Alex Vlahos interview
Saying goodbye to Versailles. An epilogue.
"There's a moment you know you're not going to get another take, Versailles is done, officially over, and you could see the whole crew gathering, and Evan was there and Tygh and Stuart and all the people who hadn't wrapped yet coming to watch you say your last farewell."
© Leila Moghtader
August 9, 2018 by Nicole Oebel @philomina_
...CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
When we met in Paris last year you were shooting season 3 and you mentioned "Maybe we will do an interview next year and say Philippe seems so much more controlled and comfortable and maybe that's because Alex was controlled and comfortable." Now that we can talk about it, what was your focus in this thought?
Philippe is matured because Alex is matured. Alex is matured because Philippe is matured. They're both the same. Alex is happy going into work, does that mean Philippe is happy on camera? No, but it means that Alex can easily access the sadness in Philippe's scenes and then still be happy afterwards. That's basically season 3 in a nutshell. I would do a crying scene in season 1 and be depressed, not sleep, and come in the next morning with what I did yesterday on my shoulders and I'd bring that into the next scene. It was a tumbling wave, nothing could be shaken. In season 3 I could do the crying scene - and cut, and I could wipe the tears away and smile with the crew. I could distance myself, be much more observant.
There's an amazing metaphor that Lindsay Posner has talked about when I've thought that I'm a terrible actor and I should never play Romeo - think of this as an analogy: There's a fishbowl. Romeo is a fish and I'm playing the fish but I should be able to stand outside the fishbowl with the director and comment on Romeo. I struggled in rehearsals sometimes because I was still the fish so when the comments were coming in I felt like it was a personal attack on Alex rather than on Romeo. Once I understood the analogy, I was able to step outside and talk as people about what Romeo should be feeling - that's the same with Philippe. In season 1 and 2 I was the Philippe fish in that little fishbowl, I could not escape anything. In season 3 I could really look at Philippe as a person. I could end a scene and step out of the fishbowl. Be observant. Which is only good for future jobs, being able to see the difference between me and the person I play, and if people criticise the person that I'm playing it's not a criticism against me. I can actually do this and be healthy about it. That's all good in the end because it means whatever is coming I'll be able to do the fishbowl technique of commenting on it - not being it.
[Alex is currently playing Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" at Shakespeare's Rose theatre in York. Click here for more info.]
I'd love to know what it was like when Philippe first met you and you met him.
In week 1 David told me: "Alex, you work at your best when you're in a constant state of vulnerability." Fuck, that's a lot of work! It means that you are penetrative, people criticise you and you take it all to heart, Jalil would say things and I would fucking break down in tears - and action! What? That was the working fabric in season 1. They needed to break down those walls, my bad habits as an actor, they wanted to get rid of that Alex veneer so that Philippe can exist. That's down to David and Simon constantly coming into my dressing room saying "You've got more to give" and I thought I gave them everything but they were right.
Conversation
There's an ocean between how people watch a tv series, critically or non-critically. The press looks at it from a different angle than the general viewers or the fans. Are you happy with what the show created in terms of conversation?
It's a show that was never done before, it tried to find its own voice that wasn't a period drama but it was, the British press hated it because there's that Francophobe thing that exists between the French and the English which is "How dare they make a show that we could never make." Versailles falls between a crack in TV that's marmite - love to hate. I'd rather be in a show like that than be in a show that just goes out, gets a nice audience, gets good reviews - no one watches it. Versailles is in a different realm, I'm proud as punch to be in the show, always have been. It's going to be one of those shows that will stay with me forever. It's missed producer tricks along the way, stuff that they could have capitalised on. But the conversation surrounding Versailles is a really good conversation. People live-tweeting about it and the core fandom stuff, we're having Versailles conventions now - it's amazing. It's going to be remembered as a groundbreaking show - rightly or wrongly for different reasons. A show can't be successful unless there is a conversation about it, success and conversation are intertwined I think.
