- Hi, I'm Natasha Liu Bordizzo,
and I'm in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
(upbeat music)
- So you play Helena in The Society on Netflix.
Now, I binged season one in like three days,
I just couldn't stop watching it.
But for anybody who hasn't seen it yet,
give us just a brief description of what the show is about.
- It has allusions to the Pied Piper of Hamelin,
and essentially, the story of him playing the flute
and stealing the children away.
I think that there are several elements of the story
that are quite dark.
But essentially, on the surface,
all you need to know is that we're a group of teenagers who
get on a bus somewhere, there is a big biblical storm,
and then we wake up back in a replica of our hometown,
our parents are gone and we suddenly have to learn how to
govern ourselves, and that results in a lot of chaos, yeah.
- Definitely!
When you first auditioned for the project,
did you audition for Helena or a different role?
- We kind of got (exhales deeply) like a variety of
bios to read, but essentially,
I think I was most interested in Helena,
mostly because we are the opposite humans in real life.
Being religious is a huge element of her character,
and being in like a long term committed relationship
that she wants to get married very soon in,
are all things that I'm not familiar with.
I did grow up Catholic, but I've recently,
you know, in my adulthood become more of a agnostic,
I'd say citizen.
So, I think it was just scary for me,
and I wanted to challenge myself to humanize
a very like archetype kind of character
that I had nothing in common with
and make her relatable and likable, yeah.
- Yeah, Helena is definitely the most religious character
in the show, and she even becomes a preacher really,
and sort of steps into this role as a leader.
How would you say she evolves over the course of season one?
- I think that she, a big arc of the show is that
each character is certain about certain things
that in their life they held dear to them.
And as time goes on, it becomes very much almost like
the Stanford Prison Experiment
or something where everyone's you know,
making this show sound really intense.
- It's intense.
- But it is intense. - It's intense.
- And it's kind of like, her certainty is her love for Luke,
her boyfriend and her faith, and she uses them
as like a vehicle to get through this challenge.
But everyone's certainty is shattered
at some point in the show and hers is too.
I won't ruin too much,
but certain truths that she held dear are slowly broken,
and it just adds to the drama of the show, really.
- And how would you say that Helena's relationship
with her faith evolves as the story goes on?
- I think it becomes less about God,
and more about keeping the group calm
and hopeful for a future, because there is no hope.
And I think that's what causes people to party,
to like take drugs, have sex, go wild, and she's like,
we should just, we should just stay calm
and take care of each other,
do the work that Allie's saying we should do.
And she uses the church as like a vehicle
to inspire that message.
Instead of talking about God, she's more talking about
things in like a place of faith and just, you know,
camaraderie and bringing everyone together.
So, I like that about her actually,
because when I first read the role, I was like, oh God,
there's gonna be so many like Bible excerpts
that I have to research and go into,
but it was actually more about just community and reason,
and she's very logical.
So, I think she's got potential to be a leader
if we get season two.
- Well, that's what I was going to say.
I think she'd make a great mayor.
- Well, yeah, I mean, I, I think there's a moment,
hopefully gonna be a moment where that becomes a possibility
because Luke is clearly just, without running anything,
not getting things done, so, yeah.
That's gonna be one of the main things
I'm excited about for season two,
is seeing what happens to their relationship,
'cause it's left on a quite a problem.
- Yeah, do you think they'll make it down the aisle?
- Oh, God.
Maybe eventually, but there's gonna be a big period of
issues following the end of season one.
- Well yeah, because how do you think Helena's gonna react
when she finds out that Luke is lying about
Allie and Will fixing the election?
- Ooh, it's gonna be ugly, yeah.
- Because she has so much. - It's gonna be real ugly.
- Yeah, faith and trust in him.
- She is gonna, she's on the verge,
I think she's kind of like just staying calm,
like a whole of season one,
like, I'm the only one that's got logic and reason
and staying calm, and everyone just, just come to church
and I'll just, you know, calm you down again,
and that's gonna reach a breaking point, I think.
She was kinda getting there towards the end of season one,
but this will be, I want her to snap for season two,
because I think that'd be fun.
- I know, I'm excited to see what it would even look like
for her to snap. - Yeah.
- Because we've seen her so calm--
- I deliberately played it extremely,
'cause I feel like a lot of the characters
are so unstable through the show
that I wanted Helena to be, really,
I deliberately made her very stable
and like collected and composed.
