WhenKate Siegelagrees to sign on for a part, she fully commits. Of course, the actress goes through the typical process of memorizing lines and understanding her character’s drive behind the choices they make throughout the film or TV show, but she also does a lot of soul-searching — just in the soul of her on-screen persona. Most recently, theHushandMidnight Massstar appeared inMike Flanagan’s final series project with Netflix,The Fall of the House of Usher. In it, she played Camille L’Espanaye, one of the doomed children of Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood). The social media guru and person you’d want to have in your corner should you be facing cancelation, Camille had a tough-as-nails personality and was cutthroat when she needed to be. But, even a character as strong as Camille dealt with her own demons aside from those haunting her family. In an interview with Collider’sPerri Nemiroffduring arecent installment of Nemiroff’sLadies Night, Siegel opened up about a character choice that defined Camille as a sober individual and pointed out a subtle moment that would change the course of her life and lead to her death.
Beforediving head first into her character decisions, Siegel said that she talked them over with her frequent collaborator and husband, Flanagan. One choice the duo made together was to give Camille a background of substance abuse - something that’s never addressed inThe Fall of the House of Usher, aside fromblink-and-you’ll-miss-it-moment. Explaining the importance of Camille’s sobriety, and the second that she chose to turn her back on it, Siegel says,
“The arbitrary choice that we went with is that Camille is sober. She’s sober up until the moment she takes that edible with her brother.She relapses and then every choice she makes after that ends up with her death.”
Camille’s Attempt to Save Face In Front of Her Family
Dropping an Easter egg hintat the internal struggle that Camille was going through earlier in the show, Siegel adds:
“And so when I was at family dinner, you’ll see me - I don’t even know if this made it into the cut - but while I wasn’t focusing on my father, mybrother, my sister, the death, andMadeline, and all this stuff, I was just moving the wine towards me and away from me because I didn’t want my family to know I was sober because they would think I was weak.”
For the record,this bit of character reveal didn’t make it to the final cutafter all - we went back to check it out. But, knowing the personal dilemma that Camille was facing -losing her crutch and battling addiction on top of her insane family issues- certainly helps flesh out the character more.
Watch Nemiroff’s full Ladies Night chat with Siegel below. You can now stream all episodes ofThe Fall of the House of Usheron Netflix.
The Fall of the House of Usher
Siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built a pharmaceutical company into an empire of wealth, privilege and power; however, secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying.
Watch on Netflix