© Thibault Grabherr, Canal+
Writing
The writing has always been good on Versailles but for me it never felt like it's got to the point where it should have got to, especially in season 2, because we lost writers along the way. David and Simon's voice of Versailles went, they wrote every single episode together of season 1. Simon left at the end of season 1, David stuck around for the first two episodes and wrote the last episode of season 2, and suddenly we were getting outside writers coming in who didn't really know the show. In season 3 we got consistency with Andrew and Tim, which was good - you need consistency in a show. Had we had David and Simon all the way through, I don't know if it would have been a more successful show - but it could have been. It could have been much bigger and better. All I can talk about now is what we've been given and I'm still proud of it.
Development
This is a quote from a piece in The Stage: "Every scene should build on the next, with the drama and stakes rising until it's explosive for the audience. Shakespeare knew all about this. Towards the end of the script, the story, characters and drama should be climaxing." Do you think the show achieved that?
No. It didn't. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. We made our own rules. Usually the last episode brings all the storylines together, you have a big pay-off and a cliff-hanger. Bizarrely in Versailles episode 9 of every season was the episode where it all came together and in episode 10 we got the pay-off. It sort of goes against convention for television especially for a drama. In season 1 Simon and David wanted for episode 10 to be a bottleneck episode, George, Noémie and me in a room dealing with Henriette's death. Obviously other storylines have to be brought up, but the premise is there. And they kept the same structural format David and Simon set up in season 1 which gives the audience a sense of comfortability.
And looking at the development of the whole three season arc, do you feel the show ended on a climax?
What do you feel? Did you feel that season 3 episode 10 was satisfying?
The absolute highlight for me were the mid-season episodes while the last three episodes felt a little rushed.
If you think about it as a season maybe it seems rushed but if you think about it from 30 hours of drama, just one big, giant season, then it's not rushed at all. Louis has created the world that he wants, created himself as a god, proven himself beyond the Pope and the Vatican, created the palace - In terms of development the other character in show is the palace. Season 1 it was a shell, season 2 we did the interior, season 3 Louis finally completes the Galerie des Glaces and the gardens. If the show is called Versailles then it's about the creation of him turning the hunting lodge into a palace. In terms of the full picture then we've done everything we set out to achieve. I do like the introduction of little Louis, I think that's really sweet because it offers hope. Hope is a brilliant thing, horrible and brilliant at the same time.
Me and Evan used to joke that they should make an anthology, almost like American Horror Story, keep the whole cast and just swap us around. It would be mental. Going to Marie Antoinette, having us play completely different people. The sets are already built. It would have been an idea but that in itself is thinking even too far outside of Canal Plus's sometimes quite small-minded brains.
Maturity
Going back to our very first interview, you mentioned how the fireplace scene with the topaz completely encapsulated the brother relationship. In season 2 there was a fireplace scene mirroring the first one. In season 3 there is this campfire scene...
I'm so happy with how the brother relationship turned out. This is a little fact: I fought and fought and fought to get Philippe on the cliff at the end. It's the Man in the Iron Mask story and it's been Philippe's story. Giving Louis the mask to throw in the water without Philippe being there you're robbing Philippe of the completion of that whole journey. It's both of their story but it's brought to Louis by Philippe. It makes sense to put Philippe on that cliff. The beautiful irony of this is that it's the same cliff-top we shot the "Do you have my back" scene on with the wolves in season 1. It's an amazing completion of that arc.
What do you think is season 3's scene that encapsulates the brother relationship?
