[This story contains spoilers from Mayfair Witches‘ penultimate episode of season two, “A Tangled Web.”]
Alexandra Daddario doesn’t feel like she can trust Mayfair Witches’ leading lady Rowan Fielding — and she’s not sure you should either.
The star of the AMC series, the second in the Anne Rice Immortal Universe franchise, admitted as much while discussing Rowan’s fate and what’s ahead for her, Moira (Alyssa Jirrels), Lark (Ben Feldman) and Cortland (Harry Hamlin) ahead of Sunday’s episode, “A Tangled Web.” The penultimate episode of season two ended on a stomach-clenching cliffhanger, after Rowan and the others found themselves trapped in Scotland as unexpected guests of a wedding for a prophesied union.
When Lasher (Jack Huston) is seemingly taken from Rowan by the Talamasca, she discovers a more sinister plan is afoot that has whisked him away to Scotland. Crossing the Atlantic in hopes of finding and retrieving her son, her former (demon) lover, and a magical accelerant to her power and the Mayfair coven, things go south quickly as Rowan, Cortland, Moira and Lark’s search expedition devolves into a captive situation, thanks to Cortland’s long-estranged brother Ian (Ian Pirie) and his secret family.
After a season’s worth of Rowan trying to get a grip on Lasher’s power and intentions, and ultimately the motivations of her dangerous and power-hungry grandfather Julien (Ted Levine), Rowan may have finally met her match. But with Moira locked away inside the hidden tunnels of a sprawling Scottish castle, Lark now physically linked by magic to Ian’s cultish family, and Cortland the victim of Julien’s body-swapping plot, Rowan is likely the only one who can stop whatever potential nefariousness lies on the other side of a consummation between Lasher and an ancient entity known as Emaleth (Henessi Schmidt).
Daddario spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the danger Rowan finds herself in now, what this season has revealed about Rowan and whether — with the introduction of Ashlar and the ancient entities known as the Taltos — a season three for Mayfair Witches is in the cards.
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Throughout season two, there’s been discussion about what’s motivating Rowan when it comes to Lasher, and he addresses that with her directly in this episode. They both come to two different conclusions. What do you think is actually motivating her to go to Scotland to get Lasher back?
I thought about that a lot and discussed it with the team. There was so much of, “Is this for power, or does she mean what she says? Does she mean what she says here? Does she mean what she says here? Is she doing this because she’s calculated? Is she doing it because she’s just doing it?” Ultimately, I think when it comes to Lasher, even if it’s for selfish reasons — like it’s the best sex she’s ever had or this is exactly what she needs in her life, or he’s now her son and the keeper of her power — there is a deep love there. And aren’t our family members or the people we love the keeper of our power in a lot of ways?
But I do think, yes, there were some calculated choices that maybe she was ruminating on but didn’t intend to take action on. I think she was justifying to herself that she was doing this for a good reason. “I’m doing this to help the family. I’m doing this to save my family.” When it comes down to it, I’m not sure she even means that. She may have had a little cognitive dissonance where she was convincing herself of one thing but doing another.
Rowan and Lasher have a pretty interesting dynamic you’ve had to play a couple of ways. How did you and Jack talk about that? Did you want to lean into it feeling more like a romance, a mother-son bond or a tug-of-war relationship between two magical entities?
Not to speak for him, but from my perspective, Jack and I had a lot of discussions about how we wanted it to feel super passionate and romantic in a lot of ways, despite it being a mother-son dynamic. I actually think the romantic aspect and intense pull that these two had — or that Rowan has towards Lasher and that many other women have as well — was extremely intoxicating to her. We both felt that was important, so we tried to find that balance. It’s very hard to write this intensely romantic, sexual relationship when now he’s her son, but also an embodied version of her romantic partner. It’s Anne Rice. It’s dark, complex. It’s a metaphor for so many different things, and we tried to find that balance when translating it to the screen.
This season, Rowan becomes somewhat unreliable in terms of her reasoning and actions, making her instinctually hard to trust as a viewer. Her relationships are also tested in terms of who she can trust, especially around this debate over whether Lasher is a source of evil or good. Should Rowan trust anyone — including herself — at this point who tells her what or who Lasher is? Especially when they’re all so caught up in their motivations and the powerful net of something maybe only Julien understands?
