Nathalie Boltt – Riverdale

By starrymag | October 10, 2018

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

 

Q) What is new this season on “Riverdale?” Last season we watched as Penelope became a “lady of the night” and Hiram promised her a brothel on the Southside. What can we hope to see from this season from Penelope?

 

A) It’s been an interesting introduction to season three, set up by the final scene at the end of season two with Hiram (Mark Consuelos) addressing his gaggle of baddies, which included myself and Sheriff Minetta (Henderson Wade) from the Southside, [Malachi] the head of the Ghoulies (Tommy Martinez), and Penny Peabody (Brit Morgan). Oh yes, and of course Claudius (Barclay Hope) my husband’s brother.

 

To give you a run down, there is a new exciting and dark mystery that has to be solved involving the young cast and their parents. The parents have been up to something terrible and they have this dark secret that they would never reveal, but because of what happened at the beginning of the season, they’re forced to relive something that happened during their high school years.

 

It’s a new mystery, the kids discover it and the parents get dragged in because they know what happened and they swore never to speak it and now they have to. That’s the way Penelope starts off. I’m still very much in my kind of Madam of the Bordello role and my plan is still to be with Hiram as a gaggle of villains, and so here we are figuring out how that is actually going to happen.

 

Q) Since Penelope became part of Hiram’s “League of Evil,” why do you think that Penelope chose to align herself with Hiram?

 

A) I think Hiram is that kind of boss that you’re either with or against, and he is too powerful for her to be against. Penelope lost all her power when her whole empire…well, her husband’s empire crashed and burned, literally. She went from being the richest woman in town to having everything confiscated. At the end of season two, we saw Penelope essentially sent to live in the barn with Claudius by her crazy daughter. As Penelope, I really have no bargaining chip. So, the only way I can get back in power is to align myself with someone, and that would be Hiram. I think that works well for her and the way Hiram is planning things to essentially take over the town. Within that, he has promised her a little piece of the pie.

 

Q) While coming off cold and heartless at times, Penelope has also been known to show moments of kindness to her daughter Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch). What do you think is her motivation in her behavior towards her daughter?

 

A) This season will reveal some of why Penelope is so crazy. Once viewers see that Penelope had a really traumatic childhood, I think there will be a lot of change in attitude towards her. Recently we’re showing why Penelope’s relationship with her daughter was so difficult and twisted. Twisted in a special kind of Riverdale-cartoon way where Penelope’s particularly cruel and her daughter is particularly cruel and crazy in return, but I think rooted in love as well. There’s definitely going to be more push and pull between Penelope and Cheryl this season, but different than in season two. Season two started off with Cheryl having the upper hand and season three we also start with Cheryl having the upper hand, but I think the audience is going to start wavering a little bit when we see what Penelope has survived in her life.

 

Q) Is there anything that you’ve personally added to your character throughout the seasons?

 

A) Whenever the writers would come up with something really twisted they’d say, “I’m so sorry. We’re so sorry for torturing you.” I always come back with “bring it on,” because as far as I’m concerned I enjoy the crazy. I enjoy the fact that the Blossoms are this really odd-ball family that kind of lives on the outskirts of what is otherwise like suburbia. For instance, I suggested that the beautiful sets that they built up when Thornhill burnt down that Penelope ended up in a cottage with this crazy greenhouse. I was looking at these tropical exotic plants going, “Well, maybe Penelope has a little penchant for poisoning people.” In season two, I poison Nana Blossom (Barbara Wallace) and it’s the way that Penelope continues to use her social skills.

 

I brought a bit of the crazy and the willingness to be the crazy and to play out the crazy in this show because we’ve got a lot of darkness with the parents. To say the parents are all completely mental and the only sane ones seem to be the teenagers, which is you know how we all felt as teenagers, I trust. Within the twisted parents, I like the fact that Penelope is a little bit extra twisted, but also in an Addams Family kind of way.

 

It’s no secret that she and Nana Rose can do pretty much anything. I mean, yeah, Cheryl can do anything. She can walk out in a Carrie set in blood at the ball kind of like, yeah, because that’s what the Blossoms do. The clothes that I wear and the way I styled my hair in season three is something from the 20’s/30’s. We’re like the Twilight Zone I suppose and there’s a lot of horror like Rosemary’s Baby and other horror movies that are part of our world.

