From Academy Award-winning writer/director Jane Campion, Top of the Lake: China Girl sees Detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) having recently returned to Sydney and trying to rebuild her life. When the body of a girl washes up on the beach with little hope of finding the killer, Robin gets drawn deeper and deeper into the investigation while she’s also trying to reconnect with the daughter she gave up at birth. The six-hour story also stars Gwendoline Christie, Nicole Kidman, Alice Englert, David Dencik and Ewen Leslie.
During a small roundtable to promote the return of Top of the Lake, actress Gwendoline Christie (who plays Miranda Hilmarson, an eager new recruit in the Sydney police force who’s excited to be partnered with Robin) talked about why she wanted to be a part of this project, being afforded a little bit more choice in the work that she does, wanting to know everything she can about the character she’s playing, whether it’s on Top of the Lake or in the Star Wars movies, the experience of working with such a brilliant artist as Jane Campion, and why she was (and still is) so obsessed with Twin Peaks.
Question: When you have more of a choice and say over what projects you do now, why was Top of the Lake: China Girl appealing?
GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE: I think what we’re seeing is that the world is developing and evolving somewhat, in terms of creatively recognizing that what we want to see in our entertainment is people that are representative of ourselves, and we want to see different kinds of women, different kinds of men, and different kinds of humans. It still isn’t at the stage where it’s all embracing, but definitely, there is an evolution, and that’s really, really positive. So, I wouldn’t say I’m at the stage of being able to pick and choose. That’s the rarified air for the .1% of the movie stars, but I am afforded a little bit more choice. It was only natural to me because I’ve wanted to work with Jane Campion since I was 11. I still wrote her a letter. She said she wrote the part for me, but I still had to audition for three and a half hours. She said, “I know you’re in Game of Thrones, but I have to check you can act,” so we did three and a half hours of improvisation, which was fantastic. I was prepared to do whatever was required to get that part. And then, when I got the scripts, I was really excited because, having been such a huge fan of the first season, I wanted to see where it would go because it could have gone absolutely anywhere. Jane always subverts form, so I liked that the second season actually felt like an entirely separate and different entity. It exists on its own terms because it’s a different world. You have its common and identifying central factor, in the form of Robin, but there’s a totally different set of characters. It’s four years later, and the world is a different place.
For Game of Thrones, you have source material to turn to, but Captain Phasma is a character in the Star Wars universe that we don’t know much about yet and this season of Top of the Lake is its own world. When you’re playing a character, how much do you want to know about your character?
CHRISTIE: Absolutely everything!
Were you given the opportunity to get that backstory, before you started the shoot?
CHRISTIE: Jane [Campion] and I talked about the [Top of the Lake] character for hours on the phone. We talked about who she was and where she’d come from, and I had done all of my work, as well. I’m hugely lucky to have been classically trained in the method approach, so I do all of my work for who that character is. That way, I can go into that situation and everything is justified in logic and fact, like it is for us, as humans. Life governs the decision-making process that becomes who we are. And Rian [Johnson] and I did have long conversations about [Captain Phasma] and who she was, and I was utterly delighted in how willing he was to listen to my ideas, and really thrilled to exchange them with him and hear his. He really is a master writer/director. We’ve seen that in the films that he’s made, but I think that we truly will see that in the depths to which he goes with The Last Jedi
Is it surreal to work on projects that carry on beyond their medium, whether it’s through books or comics?
CHRISTIE: I’ve always worked with artists, since my late teens. I’ve never approached the world of acting as just an actor. I’ve seen it in a way that is much more three-dimensional. That’s why my favorite TV show, other than Game of Thrones and Top of the Lake, was Twin Peaks, both when I was 11 and remains now. I thought I was going to pass out when I met Kyle MacLachlan (at Comic-Con). I was talking to some other members of the cast, and then I became aware of this presence that moved towards me like the most graceful, beautiful, silent, powerful, radiating energy monolith. I looked up and I said, “Oh, hello!”
Why were you so obsessed with Twin Peaks?
CHRISTIE: I must have been 11 when I watched it, and my mother actually has incredibly diverse taste in film, television and literature. We sat down to watch it together and I loved it because it was unlike anything I’d ever seen on television before. I found it complicated. I remember my mother saying, “I think this is a bit weird!” I always felt like an outsider, when I was growing up, and as weird and strange as I found life, I finally saw it on the screen. I didn’t feel like I was being indoctrinated with a homogenized view of society that was about being successful, which I felt I could never be a part of. This seemed to be a world that I could relate to. I love subversion, so it was the idea of this noir sensibility that’s turned on its head, and that’s so weird, strange, dark and frightening, but utterly beautiful. And there was also something really terrifying, that connected very closely with me, about this beautiful teenage girl, Laura Palmer, being found dead and her having this secret other life, that made me peer into the possibilities of what it would be like to go through adolescence and become an adult. It just really captured me. I love that its form was entirely different to anything else I’d seen on television, and it made me laugh so, so much, which I felt was wrong. I think that was mirrored in the first season of Top of the Lake. I adored the first season of Top of the Lake, and I found much of it very funny. And this season is very, very dark and much funnier.
What was the mood like on the set, for the Top of the Lake shoot?
CHRISTIE: I don’t really think about that. I’m always just very committed to what’s happening and what the scene requires. I’m so focused on that, that I don’t think about anything else. I don’t think about anything outside of that. I just think about what we need to achieve from the scene and what I need to do to achieve the best from the scene. As it happens, Jane is very funny, [Elisabeth Moss] is very funny, and (director) Ari [Kleiman] is hysterically funny. There was always a roaming humor between us all, and you never really thought about that. Also, [Elisabeth] and I were so committed to making this as good as it possibly could be, and in making all of the moments in Jane and Gerard Lee’s frankly brilliant writing come alive. That’s where our focus was. For me, Top of the Lake has a three-dimensional quality, in the way that Twin Peaks does. It’s multi-layered, the characters are multi-dimensional, and often there’s a reference outside of strictly that world. It’s multi-layered and multi-faceted, and that’s what drew me in.
The moment where you go to the crime scene to check out the body that’s found in the suitcase, and you jump off and hold your arms up to catch Elisabeth Moss, was that scripted or was that something that came up on the day of the shoot?
CHRISTIE: I keep saying that I improvised all of those funny moments and it was all me because I felt that it was a bit dark without them. It seemed that what the series really needed was some moments of lightness, so I improvised everything. No, that was in the script, but I really want to lie!
This is a story that’s written and directed by a woman. What was that experience like for you, to step into a really powerful role, written by a woman?
CHRISTIE: This role was very different for me, particularly in the context of what I’ve been lucky enough to be known for. I feel it’s essential that female directors should be supported. It was really wonderful, actually, because more than anything, Jane is a brilliant artist. She truly is an auteur. It was no mistake or surprise to look around and see a predominantly female set, and I felt very proud of that. We need to see more opportunities for women. As Jane says, the guys have had it their own way for a long time. Really, what this is about is for us, as a world, to have more interesting stories that are more representative of the complex, bizarre and difficult lives we all lead, as human beings. I’d like to see us all represented. Otherwise, storytelling is less interesting. Why should we be robbed of those human experiences?
Top of the Lake airs on SundanceTV on September 10th, 11th and 12th.