Your instincts are quite right. When I was reading the episodes, there were questions I had for Rowan as an actress. What’s really happening here? What does she believe at any given moment? I don’t necessarily think you can trust Rowan. I started to not trust Rowan, which was very interesting for me as an actor, to be playing that character. You have to know when she’s saying something or doing something that she means it. The people around her, I don’t think she trusts and I don’t think she needs to trust. She needs to trust herself and know what she’s doing. So that’s really what I focused on.
She never trusts Cortland. She doesn’t trust Moira. There are very few people who she feels she can talk to. The way I approached it as an actor is that things are changing constantly. People are changing. The dynamics are changing. Her emotions are changing. Lasher’s there, he’s not. But then this person is and she’s kind of being strategic about if she can trust that person in the moment. There’s a lot of playing it by the moment, which we do in life from time to time.
One of the big twists of this episode is that Ian and Julien trap Cortland inside Julien’s victrola, allowing Julien to take over Cortland’s body. It’s somewhat reminiscent of where Cortland ended up last season, trapped in stone. Rowan didn’t seem too happy about pulling him out that time, but might Rowan have different feelings about trying to save him this time?
This is the first time I’ve done a series of television that is multiple seasons, and really anything can happen. Here the question is: how much do we love Harry Hamlin? We love him to the nth degree. We don’t want Harry Hamlin going anywhere. So how do you find and justify a way for Rowan to go [and help him]? That must be the fun of writing the show. What does Rowan need from him now? What happens? How does that come to be? I’m not saying that’s absolutely going to happen. I have no idea, but I think that that’s the fun of the show. Part of me as an actor, I want Rowan to kill him. I want her to find a really big, complicated way of just… there’s a lot of rage for Rowan that is justified.
Moira, who Rowan has had a testy relationship with all season, is trapped inside a room in the castle, which means Lark — a very human, non-magical man — is seemingly her only backup. However, trying to stop Julien and Ian could result in Lark’s death due to that magical tether. With their history in mind, do you think Rowan is capable of sacrificing Lark at this point to stop whatever is coming?
I absolutely think Rowan is capable of that. Having gone through this, I think Rowan is and can be quite selfish, can justify a lot of things, and I do feel like there’s part of her that feels Lark’s disposable, even if she is quite nostalgic and loves him and knows he’s a good person and knows what they shared. She’s changed so much; she’s been through so much. I think that he is in danger and with Rowan, it could go either way. Rowan’s capable of some pretty crazy stuff, but she loves him. She doesn’t want to be with him. She doesn’t need that. That’s a little boring for her. But I do think there’s a lot of nostalgia tied to him, and there is care there.
The episode ends on an intense cliffhanger where it seems Rowan has been outsmarted and overpowered, not for a lack of trying. Do you think she has what she needs in her to stop this and save everyone?
I think she does. She just needs to play it right, and she’s constantly concerned that she’s not because there’s constantly things being thrown at her. That’s what I wanted to understand, too, when playing her. Her game plan keeps changing. This is a magical world where anything is possible and the rules are thrown out the window. The way we all get through the day is we have this idea that in the world, you’re going to walk down the street and get your coffee, go to work and that things are going to be the way you plan them to be. That’s why something small in the grand scheme of things — like your plane is delayed — throws people off to such a degree.
She’s having things change constantly that completely changed the playbook and that’s overwhelming. So I don’t know that you can ever have the upper hand in that kind of situation, and I’m not sure she has her head on straight all the time. I think she’s very flawed, and there are parts of her that are broken, or that she’s working on, or that she’s vulnerable to, that cause her to make the wrong decisions at times and allow her thinking to not be that clear.
So in this episode, the Taltos — which readers of Rice’s Mayfair Witches series will know is the third book — are introduced. Have you and the team had any discussions about what a season three might look like?
In all honesty, we haven’t. During season one, there were some discussions about season two. The writers were reading the book and sort of saying, “How do we adapt this? What is this? What does this look like on screen?” And we did not have those conversations during season two about season three. But I think there’s a whole rich world to draw from. As we know, Anne Rice has given us so much, so I would be curious where the writers would take it.
Mayfair Witches‘ season two finale airs next Sunday, March 2 on AMC and AMC+.
English (US) ·