 

Q) I absolutely adore your friendship with Mädchen Amick. I wonder what it’s been like getting to play enemies with such a close friend and I personally want to know can we hope for a revival of those Steel Panther concert outfits?

 

A) Absolutely! Mädchen has got a great sense of humor and she’s a great friend. Mädchen’s always up for a challenge. So, you know, it’s this kind of synchronistic that she and I bumped into each other on the show and kind of went “Hey crazy.” I said, “I know your type.”

 

She’s had an incredible run in the last few months. She would take everything accepted on “Twin Peaks” and on her storyline on “Riverdale” and she’s off making her own projects as I am. She directed a music video. I directed a music video. We’re both filmmakers. We’re both writing projects. I’m writing a feature film called Holy Days. So, we’re both very busy people and we’re all about girl power and equality in Hollywood.

There’s no doubt a whole bunch of fun is going to happen between Mädchen and I for as long as we live in the same building. We used to live in the same apartment and now we live in the same building since my husband and son have joined me from New Zealand. We went out and had a good groove on Saturday night throwback to Jackson Five. Expect more of that for sure. I’ve even asked to do a parody with her because I like to write my parodies on the ukulele #natthesongwrecker.

 

Q) You love to write parodies to play on your ukulele under #Naththesongwrecker. Which parody is your favorite and are there any new parodies you’re working on lately?

 

A) I just love “Chlorine,” my parody of “Jolene.” That was my ode to the Summer… but yeah, they came to get crazier and crazier and the next one’s going to be a parody to Oasis.Possibly a Nat King Cole parody as well. More of a kind of a ballad parody and I would totally encourage people to also look at the music video that I directed with the Riverdale crew which is called “Doll of Torture,” which just won an American Music Tracks Award.  The video stars Martin Cummins, who plays Sheriff Keller on “Riverdale,” and was a project that I took on for an up-and-coming band called The Strange.“Riverdale’s” Director of Photography Brendan Uegama, who gives us that beautiful cinematic look for the show said, “I’ll shoot for you and I’ll bring the whole team.” And I’m like, “You guys shoot six days a week how you are going to do this?” And they literally shot my music video on the seventh day and then went back to work. They worked like fifteen days straight. I’m very proud with what happened there.

 

Q) Last season it seemed like Penelope started to show feelings towards Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro). Why do you think she was so drawn to Hal and is there potential on that dynamic being explored further in season 3?

 

A) Penelope is always going to make mistakes and she’s desperate for love, but in all the wrong ways. She’ll take any kind of love and the fact that she was married to such a cold-hearted man, she found someone warmer in Hal Cooper. Even though we found out he too is twisted. In a way, it’s really sad, but she wasn’t going to get much at the time.

 

If it had gone any further, she would have possibly stopped being the Bordello Madame and would have just gone with Hal Cooper because there’s no remorse regarding Alice. She didn’t want her husband and so I think they had this understanding of being let down by their spouses and also being judged by their offspring. Little did she know that he was the black hood and a mass murderer. But, yes, I think she’s lonely, so she would just like some kind of warmth somehow from somewhere.

 

Q) What have been some of your favorite scenes to film and which one was the hardest one?

 

A) I think the episode when I buried my son. It was episode five season one. It’s a really tough one because you dig into your own feelings there. I have only a son, my only one child, so you don’t really want to go there but you do go there and imagine what it was like to bury your child. I shot that scene with Trevor Stines who played Jason Blossom and he was nothing but kind and generous when I said to him, “Look I’m going to just do some little exercise with you (I’m an acting coach as well), and I want you to hug me and I’m going to hug you like I would hug my child. And then I want you to push me away and walk away and don’t look back.”

 

He did that and it breaks your heart. You watch this child walk away or you know dressed in white and walking away into the distance and it breaks your heart. You really get that feeling of loss. Penelope Blossom as a character, of course it’s easy to hate her, but if you think of what she goes through she loses a child and a husband in the same year and has had a hideous childhood herself. It’s tough.

 

Q) Since Penelope is viewed as a villain, how you shake off such loathsome character at the end of the day?

