At a tender age, Lily Rabe began her showbiz career on stage with her mother, actress Jill Clayburgh. Her character, Sister Mary Eunice, on American Horror Story: Asylum reflects the prime skill of one who has honed her craft for many years.
In a recent conference call—in which she waxed poetic about costars Jessica Lange and James Cromwell, the relationship between Dr. Arden and Sister Mary Eunice, and her character portrayal—Rabe was ebullient and generous in her responses, and often laughed throughout. Not only does she fully inhabit the character of Sister Mary Eunice, Rabe offered terrific insight into the machinations of her character, a role for which she prepared at length.
Regarding Sister Mary Eunice’s death scene in the crematorium:
“You know the cremation scene was very, very difficult for me. When I read it, I knew, I thought: Oh, this is going to be tricky, it’s going to be a little tough, but it was much harder than I had even imagined it would be. But other than that, you know I really like when I read a scene and it scares me. That sort of makes me excited.
The fire wasn’t hot, that was sort of added in. There was a lot of smoke. You know, truthfully, I don’t know how those special effects people do it, but it was rather terrifying, the situation, but no, I wasn’t worried about getting burned.”
Equating the deaths of Dr. Arden and Sister Mary Eunice to the power of a Shakespearean play:
“I always thought of it as sort of the perfect ending for the two of them. It seemed so fitting and, of course, we were always talking about, James Cromwell and I were always sitting around talking about Shakespeare like big theater dorks and so we felt like we’d gotten a nice … Ryan had given us a sort of beautiful Shakespearean ending in a horror story. But I think it seemed sort of completely sort of the perfect end to the very, very, very bizarre and complicated and dark love story of sorts. I think for him he really had loved her for so long and been so devoted to her; and I can’t speak for Jamie [James Cromwell], but I feel like that was just maybe the last straw for him.”
On her working relationship with costar James Cromwell:
“We both love to talk about acting; we love to talk about theatre. We love to talk about—he’s a great storyteller, too, so I always loved when we had days on set together. I think it’s such a sort of specific and bizarre special tone that kind of love story and it’s a very strange thing to call it, but that is sort of how I felt about it even though it isn’t necessarily mutual or sort of straightforward. But it was definitely, I loved working with him and sort of it was great with the directors and with Ryan and the writers and James to sort of figure out what was happening with them. And there was so much heartache between them in different ways.”
On approaching her character as she was possessed by the devil:
“Yes, you know, the truth is, the way that I approached it really was to figure out before we started shooting, the most important thing to me was to really figure out who Sister Mary Eunice was and not really worry about the possession or the devil because to me so much of what a possession is is specific to the person. So that to play the sort of dark side or underbelly of someone or their sort of shadow taking over, it’s really about knowing who that person is before that event has taken place of this dark thing sort of taking over. So it was more about figuring out who she really was through and through.”
On the high points of playing Sister Mary Eunice:
“It was one high point after another. I think I could never pick, but I had so much fun, really, my relationship with Jessica, I would say, with Sister Jude, I thought that all of the scenes were really an incredible thrill to play and to figure out and especially the ones where Eunice sort of comes out of, is sort of reached by Jessica for a moment and there are flashes of her still being inside there.
Because the truth is, in all of it, I felt her there even when she was very sort of being completely overpowered and so those moments of release were really special to get to do and I have to say I also had a lot of fun. The murders were, I don’t know if fun is the right word, but the murders were, it’s sort of a wild thrill to play to do things that are so—I’ve never, I’ve never had the opportunity to do such horrible, horrible things to people.”
In praise of costar Jessica Lange:
“I had an amazing time. She’s an incredible actress. She’s got an unbelievably, an amazing work ethic. She’s generous. She’s present. She’s everything you could want in a team partner and also, she’s a really great woman. She’s a lot of fun and I felt very close to her very quickly, very comfortable with her and safe and that’s always, especially when you’re doing difficult things, feeling safe with someone is what I have with Ryan and that’s what I have with some of the cast. And to have it with Jessica, especially with kind of what we had to go through together and put each other through was invaluable.”
Rabe said she does not know if she will return for a third season of American Horror Story but should she be asked, she will accept without hesitation. Her relationship with creator Ryan Murphy is such that she would love to work with him again.
Photo ©2013 FX Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Juana
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