The season 1 fireplace scene encapsulated the brother relationship in that moment and so does season 2's fireplace scene. In season 3 the scene that's left with "Do you have my back" and Philippe doesn't answer is quite integral. There are five scenes that are plotted quite neatly that are swerves for what you think he's going to do and you have that brilliant reveal that Philippe is the person who shot Bastien. He clearly always has his back. Always! So in season 3 it's not the fireplace scenes but the last scene that the brothers have looking at that picture - that's the encapsulation of their relationship. Philippe opens up to Louis and says "I used to be jealous of you but now I respect you because I could never do what you do" - words that he would never have uttered in season 1 or 2. That's maturity because they can talk to each other about their jobs beyond their brotherhood. The dramaticness of their relationship was built within their status, king and prince, and one of them would always play the brother card to get one up like in the porridge scene. In season 3 they leave it as is, there's no animosity and they hug. In season 2 the hug was a forced moment by Louis to keep Philippe there. In season 3 they are both accepting each other for who they are. That scene worked so well and had to happen otherwise you wouldn't have bought Philippe on the cliff-top at the end. They exist next to each other now.
The last image of Philippe's life on screen - is it what he would have wanted?
I think he would be happy. If Philippe wasn't on that cliff-top the last image you would see of Philippe would be hand in hand with the curl sandwich. Me and Evan together, we wrote that scene. By that point we knew we weren't coming back for season 4 and they didn't know how to end it with the three of us. The way they were originally going to end it felt awkward, a bit of a choreographic mess. We fought and fought to re-write it and we did. The "I - I - love - love - you - kiss...", that was all our idea. It's all in one shot, you stay on the two of them because there's enough there. We still had a month left to shoot but you know it's the end of their journey.
My last day of filming was that scene in St. Cloud with Jess. It became much more emotional because there's a moment you know you're not going to get another take and you think that's it now, Versailles is done, officially over, and you could see the whole crew gathering, and Evan was there and Tygh and Stuart and all the people who hadn't wrapped yet coming to watch you say your last farewell. It becomes emotional.
© Leila Moghtader
Versailles leaves us with Louis's newly acquired knowledge that he imparts his son: "You cannot face the future until you've conquered the past, then you will be free."
I do like the last speech, I think George delivers it perfectly and the music is quite encompassing and really empowering. I'm really happy with it, I'm really content with that idea that episode 10 is complete. Even if you think it's rushed in moments, better for it to be rushed but told than never to be told.
For this last part, contemplating what conquering the past and being free mean for you in terms of your own Versailles experience, let me put two of your own quotes in your head: About Philippe "the shackles are still firmly around me in certain places" and "Playing Romeo is liberating"...
I guess why the shackles are still around me - you even said it in your tweet, there are moments of Dorian Gray in Romeo - it's really hard to shake stuff that has become so important to your career and your life. It's really weird because I feel that I've done everything I can with Philippe but I still don't feel like it's complete. Like I'm 90 percent certain that I've done a really good job on Philippe and there's 10 percent of What if? So every now and then seeing a photo and missing being part of it, remembering what fun we had and also remembering the night-shoots that I hated, character stuff that I feel we could have done better on... But it's not like I want to be back there. I've left him firmly in France, he's not coming back, I buried him, but it feels like I haven't put the screws in the casket, I haven't put the earth on him yet [and suddenly Alex was joking and laughing about the idea of a Zombie-Philippe for a little moment there]. In terms of acting it's quite easy to slip into moments of Philippeness. In Romeo I got a note from Lindsay Posner saying "Could you be more unhinged?" and for me that is going into Philippe territory. What I access in that moment is something quite dark that Philippe is always accessing. So it's not conquered, this is inside my brain, the shackles are those 10 percent.
In that sense, would you ever want to be free of it because you take it all in and that's how you grow.
You're right. And that's why Romeo is liberating. It's a three hour play from start to finish where I get to show every possible facet of me, Alex the actor, and be able to do all these things up and down the spectrum of laughter and cheap gags with the audience to absolute love and adoration to the farewell speech at the end and death. The whole journey of it, that's liberating to do. Going back to your very first question about what Philippe has given me - he has accessed some part of me that has made me find depression but would I be able to do Romeo and get to that dark place? No, I wouldn't. I'd rather be that actor who can access it. Everything informs everything. It's part of the fabric of who I've become now.
A farewell through words... https://t.co/cscC9gKMvZ
— Alexander Vlahos (@vlavla) 10. August 2018
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