Archive

Evelyne Brochu and Jordan Gavaris talk about playing queer characters on “Orphan Black”

At a recent screening event for the first episode of Orphan Black Season 2, I chatted with Evelyne Brochu and Jordan Gavaris about their characters and I think you’re going to like what they had to say.

Evelyne Brochu was so stunning that it’s really a miracle I got any questions out at all-her eyes are at least 10 different colors. After each question I asked, she took the time to really think about her answer.

AE: How would you describe Delphine and Cosima’s journey in Season 2?

Evelyne Brochu: In season one, it was just a new love against all odds, against the fact that they’re on opposite sides of science. Season two is going to be not only maintaining a complex relationship within a complex situation, but also maintaining your girlfriend alive in a complex situation. I think the stakes are very high, it’s going to be very emotional. There is a strong bond and a very strong relationship and love there, but there’s also so much going on with Cosima’s health, so it’s going to be a lot of things. It’s a very complex relationship, it’s doctor/patient, it’s scientist/experiment, it’s girlfriend/girlfriend, it’s so many things, right? So, it’s going to be very dense and complex. And maybe a little bit dangerous!

AE: What’s your favorite thing about Delphine, or playing her?

EB: My favorite thing about playing her? Just how passionate she is about everything. You know? It’s really great to…’cause I feel like, on this show, everybody is passionate about doing this show. Of course, we can see Tatiana is passionate about her work, she just brings so much to all the different characters. I’m very passionate about the work, so just being able to take that passion from the work situation and swing it right into the character is fun.

AE: You recently joined Twitter, have you been seeing all the love from the Clonesbians and the Clone Club? How’s that been for you?

EB: Yeah, it’s really great. I mean, the clonesbians-you know, I have to say, I feel sometimes that fiction can reflect reality and sometimes even affect it. And I’m really proud to play a gay character whose main problem is not that she’s gay, which it shouldn’t be for anyone. So, I’m really proud of that.

After the screening, there was a little fan Q & A, and though most of the questions were for the creators, Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, a few were directed at the cast. The one thing that really stuck out for me was a fan asking Evelyne Brochu if she thought Delphine identified any differently in season two, now that she has a girlfriend. She pointed out that at the end of season one, she was definitely on Cosima’s side. And in the first episode of Season 2, we see “she’s at a huge DYAD party, kissing her girl.” (Well, what she thought was her girl.) She said it isn’t a big deal for her, and that she’s glad, because shouldn’t be a big deal.

Jordan Gavaris, who plays Felix, shook my hand and smiled brightly when we met. Even though I’ve watched a hundred interviews with him, it was still a tiny shock when his voice was not Felix’s (except for a moment when he was impersonating Felix).

AfterEllen.com: I saw in the previews that Felix gets to interact a little bit with Cosima this season, what is their relationship like?

Jordan Gavaris: I think that Felix is a little bit distrustful of Cosima, or he was, rather, in Season 1. I think that it’s an interesting bond, it’s probably the first clone that he gets to interact with where we didn’t have-you know, because it’s been mostly Sarah and Alison and they have very established dynamics-Cosima…she’s like the girl he’d meet out at a club and she’d say, “Yo, cool pants” and he’d be like [Felix voice], “Well, cool dreads,” and that would start a bit of a conversation. It’s very platonic. I think he grows a little closer to her as the season progresses, but I think still the mainstay in the clone/Felix relationship is Alison and Sarah.

AE: I see in the comments and on Twitter that the Clonesbians love Felix, do you get a lot of that kind of feedback from the LGBT community in general?

JG: Huge, huge feedback from the LGBT community. I think because Tat and I try to change the vernacular when we’re doing press, because far too often-I was doing a show the other day and it’s, “Oh we have Jordan who plays the ‘gay brother’ on Orphan Black,” and I’m thinking, OK, well….I use it as an an opportunity to create discussion and say, “As a person in the media, you have a responsibility to change the vernacular, to shift the paradigm. Whether they like to believe it or not, that kind of speech where you debase and define a character by their sexuality only and invalidate the rest of their identity is oppressive. Even if they’re a fictional person, it is still very oppressive. And it’s, again — we don’t feel a responsibility to the LGBT community, we feel a joy, a great joy in getting to represent them, and play characters that people are connecting with. Even these fictional characters, however fictional they may be, the fact that there’s resonance there is very, very powerful to us, it’s not lost on us at all.

AE: Especially as a 20-something member of the LGBT community, it’s great to see queer characters my age.

JG: Totally! We also come from a country where-it’s very strange to me. I live in Los Angeles right now, and even though LA is a bubble, the civil rights movement is very much something we’re exposed to–it’s strange because to me, coming from Canada, where the paradigm has already shifted, where you can be a man who is gay or you can be a man who is an artist and who is gay, and not a gay man. And that’s really important, because at the end of the day, as actors, Tat and I feel, you know, we’re not going into it playing sexuality any more than we would play a skin color, eye color, or cancer. It’s just human, we’re just playing human.

Be sure to tune in Saturdays at 9 p.m. on BBC America for brand new episodes of Orphan Black and see these two work their magic.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button