Franka Potente – The Bridge

Q) Your character has this very plain, very unobtrusive exterior, but inside it seems to lurk a heart of a sociopath or a psychopath.  Can you talk a little bit about getting into that character, and what attracted you to her?

A) I was given very little information when I embarked on this journey.  I knew the show so that was a door opener, but Elwood Reid told me she’s bad, she’s very dark, she has dark secrets that only kept revealing themselves episode per episode.  She’s a shunned Mennonite.  I did some research and then put that in the back of your head and see if it ever surfaces again by itself because a lot of things you can’t play. For example, like you say, the simple, plain look; that’s mainly created by the costume designers.  I’m kind of there to maybe give my opinion or something, but I appreciate their knowledge very much so I just basically put on what they put on me, which is also coming from this Eleanor place like not caring about what she wears.  I think inside though she’s also quite simple to be honest with you. What’s complicated is her baggage from the past and the history of the terrible things that have happened to her and are still very present in her life and driving her to do what she does.  I think she’s a very structured person as an inside universe that lays down the simple rules, which are basically it’s either things go as clear as Eleanor needs them or people need to be removed because they endanger the structure.  In a strange, beautiful, weird way, that is actually very simple, I think, for her. I’m in 12 episodes.  Yes.  Eleanor takes a vacation in one.

Q) As an actress, how is that for you to be able to take a character and be able to do it over this longer period of time than you normally would do, say in a film or a guest-starring role?

A) It’s amazing.  I loved every little bit of it.  At first, it wasn’t quite clear that Eleanor would stick around this long.  I think we had maybe seven episodes in mind, and then I don’t know, it just kept growing and she kept sticking around, which is amazing. I like this kind of work where every week a stone is turned, and it’s almost like I’m given a new challenge or something; a scavenger hunt that will eventually lead me to the goal or the prize or whatever.  It’s a very playful approach.  I think that in movies versus TV work we get a script maybe two, three months ideally before we do the movie and then we have to know everything; we have all the conversations and we have all the rehearsals and then we start shooting.  It’s a very different dynamic, and I think that a lot of the stuff that we do in TV; the way we work, the pace and everything is a lot more realistic to how we would discover a person in real life. You meet someone, let’s say, you start dating and then every week you find out more things.  You don’t know everything about a person the minute you meet them, but if I play a character in a movie, I have to know everything about that person the minute I start shooting day one.  I really do appreciate this way of working because it keeps everything fresh, it keeps you up on your toes, keeps you curious and sometimes you’re surprised.  I think that happens with ourselves; I think that happens with friends, so I can connect to that very much

Q) A lot of people have said that you are the most intriguing character in the show.  I was curious what you felt about that?

A) Well, I mean, I guess that’s not a bad thing.  It’s easy though, I have to say, when you’re the new kid on the block, and she’s definitely weird so I think her character raises a lot of questions, and that is intriguing.  I’m also aware and very grateful for my environment. It’s easy to join an environment like the one on The Bridge where the stakes are already high; all the characters are ambivalent and interesting so we’re already in an environment that feeds everyone.  Eleanor definitely thrives and lives off of that.  Put it this way, for me, we just wrapped yesterday so the job’s done for now.  I definitely benefited from all that, and it made it so much more enjoyable.  I loved going to work every day.

Q) I wondered if you could give us any more hints about her reasons for working with the cartel and maybe who this person is that we get introduced to at the end of the episode?

A) In Episode 4, Eleanor visits Fausto Galvan, who she’s working for who’s her boss.  Maybe there’s some other kind of relationship going on.  It goes deeper, I think, than an employer/boss relationship.  In his basement he has an old man or we call it—in the script he has been called the gimp, the beast, all those kind of things.  There seems to be a relationship with him.  Since you’ve seen, I think, the first seven episodes I think we can talk about—or have you not personally?  I don’t want to spoil it for you. There will be a situation I loved where Eleanor meets Lyle Lovett’s character Monte, Charlotte Millwright and her boyfriend, Ray, in a diner to discuss business.  Surprisingly, she comes forward with the story of her past where she tells them that when she was a young girl her father would rape her and her mother stood by and didn’t say anything.  Nobody helped her, and years later Fausto Galvan crossed her path and asked her what she wanted most in the world.  She said she wanted revenge. Fausto went back to the village, killed her mother for not helping her, Eleanor, and took the dad back to the city and castrated him and kept him in his basement treating him like a pet; turning him into a pet.  At that time, we know that the person in Episode 4 is her father that raped her.  Basically, long story short, Fausto dangled her dad in front of her nose as a prize.  That is the only reason why Eleanor does what she does, that’s what’s driving her.  She doesn’t care about money or whatever, all she wants is, at the end of the day she wants to get her father, she wants to get her revenge.

