Was it a challenge differentiating your new character from your previous one on Hill House?
Victoria: Yeah, everything was was very different. I think on the first season, I was still becoming accustomed to what it is to work on set. And this season, I was given a completely different job and that I am much more present on the show. That’s just like a different responsibility. Also, just being there the most, you know, there’s a sense of even setting a tone, you know? That I am older, I am being given more responsibility and I need to even take on a sense of leadership within that. And I’m now the one that has been there. So we’re inviting new people into the fold. And it was great.
Do the ghosts and the supernatural elements represent anything for you in either this story or in Hill House?
Henry: I think in terms of the character, it represents elements of shame and guilt and regret. And those are the ghosts that haunt Henry Wingrave day to day. And I think they’ve become supernatural in the sense that they’ve consumed him.
Victoria: Similarly for Dani, I think it’s a little bit more obvious that Henry’s kind of reflecting himself back to himself. But I think the same thing is true for for Dani. The ghost that she sees at the beginning of the show is a reflection of how she sees herself. That she needs to constantly be remembering the way in which she let soeone she loved down, and that guilt and shame is following her.
Photo: Eike Schroter / Netflix
Henry, how is it like getting to explore the very different personalities of your character? There’s this one chilling moment, where you just smile, I swear it was like ‘Psycho’ haunting me all over again…
Henry: [Laughs] Yeah, yes. It was a lot of fun as an actor to have a chance to do something like that. And it’s been a real fun thing for me in the last few jobs when I’ve worked for Mike Flanagan. I’ve been able to play very different characters. So you never feel as though you’re doing the same thing. And that keeps it exciting for me as a performer. And it was fun to do a scene where I was interacting with myself. It was a challenge. And I enjoyed it. And about the grin. I didn’t think that the grin was actually going to be used, I thought they were going to go in with computers and enhance it. Because in the script, it was written as something that was going to be incredibly exaggerated. But they left it, so I was a little bit worried about what I had done, thinking that they weren’t going to use it, but I’m happy with it.
Victoria: That happened to me in the first season! I thought in that first episode when I was like, they were gonna have my jaw fall and fall and fall, but they just left it as it is.
Henry: They just left it?
Victoria: Yeah!
Henry: Well, but it was great! That’s why they left it.
Victoria: Yeah, yours was great also, that’s why they left it.
Henry: Victoria, we just solved the major problem! [laughs]
Victoria: They know what they’re doing! Wow! [laughs]
With Bly Manor not just being a ghost story, but also a love story, just the way Mike Flanagan put it, is there any lesson or message this ghost story tells its viewers about love? And what would that be?
Henry: I think maybe it’s a warning about loss. More than it is about love. It’s more about the regrets and the loss that are tied to love, rather than love itself. But I think that’s where the lesson is, if it has a lesson at all. And that there’s risks to everything, and there’s a dark side to everything, and it explores that theme.
Victoria: Yeah, I feel like it’s saying love will ultimately, unavoidably cause you deep pain.
Henry: [Laughs] Yeah.
Victoria: And then, that is no justification to then inflict pain on other people.
Henry: Absolutely. Right.
