Brittany Curran – The Magicians

By starrymag | April 10, 2019

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) Fen meets a cat lady who is a prophet. As a self-proclaimed cat connoisseur, what was it like for you to be in the presence of a cat lady?

A) It was so fitting that the woman foreseeing my future would be half cat and half woman because of how much I love cats in real life. That was just a coincidence I think, but the writers totally do that sometimes. Dominic Burgess who plays Ember is obsessed with cats in real life and the first scene in season four you see him surrounded by baby kittens, which I’m pretty sure they did because Dominic is such a huge cat connoisseur himself. So, they have totally done animal stuff because of the love for animals of the actors in real life. The cat lady was crazy and I still don’t know what she looks like in real life. Anyone who has that much prosthetics gets to set hours and hours before anyone else does. So, when I met her on set, I had no idea what she would look like. All I knew was in the script it said she was cat looking. When we got on set I was like, “Holy shit! You really do look like a cat!” Our makeup-effects people are really incredible. It looked real close up. She really looked real close up.

Q) I love the love that you share with Jade. You have been posting a lot with her and yet we haven’t seen that many, if any, scenes with Fen and Jade’s character Kady.

A) She’s one of my best friends now in real life. We give each other so much crap jokingly. Sometimes when we do it publicly I think, “Man, there are people out there who think we’re serious.” I said something about her being ugly the other day and a few fans responded how much of a beautiful woman she is. I was like, “I know. I’m joking.” I’m obviously just teasing her. She’s getting better at teasing back. She’s learning. I think I’m naturally adept at roasting people for some weird, messed up reason. Jade [Tailor] has just lived much of her life too nice and I feel like with my help her roasts are getting more evil, specific and hilarious. I’m proud of my girl.

Q) This season we’ve seen Fen sort of go beyond this purity she holds. How has Fen really pushed beyond these dimensions?

A) I think she’s spent so much of her life trying to do the right thing, but in an unhelpful way. She tried to do the right thing by doing what she thought was right for everybody else and never actually thinking about herself. I had that problem a little bit in my life so I get it, but Fen is a little more extreme than I am. I think one of the things that she’s discovering, especially this past season, it’s like being on an airplane where you’re supposed to put your mask on before you put somebody else’s on. If you don’t have yours on then you are useless to help anyone else. I think Fen is realizing she has to love herself and respect herself first and that’s the way she can help her land, her people and the people she cares about. Because she does put Fillory before her and she put Eliot (Hale Appleman) before her. She put everybody before her. She put people before her who didn’t always treat her the best. So, now she is learning to actually respect herself more and that makes her so much more powerful to help Fillory. Being a passive person who lets everyone walk all over her is not actually helping Fillory, but by making herself number one to herself (as everyone should be number one to themselves) she’s making herself much more useful.

Q) When we picked up with Fen this season, she was running Fillory by trying to think how Margo and Eliot would do it. Which works for them, but doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the best way for Fen.

A) She’s trying to emulate these people and, it’s so cheesy, she had the power within herself the whole time. Not to mention, she’s a native Fillorian and she knows more than anybody what her people need. I don’t think she really took that into consideration until recently. Last week’s episode with the Nyad and figuring out the mystery of the Roderick Thirsty Thirteen – you’re starting to see that life come back into Fen. You’re starting to see her actually lead. I think when she starts to lead and teaches the Bear Skip game to Josh and when she starts to lead with getting information from Nyad you see that excitement start to come into her life again. I think she’s actually enjoying being a leader now and realizing that she knows things about Fillory and can help Fillory in a way that nobody else really can. So, I like seeing her take part in her own leadership and in her own way, too. She’s not like this terrifying, pounding her fists on her parchment type of ruler. She’s still sweet and excitable and looks forward to helping the people in almost a naïve way, but not really.

Q) Fen has really learned so much of her voice from Margo as well.