Q) Now, you’re a mom so I’m wondering how difficult it is for you to have those scenes with the younger actors, and between takes do you relax a little?  Do you approach that a little differently than you would going opposite an adult?

A) Well, yes.  Danny, the little guy, he was maybe five or six or so.  Of course, being a mom you know how to—I can only answer for myself.  I know how to speak to kids better now than I did before I was a mom, and sometimes on a long, long day where I leave early in the morning and I come home late I don’t see the kids so I kind of miss them.  Yes, I guess that probably goes a little bit into me interacting with the kids there on set.  They’re awesome and very professional and sometimes shocking how well behaved and patient they are.  Otherwise, Kyle and Dax [ph], they were 18 or so, so they’re full-on adults, people; they’re just colleagues.

Q) You brought up the relationship between Eleanor and Fausto.  I’m wondering, does she pose any sort of threat to Fausto?  I feel like his walls are crumbling around him with everyone in the cartel.  Is she power hungry in a way, or is it really just about this personal vendetta of hers?

A) I think it’s very much about the personal vendetta, but within it she enjoys the power.  I think within her structure that it’s absolutely necessary for her and how she does things, she’s always with her ledger and she needs things a certain way.  She doesn’t like people to touch her; she’s quite high maintenance in that way.  She appreciates that Fausto knows all that, and I think he treats her accordingly being very clear with her, he sets very clear tasks so that really works out. I think it’s really about the revenge, but within getting that she wants to be on top.  She’s a control freak in a way, so that always has to do with power.  It’s very important for her to have the upper hand, not with Fausto; I think she respects him as her boss, if you want.  She works for him, and she understands that.

Q) How does it feel being a woman in such a male-centered business, so to speak?  I know that a lot of other characters are very amazed at the fact that Eleanor is so high up in the cartel being that she’s female.

A) I think Eleanor is not interested in the female/male distinction necessarily even though we see, as the show progresses, that she does have almost like a soft spot with certain women.  She will have interesting connections that are surprisingly tender for her with female characters.  No, I think she has a lot of male attributes; she’s just as cutthroat as Fausto is in a way.  She’s not very emotional or, to say it differently, I think she’s very good at tucking her emotions away.  She’s not like a sexual person, at least she doesn’t look it, but there’s not really so much that will get into the way between her and one of the male players in a weird way.

Q) A number of people have said it’s kind of a golden age of TV.  I’m wondering if you agree with that and, if so, if there’s any shows in particular that you enjoy watching?

A) I do agree with that, actually.  Yes. As a member of the audience, also as an actor, I feel like what actors and directors and producers that I know what we talk about is mostly TV, not that there aren’t any good movies out there, but it seems that we’re all drawn to it.  There’s a lot of amazing movie actors that are having their own TV shows now, and it’s amazing how you can, as a show runner, ask them to do an arc on your show and they will do it.  That’s awesome, and I think that people appreciate, also, the ability to tell stories over a longer period of time. I think, also, that there aren’t that many movies being made right now, and I think people want to work, people don’t want to sit around and wait and that’s a big part of our job, actually.  Well, do I enjoy watching?  I loved shows like Top of the Lake; The Returned, The Fall, and then, of course, the big classics Breaking Bad, what else?  The Wire, those kind of things.  I’m telling you like old things, and I apologize.  We’re watching, actually, Rectify on Sundance channel; those kind of things.

Q) I have been absolutely fascinated by this role because it’s very rare that we see a woman playing a role like this.  Can you just chat a little bit about playing the role that is usually reserved for men to play?

