Jessica Sutton – Motherland: Fort Salem

By starrymag | May 20, 2020

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) I watched the season finale of “Motherland” last night, and this series seriously knows how to throw a punch and pull out all of the plot twists!

A) Break some hearts.  I know.  We tick a lot of boxes.  I really feel like there is something for everyone which is, I mean, I don’t know how many shows can say that.  So, yeah, we are special.

 

Q) I mean, I had to post a full thread of little teasing reactions because I absolutely couldn’t resist or keep fully quiet about it.

 

A) I want to say thank you, to you personally, but also to our fans.  I am kind of stumped.  I don’t know how to be eloquent without being emotional.  Thank you doesn’t quite seem to cut it. But from private messages and people speaking about how personally the show has moved them to the mind-blowing fan art, I think just from the cast point of view, we see you and we are so grateful.  This role and this show have changed my life.  I really just hope that the audience, if they take away anything, there are so many messages in the show of strength, empowerment, of forgiveness, above all I think stripped bare “Motherland: Fort Salem” is a story of love.  It was made was such great love and given to the world to hopefully say that despite all of the pain that we cause each other can we please find a way back in love?  Please?

Our audience feels the love amongst the cast and it’s so tangible and real because that’s exactly how it was.  We became like family.  I don’t know how many ensembles can say that.  The women are phenomenal.  The team, the cast, the crew, Eliot Laurence – our incredible genius mind showrunner and creator.  He is a force of human and none of us would be here. “Motherland” would not exist without him.

 

Q) I would love to talk about the incredible camaraderie we see throughout the series. The friendship and bonds developed with the core three, but also the ones that develop and extended outside the small circle – like with Anacostia. We don’t normally see this type of dynamic so often. Talk about what this element really brings to the series that sets and how it has mirrored your own relationships with Taylor and Ashley offscreen as well.

 

A) Taylor [Hickson] and Ashley [Nicole Williams], when I first met them I think we all say we are three very different people.  Energetically, we just all operate on such different frequencies and it is so interesting to watch, not just us as the characters, but us in life.  They are just goofballs.  I could talk about each of them at such length as to what they have personally given me and taught me.  We have this crazy WhatsApp group and we also have an Instagram chat and we just kind of keep in touch throughout the day with each other that way.  It’s filled with like chants of Season Two and sharing fan art with each other and how amazing that is and “Guys, have you read this?”

I think to have such a support both on and off screen is something I have never really experienced at this level.  It’s mind-blowing.  I am just so rocked and moved.

 

Q) That really extends into the next point, it also really puts a spotlight on the different sides of family and who we choose to be a part of our family. We see this bonded deep relationship with her mom. Then when she gets into the Bellweather unit at Fort Salem we explore more that family isn’t always the blood that we are bonded to or born with.  And that is something that this series really solidified just as much. Talk about how that really is a huge part of the storylines in itself as well.

 

A) Absolutely.  Yeah, family can be who we choose, I think.  Who we choose to let in and who we at the end of the day stand with.  I think that goes beyond what we think family is, which is just limited to blood.  One of the things that became evident after episode three, and I just kind of realized a layer of Tally that I hadn’t really gone into such understanding of. Because she comes from such a wholesome upbringing with her mom and this matri-focal bubble protected compound, her craving for more for outside of it and to be part of something that is so much bigger than herself and the sisterhood.  The sisterhood is so idolized in her mind and I realized that General Alder (Lynne Renee) had become like that idol for Tally.  That symbol of justice and goodness in the world.  But her whole identity and her belonging was tied up in Fort Salem.  It’s everything to her to really be among her own.  I think that’s her definition of family, but that changes as she starts realizing even within the family unit there is so much complexity and nuance and we are just really dealing with relationships and trying to be understood and having each other’s backs and going through the good times, the bad times, the first times, and riding that all out.  I guess realizing at the end you just have each other.  It’s about how you treat one another at the end of the day that’s going to matter the most.  Not to be too dramatic about it, but how you treat them at the end of the day on the battlefield, it’s more than just the comrades, the warriors and that particular creed or core.  It’s just sounds so cheesy, but it’s going to come down all again to love.

 

Q) That’s a large part of the beauty of the series, the themes and quite often you feel like that’s going to taper off because viewers are so used to seeing those bonds be broken up or the relationships tested beyond their limits.  For “Motherland” everything just is so full circle and hits the nail on the head so spectacularly with its core.  With the last ten to fifteen minutes of the season finale, that’s ever more evident.  It’s about love.

 

A) Right? Yeah. Ten packs a massive punch. The stakes are always going to level up and build, which is what you need in a fantasy/military action-packed show.  But still, I am so blown away by the nuances of the show as a whole.  You have these moments of rest and reflection in amongst the kind of locked and loaded war scenes and each personal character has their own delicate story going on.  Like you said, coming back to Demetria’s [McKinney] character Anacostia, I have always thought from the pilot that there are six leads.  I know there is this three as a unit, but the story as Eliot has always painted was going to be six women and how that was all going to be revealed. I think you start always kind of wanting a goodie and a baddie and they are going to be your favorite character and start realizing that all of the characters have shades to them.  They are all light and dark. They have those components negative and positive.  In moments you hate to love them and love to hate them.  You start to see yourself in all of them.  I think when you’re really writing about truth and the absurdity of life as we know it, even though this is a fantastical show there is something about it that speaks so true to life as we are living it. These are characters that are relatable, even though literally worlds set us apart.  I just think to have such characters that is not just the three leads as you see them, but just this world of characters.  Each character is its own universe.