A) Just looking back over all of these seasons Margo (Summer Bishil) has become the unlikely hero for Fen. I don’t think Fen was accustomed to a woman being so unapologetic and so singular in her beliefs in things. I think for Fen, seeing someone as strong as Margo and so loved by the people around her, I think is a good lesson for Fen. I think it was a good lesson for Fen that you can be the powerful person that you want to be that won’t push people away. I think that Fen thought you just had to agree with everybody and do what everybody wanted and that’s what would make them like you. What makes people actually like you and respect you is having your own ideas about things and sticking to your guns. That’s one of the things that Margo really taught Fen. I love their relationship on the show. It’s very complicated. It obviously came from a weird space. I think now they have this very deep bond and you can really see that in the scene where Fen has to dethrone Margo. They both really don’t want to have to go through this together. Right before Fen actually did dethrone Margo at the last second Fen makes the decision not to and ends up going over to Margo and being like, “Hey, I just want to tell you this was my destiny, but I’m not doing it.” Margo ends up telling her to do it. I think it shows how much growth there has been between these two women and how much Margo has inspired Fen.

Q) Fen doesn’t really have female friends outside of Margo. She’s really in a man’s world in Fillory.

A) She had a nice friend with Julia and I’d love to see them back together again. I feel like they really complimented and empowered each other. Most of her life is in Fillory and she’s surrounded by men. She doesn’t really have a lot of women in her life. Even one of the women ended up being a positive role model for her in a really weird way was The Fairy Queen (Candis Cayne), but that started out really horrible. [laughs] That ended up turning into something great. But other than Julia where that started somewhere positive and led to positive places, all of Fen’s positive female relationships have started with tragedy. I wonder what that says. Poor Fen. I wonder what that says about her and her psychology. [laughs]

Q) I really love is this unparalleled plethora of fierce yet flawed females that the show features. They are complex and compelling, but also vulnerable as well. What do you think it is about the dynamic of these core women that they share that really resonates with the audience with the way that they are written and portrayed?

A) The writers and producers do a really good job of not writing women – just writing people, real human beings. Every single character on the show has their own strength and their own flaws and are full living, breathing people. I think the fact they give that life to everybody is what makes these fully, rounded out female characters. It’s funny. With the way storytelling has been going with film and television way more often women are being the heroes for themselves and not one-sided and sexist. You can go on the other side with “women are heroes and perfect,” but that’s not helpful either. Them having flaws is still really important because being like “women are now these perfect, strong creatures” is also incorrect and not real. So, I love the writers aren’t afraid to delve in to issues like mental health, loss and making hard decisions and all these real-life things that just make them real people. I love that and they obviously have fun doing it too because they are very fun characters to play. You’re not defined by your trauma or things that have happened in your life or even the good things that have happened in your life because sometimes good things happen to people and they still fucking suck. So, for anybody whether it’s the really negative, the really positive or anywhere in between, what you choose to make of that is what actually defines you. You can have someone who has all these amazing things and all the privilege in the world and the most amazing things happen to them their whole life, and they still can have absolutely no character and still treat people poorly. Then, you can have it the other way around where everything horrible happens to them in their life, but they still find joy and still find resilience and move on for it, creating a new life for them. So, what defines you comes from what is within. There is an obstacle, but how you deal with it makes you who you are. And I love that Fen has obviously been through a lot of horrible things and she’s acknowledged those things and processed them (not that you ever fully move on from things – they are still a part of you forever), but she’s been able to have a new found joy and a newfound part of herself. And that goes for a lot of the characters on the show as well. Fen lived so long with people not believing in her and taking her seriously and for her to actually move on from that relatively quickly and becoming the king that she is does say a lot about her that she’s not letting preconceived ideas about her affect her and I think that’s pretty cool.

Q) I’ve loved seeing Fen expanding her circle more these days. We have gotten these new pairings and Fen has been able to spend more time in Fillory with Josh and Tick.