A) Well, I don’t look at it that way, of course.  I don’t have any awareness of it while I work on it.  To me, it is what it is, and that’s how it is for Eleanor.  To be honest with you, it might seem more extreme because it’s enhanced, it’s like this weird looking, frumpy-ish, but yet hard-a** woman in the Mexican cartel world. If we translate the question into our real lives, women have to be super heroes; we have to be moms and we have to lose the baby weight in eight weeks, have to be back at our desk another week later.  We have to be awesome and beautiful and wear heels and work out.  That’s really tough as nails, I think.  Despite her appearance and all this, I think that makes it maybe a little bit more odd, but I think in reality woman are not much softer than men or anything.  I think in the world we live in right now we have to do everything with the same energy and the same vitality.  We’re go getters just as much.  Yes, I don’t have that awareness so much.

Q) I think it’s interesting that Eleanor is almost like a counterpoint to Sonya in that on both sides you have some very cold, very task-driven women.  Can you talk about maybe the parallel and the contrast between those two characters?

A) Yes, I totally agree.  They have a lot of similarities; they’re both struggling with something family related in the past that they want to end, or want to come to terms with.  I think they are both driven by some weird passion even though the surface is aloof or cold or whatever, but they’re definitely on different sides of the river.  Sonya is the law and Eleanor is definitely not that; she operates by her own laws.  It’s going to be very interesting to see, as the show proceeds, if these women do get to interact or, if their paths cross, one can imagine that it’s going to be very interesting.  Gosh, I am like dancing around the spoiler.

Q) We spoke with Diane a few weeks ago, and it was right at the beginning of the whole crisis that has flared up at the US/Mexican border with the immigrants coming from Central America.  At that point, I think it might have been too early to say whether any of what’s going on down there and, of course, since then they’ve added more policing down at the border and so forth.  It’s kind of an ongoing story that’s happening, and I was wondering, for this show, has there been any incorporation of current events into—has there been some tweaking of the scripts or even just discussions among the cast and crew about what’s going on?

A) It’s very present because we work with Mexican colleagues that, a lot of them or most of them have been here for a long time, but they do have family in Mexico.  It is something that’s very present among us.  To do it full justice, I think your question is a question for the writer, so I can’t tell you exactly what was adjusted.  I do think they try to be as current as possible with events that happen right now politically but, of course, the scripts are written far ahead.  I think they’re trying to keep the presence of danger, of corruption; I think they try to keep a level that is kind of realistic. Of course, sometimes we see more of it, or a little less, but I think that’s what you have to do.  At the end of the day, it is a little bit a backdrop for our story, and I think we see it in the characters, especially in Marco and the way he goes about things or he can go about things.  I’m sorry; I’m trying not to spoil anything.  That’s where we can kind of feel what’s current, but I don’t know how much they can make it a priority to adjust things on a whim.

Q) The character of Eleanor, was it brought to you as kind of based on a role within the cartel or did you look into it yourself, people who may be carrying out this role?  How much research or how much were you involved in the design of this character?

A) I tried to inform myself a little bit more about the whole Mennonite background, and I’ve watched the show and I know a little bit about what’s going on at the Mexican border and the immigrant situation.  At the end of the day, I think you have to dismiss that a little bit because all this information is stuff that I can’t act, you know what I mean?  I can act someone who’s aloof, who keeps things simple, who follows a structure and defends it with blood if necessary.  That’s all stuff I can act, and I really try and focus on that because, otherwise, I think you can make it also unpleasant and complicated for the audience, because then, as an actress, I’m trying to basically almost comment on what I do.  That’s very confusing and not clear. I always believe one, to me, the audience is smart; they want to figure things out.  It’s not my job to tell them how to understand the character, that’s their job.  If they see it a different way than me or the writers, that’s absolutely fine, that’s the magic of why we watch things because hopefully it does jump start our mind and we put things together and we want to understand her secret.  Why is she doing this?  What I like about a character that is different, that’s bad is that, let’s say we understand that all the audience, we are all normal, we’re good. How is that we can watch someone so bad, so psycho and kind of enjoy it?  How can we watch someone like that who is so different, and for a split second maybe admire her determination?  How can we check in with our own aspirations watching someone like that?  That’s what I want; that’s what’s interesting to me.  I cannot comment on what she does, that’s not interesting to me.

*CONFERENCE CALL*