 

Q) Tally has this immense selflessness to her which we see exemplified time and time again.  That’s especially personified in the season finale. She doesn’t agree with being on the mission and Alder’s actions, but she sacrifices herself anyway for Alder. She has this moment of breathless unwavering bravery, talk about the juxtaposition of Tally’s idealism about the army and what how her views about war shift.

 

A) It always felt like it was so delicious as a performer that has a character that starts as such a home base of innocence and so much heart and hope that you just know…I mean, I didn’t even read the script and I knew a world of hurt was coming her way.  You have to learn and grown and the minute you are out of the protective bubble suddenly you are flung like this shiny clean baby that she is. She is thrown to the wolves smiling and stumping and drooling, but she’s literally thrown into this deep dark world of hurt and death and it’s hard getting through lock and load war.  It’s really funny in so many ways to watch this character.  She brings a levity to the show, which I didn’t realize until about halfway through shooting the pilot when everyone kept saying, “You’re so funny, this character is hilarious.” I started realizing, “Wait, am I the comedy relief in this?”  I didn’t play her funny.  Everything that she is saying she means whole heartedly.  That is what’s so funny.  While it was amazing to have a room burst out in laughter, I started to really ponder how life’s absurdities can be hysterically funny.  I think Tally as a character is pretty absurd and wonderful.  I was really scared of where she would go.  She is really unpredictable, for one. The show is also so unpredictable. You don’t know where it’s going from script to script and episode to episode.  So, I was always holding my breath and afraid to see if Tally would somehow – the more she learned and the more her eyes were being opened if that would be at the expense of her heart.  I just didn’t want my baby to lose her heart.  I felt so protective over Tally.  Like the fans do with protection squads!  Like, I get it!  I thought, “Okay, if she is going to experience this heartbreak and she is going to harbor this secret and she’s going to suffer these constant betrayals; please somehow preserve innocence.  Please.”  You just start realizing like your baby, you can’t protect them from everything.  She will hurt.  Learning to get back up will change her.

Yeah.  That inevitable sacrifice at the end was the ultimate proof that she hadn’t lost her heart and that was so moving.  With Eliot, he dropped that little Easter egg for me while we were shooting the pilot.  He told me what Tally was going to go through.  I was like, “What?!” It was so big. I am like, “Wait, how?”  I had none of the pieces leading up to it. It was just enough to know that that was going to be the final image of Tally.  I realized, personally, I was in for one heck of a character arc and that our baby wasn’t going to lose her heart.  She was going to keep it through all of the trials and tribulations and trauma.  She’s all grown up.  That’s how I felt.  Just like a really proud parent and realizing I am going to have to dig deep.  We all felt no matter what episode we were in that we had to give it our all.  Every script, every word demanded it.  Demanded it.  Nothing short of it.  It was such a privilege to be a part of just a piece of this show.  As a performer we just went all out.  These characters deserved that.

 

Q) It has to be just so rewarding to be able to portray such an infinitely layered character and so many sides.  See that core compassion and moral compass continue.

 

A)  Yeah.

 

Q) As we leave the season, we see so many emotional moments and so many powerful reminders.  Now, with season two being announced, what do you hope we hold on to with Tally and what have you taken away yourself from being a part of this series and the boundaries it has pushed?

 

A) There is so much that I have taken away.  I feel like I have gained a whole other family from the incredible cast members that I have.  I think, personally, on a growth level it’s been…Especially with the physical aspect with the military component of the show, it was such a huge demand and I was really scared going into it. Mainly because I don’t think I would ever describe myself as an athletic person.  I really lack hand-eye coordination.  I would not have thought that I would ever end up in a military show.  Ever.  Fantasy or otherwise. Unless it was a comedy, in which case I would guess that.  [laughs] But what I ended up doing was that I went in with a fear but not wanting to resist it.  Through all of the training days and our incredible stunts and our incredible trainers, I gained a newfound respect in my own physical strength that I never really encountered before.  My limitations that I put on myself, I just started realizing why.  I am so much stronger than I think I am!

As a performer, I think TV was a totally different beast than I had never done before.  I had never done series work before and so it was really about adapting to the pace that was required and learning to trust my costar and knowing that I will find my performance even if the lines had been changed that day or we were still trying to find the shape or form of the scene. And maybe a hundred things were going wrong on set, but when those cameras roll the trust is, “I will find the truth of this in your eyes.”  Learning the demand was finding my own physical strength, the adaptability that’s required for TV as well as the trust in the work and in the fellowships that you form on and off screen with people you work with.  Those have been I think the three big takeaways for me.

Where I want to see the show go, I hope that we learn more about the outside world off of base.  I want to know more about the world outside of Fort Salem.  I want to know more about Tally’s power. I really want to understand knowing and all of the possibilities there are.  I am excited to see how the dynamic of the trio is going to change and grow.