 

A) Having done the hardest part early on in season one, everything else that follows I can put it on and say the words, the wonderful words that the writers give you which are always so great. Then I have a really good laugh about it. Alice has these speeches about what a revolting viper I am. I believe that Mädchen calls me a half melted two-cent trollop. Once you get those words out and they call “cut” it was all about laughing because it really is so good. We love the fact that it is a bit heightened as a comic of sorts that you can kind of play it but then distance yourself and laugh about how extreme it is.

 

Q) There’s talk of another musical this season. Given the opportunity, what is Penelope’s go-to musical number?

 

A) Well, you’ve seen me on the ukulele and you know how I love to be a song wrecker!

I would definitely try and do some sort of smoky jazz bar rip-off. At the wrap party for season one I did a parody of Radiohead’s “Creep” because you know we’re creeps, the Blossoms are creeps and I call the group losers because “I’m a creep and you’re all losers. What the hell are you doing here?” That was my wrath and I would imagine myself with a 50’s microphone with my usual weird lacy dark clothing, 20’s clothing, doing like a smoky voice jazz parody of something.

 

Q) Especially with your songs and everything, I know you’re on social media. Do you do enjoy the instant fan feedback that you receive to episodes?

 

A) Yeah, I do. It’s definitely a part of me that knows there’s a huge fan base that has no idea how the actors are different to the characters they portray. So, every now and then I have to kind of go, “All right, everybody. All the hate is going at Penelope. This is Nathalie speaking. Everybody just calm down.”

 

Then, I think there’s also so many people who are so excited by the fact that I’m so different. I’m a wildlife activist and I’m doing everything in my power to save orangutans from extinction in Indonesia where their rainforest is being spoiled for palm oil. I have this real kind of contrast that I think fans either get in the door and love my comedy or are completely perplexed by who the hell this woman is. It’s wonderful to have an audience; some of it adoring and some of it absolutely hating me, but I have really enjoyed how “Riverdale” has given me that platform.

 

Q) What do you think it is about the show that continues to make it such a fan favorite?

 

A) I think teenagers love watching the show because it shows the teenagers as sane and the parents as all crazy. There’s also definitely an older fan base as well, that goes past the 20’s and then there’s the parents who love to watch Mädchen. They love to watch Luke Perry and love to watch Skeet [Ulrich], all of the heartthrobs that they grew up with.

 

We love watching those people and going “Yes, they’re hot. Yes, they’re fascinating. Yes, they continue.” I think it’s something that was really lacking, and I can’t stand the fact that Hollywood was like that, but I love the fact that it’s changing. It definitely represents the #MeToo era and what’s going on. It is so much equality on this show that I love that there are so many women driving the storylines that women are really ready for. I think there’s also an element of just crazy to it. It’s so delicious to watch, it sort of took off where “Gossip Girl” left off and took over. We love the outfits. We love the juiciness of everything. We love the look of the 50s/60s era wardrobe and old cars, but then you’ll have people on their electronic devices all kind of mashed up. I describe the show as a little bit of ADD. You have to pay attention to the fact that you can binge it on Netflix, which means that you can also stop and look a little closer and go, “What is that hint? Who is that character? I’ve seen that person before.” All the live tweeting that goes on while the episode is happening, it goes completely mental, like we trend at number one pretty much every week. People can choose how they watch their shows. And so the numbers may be one thing, normal network numbers, but then you look at social media numbers and it’s off the charts. “Riverdale” just happened when the audience was ready for that.

 

It’s really convoluted and complicated where you just kind of have to almost go back and go, “Hey now, what?” People have related “Riverdale” to being like the Archie Comics meet Scooby Doo where that satisfaction of solving mysteries with the creators is part of the appeal. It really feeds into the teenage obsession with solving the mystery and eating up details, filling your life with things that could possibly happen in the romance and your sexuality, especially with “Riverdale” being so equal. There’s a lot of exploration of LGBTQ and so on. It affects a lot of people, the show.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who’s a fan and supporter of you and your work?

 

A) I would say thank you so much for loving the crazy. I love it and I promise to bring more. Whenever you come across somebody who seems to be kind of like a Penelope, take a little breather and some time to imagine why they are the way they are. They’re probably battling something. As Robin Williams said, “Everybody’s battling something, be kind always,” and then just take me as a character who is fun for the goodies to fight and enjoy that villain storyline.

 

 

Watch The Strange Video for “Dolls”