A) This last episode for me was with Josh (Trevor Einhorn) and Tick (Rizwan Manji). Both of them in real life are awesome dudes. The three of us had the most fun on set together. We had so much fun! At one point (it’s horrible) in the Nyad scene the cameras were on our backs. It was on the Nyad and I can’t remember what happened, but Trevor and I just started cracking up. Of course, we ruined the first take by laughing, but then we just could not get our shit together. And the next few takes I was trying not to look the Nyad in the face and have her see that we were laughing because it’s horribly disrespectful, but we couldn’t stop and they kept filming. I was like, “I guess we’re going to try to keep our shit together so we can get through this scene.’ [laughs] It only happened a couple of takes in a row, but we were like, “Oh my gosh! Meg, we’re so sorry! I don’t know what happened.” But they kept rolling and we just kind of went with it while we were bursting at the seams laughing. It got to the point where Trevor and I could not make eye contact with the Nyad on set because if we did, we would just crack up laughing and ruin another take. Also, it was really, really long day. I think we were in our fifteenth or sixteenth hour at this point and you start to get loopy. Trevor and I got a little loopy. Riz did too but not nearly as bad as Trevor and I. [laughs]

Q) Hoberman is a very elaborate and very professional grade baker. What would you want him to make for you?

A) I really love red velvet cake. Maybe a red velvet cake? When Josh bakes it’s always like magical drug infused, so maybe a red velvet cake that brings you into a scene of one of your favorite moments. And you get to live that out as long as you’re high on your red velvet cake. That sounds pretty cool.

Q) You’re also working on a personal writing project. Where does your inspiration come from when writing and what really is your muse?

A) I don’t know. I never thought about it that way. I’ve just always loved stories. Since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved creating worlds and storytelling. I just wanted to be able to put it down on paper and create my own stuff. My inspiration comes from everywhere really. It depends. It really can be anywhere. I guess like anybody it comes from a lot of different places, depending on the story and the world I’m trying to write about. My boyfriend inspires me to work harder because he works really hard and I feel like a lazy shit. [laughs] He inspires me to be a harder worker. He’s a muse in a lot of ways in addition to that.

Q) What can you tell us as far as an update on your whiskey documentary?

A) The Water Of Life is the doc that I’m producing. We’ve wrapped principle photography and are in post right now. We’re doing everything that entails and working on our next steps. It’s been a lot of fun. I got to travel to Scotland and England. The director also went to Australia as well. It was really a huge learning experience. It was especially funny if we were interviewing somebody at like 10am because we’re filming all day and the early interviews will be in this tasting room that has all these rare and incredible expensive whiskeys. They’re like, “Do you want to try this?” Of course we do, it’s 10am and it would be rude to say no. So, it was interesting tasting whiskey at 10am, but it all comes with the territory of making a whiskey documentary. [laughs]

Q) I always enjoy Fen’s consistent affinity for sharp objects that pops up now and then.

A) Oh yeah! She respects some good knife skills. I like the showrunners continue to stick that in there every now and then. Whenever I see that pop up in the script, I always get excited. I hope Fen gets to fight more. I went to a knife sharpening class in Vancouver called Knifewear and I bought my whole set of stones that I have at home, which I sharpen our knives with. So, I’m actually using my skills in real life. [laugh] I’m not that good at it. I’d like to see Fen fight someone. I’d really like to see her shank someone. I hope the writers write that in. Tell Sera [Gamble] to write a shanking scene for Fen! [laughs] She’s so sweet. Give her a little bit of pizazz!

Q) With only two episodes left, is there anything you’d like to tease or leave fans with?

A) I hope that they enjoy the last couple of episodes. We had a lot of fun making them, that’s for sure. I guess I want them to take away the journeys that all of the characters went on. If you compare everyone who has been on since season one (I joined in season two) up to now just how much everyone has grown, I feel like the characters on our show are good lessons for people who watch it and are fans of it. Going back to what we said earlier, these are strong resilient people who still have issues in life. You can still, even if you step backwards sometimes (which all of our characters do sometimes), as long as you still have general forward movement you are winning. I think it’s easy to have an issue in your life and struggle with something and you feel like you fall back one day and feel like, “Whatever. I failed,” it’s like no. You have to fall back sometimes. I think you see that with our characters more and more. There is a very nostalgic, touching scene coming up with one of the other characters where they kind of reevaluate how they look at something in their life years ago compared to now and how it’s different for them now. I know that’s so general, but when you see the scene, I think you’ll know. Growth doesn’t mean always going forward all the time. Sometimes you have to step back to move on with your journey. I hope that’s what the audience takes away from this season from all of our heroes, magic and non-magic.