So, you know, if we get Season Two that will be my play time
to just, yeah, explode.
- Now, Helena and Luke obviously, a lot of fans ship them
and love them together-- - Yes.
Talk of the word ship gives me so much anxiety.
- But I was gonna ask--
- Stand-ship.
- We stand, we ship.
- I've have gone to bed like with nightmares of those words
just floating above my mind, anyway.
- But I wanna know which couple do you ship the most?
- Oh God!
And as I say this my entire Instagram like tagged feed
is like flipping through my mind of all the fan art
and people like Photoshoped faces onto.
I think honestly speaking, like it's so predictable
but Grizz and Sam. - Yes.
- Because even when I watched the show,
I hadn't seen any of the scenes
'cause I'm not in or around any of them,
so it was a whole new storyline for me to watch
and especially the scene where
Grizz has just discovered that Sam is the father
which obviously is not true,
and they have that big argument, it's just yeah,
it's pretty endearing.
- I agree, they're my number one ship too.
I wanna see more of them in season two.
- They're kind of like the underdog.
I think when we were reading the scripts
and going through table reads and filming it,
they were just like another couple,
like there was a bunch of couples
and they were just another one.
And then as the show progressed,
and it was released and filmed,
I think some, you can't predict what magic happens
between two actors on set, so yeah.
- With all of the characters,
what are some of the things you hope to see happen
if there is a season two?
- Oh, there's a lot.
I think, I want everyone to reach their full potential
of what they would do in this time of crisis,
'cause I think the crisis is gonna get worse.
We have no resources, no food.
Well, we discovered some, but it's still pretty dire.
So I think I want everyone to just reach the full,
highest potential of their character
whether it's in a good way or a bad way.
Like everyone's just complete, stripped-down selves,
because I think we're still able to hold it together
and put on the clothes and put on the makeup
and just kind of go through life
in a still pretty controlled way.
But I think war could break out in the future
because it's already getting that way
with the coup and the takeover.
So, I'm excited for it to get actually even more wild.
- With the show, there're so many online fan theories
about what could be going on.
So I wanna read through some of them.
- Okay. - And get your take
on these theories, if you think they're far fetched?
If you think it could be possible?
You know, just--
- I know nothing, by the way, so anyway--
- Just your personal thoughts on it.
All right, so, theory one, Dewey didn't kill Cassandra
somebody else did?
- I mean, Gordie went at it pretty scientifically,
so I think, I kind of think he did it.
Yeah, I don't think that's the one that's
gonna be a reveal or anything, yeah.
- Any confesses?
- Yeah, yeah, he's pretty misogynistic, so, you know.
Either way, the execution was probably.
- For the best, oh man, okay.
- For the best.
- All right, theory two.
Okay, so this is just Campbell.
Campbell is the father of Becca's baby,
and that's why Kelly tells Sam, his brother,
she has your eyes?
- Geez.
I hope not.
That would be, I don't know what that would do
to a lot of characters if that was true, that would really,
I mean, that would change our entire vision of
Becker as well, and Campbell and what's going.
Yeah, that could be interesting,
but I don't think it's true.
- Next theory, they're in a parallel universe.
- It's a good one.
Yeah, I think that's just a solid could-be
that we're holding on to for the next season, yeah.
- So going off that, you know, the dog, we see the dog.
- The dog, oh God.
- In the beginning, in the end.
so the theory is the dog can go back and forth
between the universes?
- Yeah, we've thought a lot about the dog
'cause by the way as the cast
we are also constantly thinking about theories.
We think a lot about the dog but like
we don't know if it's more that the dogs' presence
in our universe matters as opposed to them
going between universes like there's a gateway or a portal
that's only available to this spiritual.
I mean, we think it could also be the original man
that had turned into a dog, the bus, the bus driver
that is in the dog form now, I don't know.
- And last theory, the kids are being replaced in Westham,
and that explains, you know, maybe the new younger kids
that we see at the end of season one?
- Replaced, I think that they're just a younger grade or
and our names are on the wall,
so, I don't think we're replaced.
I don't think so, yeah.
- Well, that's all the theories and questions I have.
- Thank you.
- So thank you so much for talking to me,
and I hope we get to season two
because I need to know what's going to happen.
- Please Netflix gods.
Thank you.