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Christina Hendricks on the Shocking Final Scene of This Week's Episode of The Romanoffs

Photo credit: Jan Thijs / Courtesy of Amazon
Photo credit: Jan Thijs / Courtesy of Amazon

From Town & Country

If you haven't watched the third episode of The Romanoffs, "House of Special Purpose," proceed with caution. Spoilers abound.

Each episode of Matthew Weiner's anthology series The Romanoffs takes its audience to a new setting with an entirely new cast, and in some cases, into a new television genre. In "House of Special Purpose," the Mad Men creator dips into horror, as Christina Hendricks plays a gaslit actress on a nightmare set.

Hendricks's character Olivia has been cast as the Tsarina in a new period drama about Romanov family's execution, but when she arrives ready to work in Austria, she's manipulated by everyone from the show's hard-driving director Jacqueline, played brilliantly by Isabelle Huppert, to her co-star Samuel Ryan, portrayed by Jack Huston, who sexually assaults her during filming.

It all comes to a head when the crew, dressed as Russian revolutionaries, kidnaps her from the hotel, and takes her to an exact replica of Ipatiev House, that titular "House of Special Purpose" where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children, were brutally murdered.

It was all pretend, an elaborate and well-executed ruse intended to inspire a brilliant performance, but things didn't exactly go as planned. While the gunshots were fake, by the end of the episode, Olivia is quite literally scared to death.

Below, Hendricks weighs in on what it was like to play an actress, her experience working with Isabelle Huppert, and how they filmed the episode's shocking ending.

On the shocking ending:

"When I read it, I just thought it was brilliant. To me, it was all leading to that. In some ways, I wasn’t surprised, I was thrilled. I thought that was the perfect conclusion to someone slowly being driven mad."

Why the scene was so hard to shoot:

"When we rehearsed it, it was terrifying. And I find fear and terror something that’s hard to reproduce over and over and over," she said. "I find that in the past when I’ve had to do a huge surprise or a huge freakout that after about three or four takes, it feels staged, and I’m just not scared at all anymore. The rehearsal was so realistic and terrifying that I felt like I’d wasted so much of it on the rehearsal. "

"But when you look around at what’s happening, and the way that they’ve set it up exactly as the room was, and the grotesque nature of what happens, that helped the performance."

She's a horror buff in real life:

"I do like the genre, and I loved that this was so unexpected from Matt [Weiner]. I think people are going to have to let it sink in for a moment and go ‘What did I just see?' Because it’s truly not what people are expecting, which of course thrills me even more to do something so unique with him. And that he would trust it in my hands, too, because it’s a very specific and unique tone."

Photo credit: Jan Thijs
Photo credit: Jan Thijs

On playing an actress:

"There’s lots to pull on, and I think most actors can relate to replacing someone in a project, being the new kid, and wondering what happened before you got there-
the insecurities of that, being in a foreign place, really feeling sort of off-kilter. So I wanted to show that feeling that you’ve felt several times before, but at this heightened level, and in these very unusual circumstances."

On co-starring with the legendary Isabelle Huppert:

"Well, I was scared as hell before I met her because I was such a fan. Her work is so intense, and she’s so extraordinary. She’s a legend. So anytime you walk into a circumstance like that for the first time, you just hold your breath and try to hold on. But, she was absolutely open and welcoming and collaborative and receptive, and I loved working with her. You’re always striving as an actress to have those moments that feel absolutely real, and that happens when you work with her."

On what she knew about the Romanovs before filming:

"I didn’t know very much about the Romanovs before, probably the limited amount that most people know. And I did do some research, but I did the amount of research that I felt like Olivia, my character, would have had time to do. She was thrust into this very last minute, and she’s still researching while she’s on the job, and feeling the pressure of maybe not having done enough. So I wanted to do about what she would have done."

Looking back at Mad Men in the #MeToo era:

"[Workplace sexual harassment] was a topic that we talked about for years and years on Mad Men. It started very early because of the treatment and inequality [of women] on the show, which which was, of course, something that we wanted to highlight. And I was always very proud of that we started that conversation. Things just really had to come to a head after what seems like a hell of a long time coming. And I’m just glad that it has, and that it’s this conversation. It feels very raw, and it feels very sensitive, and very scary, and very necessary."

The topic of sexual harassment and assault played a role on The Romanoffs as well:

"It’s natural that [sexual harassment] would to come into The Romanoffs. A female actress is going to experience this kind of treatment and this kind of behavior all the time. And it seemed appropriate too, when this woman is dealing with sort of a mind-game situation as it is, that all of these elements would play into her insecurities."

But Hendricks declined to comment on the sexual harassment allegations against Matthew Weiner, or his recent comments about them in the New York Times.

“I really feel like Matt and I have talked about it and I don’t feel like it’s my place to answer for him. I feel like he’s answered the questions many many times, and I feel like his words are best used," Hendricks said.

The Romanoffs is available to stream on Amazon Prime; new episodes drop every Friday.

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