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Regardless of being one of many longest-serving rulers in French historical past, a tv present has by no means centered round Catherine de Medici — till now. The Serpent Queen premieres September 11 on STARZ and follows Catherine’s unbelievable rise to energy by any means obligatory. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with govt producers Justin Haythe and Erwin Stoff about why Catherine’s story intrigued them.
“To me, I really feel like I’ve by no means seen an antihero like that who occurred to be a girl,” Justin mentioned in the course of the present’s press junket. “Now we have nice anti-heroes in tv and movie, and I couldn’t consider one [that was a woman]. She felt extremely fashionable to me. The way in which she staged managed her picture, the way in which that she negotiated these challenges, the way in which that she needed to be higher than all the boys round her. All of this felt relatable. She lived on this absurd world that in sure methods feels relatable to our personal, the place more and more the identical folks win each time it doesn’t matter what. I simply had by no means encountered a personality like her, and I had wished to do a villain from historical past, who we’ve judged as a villain, and provides them their day in courtroom because it had been, their alternative to show to us and say, ‘Hey, you’ll have accomplished what I did as a result of all the nice persons are already lifeless.’ That appeared like a extremely distinctive and enjoyable alternative.”
Erwin added, “To me, her plight very a lot jogged my memory of the plight of ladies on this enterprise once I first got here into it within the ’80s. They must be higher. They must be smarter, and so they all the time needed to do it behind a person as a result of no person would truly give them the ability to do it.”
The producers additionally weighed in on why they assume there’s by no means been a present completely about Catherine de Medici, whose life was stuffed to the brim with made-for-TV materials. “The way in which she’s described is unattractive, unroyal, and unable to bear kids, doesn’t pay her dowry. She’s beginning on the backside, and I believe all these issues are within the eye of the beholder,” Justin famous. “You have a look at the work for the interval of that point with the people who find themselves thought-about lovely, and to our eye, we expect, wow, okay, that was the sweetness customary of the day. This stuff are arbitrary. This stuff are subjective. However she was thought-about unfortunate in love. All of these items at some degree aren’t the issues that we often put a body round.”
He continued, “Our tackle the present was which means she needed to be smarter, which means she needed to be able to larger cruelty. She needed to be humorous, or she needed to be wittier. There may be want success right here the place once you’re confronted with challenges, once you’re underestimated, you even have the products to triumph. That’s the story. And I believe that’s why folks hadn’t gotten to it earlier than.”
The function of Catherine de Medici shall be performed by two actresses: Liv Hill and Samantha Morton. Justin pressured that it was “important” to start out Catherine’s story when she was a younger woman.
“The method was devising the story saying, okay, how will we inform the story about Catherine the place I believe it’s important to inform how younger she was when she was knocked out of her life and dropped, after which needed to consummate her marriage in entrance of an viewers, together with her uncle. I’ve two youngsters. That’s each teenager’s worst nightmare, proper? She was actually younger. You needed to inform that, however you additionally needed to inform how lengthy Catherine dominated, what number of kids she had, what number of challenges she overcame, what number of kings she outlived, so that you wanted to have two actors play her,” Justin defined.
Regardless of not sharing the display screen collectively, Justin mentioned that Samantha and Liv had a “nice chemistry” with their performances of the identical character. “Liv has a unprecedented poise for someone so younger, and I believe Samantha has the same poise and energy,” Justin advised HollywoodLife. The Serpent Queen will air Sundays on STARZ.
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