Badlands airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.
