Elle Fanning (‘The Great’) on how the bathtub scene was ‘so funny and so absurd’ [Complete Interview Transcript]

During a recent Gold Derby video interview, senior editor Matt Noble spoke in-depth with Elle Fanning (“The Great”) about Season 3 of her Hulu regal series, which is eligible at the 2023 Emmys. Watch the full video above and read the complete interview transcript below.

“The Great” is billed as “an occasional true story” about the rise of Catherine the Great in Russia during the 18th century. The third season of the dramedy was released in May, just in time to be eligible for the Emmy Awards. It’s created by the Oscar-nominated writer of “The Favourite,” Tony McNamara, with Fanning portraying Catherine.

When reliving her wildest moments on the show, Fanning recalled, “I got carried in a bathtub full of water down a hallway … I was out in the middle of everyone in the hallway in a bathtub demanding jokes. I’m like, this is crazy. This is so funny and so absurd. But you just buy into it.” She added in our webchat that the cast is “kind of desensitized” to all the craziness after three seasons.

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Matt Noble: Elle Fanning plays Catherine the Great. In The Great. I’m Matt Noble of Gold Derby, and I wanted to start off by asking you, Elle, what do you think over the course of three seasons, does Catherine change Russia more or does Russia change Catherine more?

Elle Fanning: That’s a good question. I’ve never had that question.

MN: Oh, great.

EF: Yeah, so it’s fresh.

MN: Okay, good. I like it.

EF: Okay. My instinct wants to say that Russia changes Catherine more. I think the progression of the country progressing over the course of the three seasons, I think has been slow moving. And you can kind of see that. I mean, Catherine has always had such bright, beautiful, very ambitious ideas, but her getting it done at the end of the day has always kind of been her holdup. And even in the third season, again, she has great ideas, but she falters a bit. And you do see her weaknesses as a leader.
And that’s something that I’ve always loved about playing her is, and how Tony writes her is that she is shaded so beautifully that you see when she falters and you can see her finding her strength through her weaknesses and her coming to that country first thinking that her great love was going to be a man and this marriage, which in a way I think now we’ve learned could be true, partly true, but really is her coming into our own as a leader and watching this country unfold, which at times is, I mean, the court is totally backwards and upside down, and she’s trying to outlaw murder this year, and they’re like, that’s our favorite pastime. How dare you? So she can’t really win for losing at times, but she at least is trying. And I do think at the end of season three, with spoiler, but with Peter being gone, I think you get a sense of seeing that that’s what had to have happened for her to finally accept herself as a true singular ruler. Because I think this year, audiences and I even in the script, I was like, maybe I think Aunt Elizabeth should do this. She might do it better so.

MN: Yeah. How is after playing Catherine for three seasons, how have you changed through playing her?

EF: Massively. I think we shot the pilot, which we had to do our pilot, and then we had to wait for those months and see if we were going to get picked up and Hulu did, and then you go into the next phase. And so I’d never really done an ongoing TV show or been in that space. So that was a whole learning curve. And I was 20 when I shot the pilot, and now I’m 25. So I’ve certainly grown up personally, but I think that playing Catherine and being on that film set surrounded by these creatives and people that I look up to and now are my family, like I’ve been molded by this experience 100%. Just such formative years of my life and getting to be a producer. I now feel really comfortable in that seat, which is, I’m still young, I’m still learning, but through playing Catherine, my voice is for sure grown. And I can also, I’m a little bit more daring as an actor I will say. Choices that I’ve made in season three acting wise, there’s no way I would’ve been daring or bold enough to have made them in season one. But I think that that’s what’s so beautiful of watching all of our characters grow in the season, but you can see all of us grow more comfortable with the tone and wanting to kind of embarrass ourselves and be vulnerable and be gross and go there. And that’s what’s so great about playing a character for so many years. Honestly, it’s been the role to date that is the most near to my heart, for sure.

MN: What’s a bold choice you made in season three?

EF: Oh, gosh. I mean, so probably a lot of them were not in it because they were on the editing room floor.

MN: Too bold.

EF: Too bold at times. I don’t know. Nick and I, we turn to each other at the end of takes. We’re like, should we go bigger? We’re like bigger. Yeah, bigger. So we’re always willing to do more. I think, I mean, I will say this episode seven for me, which is the episode after Peter’s death was such a daunting episode for me personally, because having Peter gone and Nick gone in a show that he makes the show, I mean, he’s, I mean, everyone does, but that character, he is literally made this iconic character and having such a big presence gone, you don’t want the show to dip and you don’t want it to feel too sad also, because we’re a comedy as well, but we walked that weird tightrope. So that episode was the one where I was probably making the most bold choices, but it was actually quite contained in the way we looked at it because Tony McNamara had listened to a podcast of This American Life that was about manic grief, and that was what we decided we would put Catherine in. And it was like she kind of, she’s in denial and she’s in pure mania in episode seven, which is, it works for us tonally because it’s quite funny, but it’s also really tragic and sad. And it was finding that perfect pitch in that was where I was experimenting a lot of going, should I go really big? Or where do we want to show her cracks? And it was almost like a train was just coming at her until the final kind of scene of that episode of when she realizes that he is gone. But that it’s like that feeling in your stomach where you’re like, something’s off and I don’t know what it is. And so we were trying to convey that feeling.
And yeah, so the back half of the episode, I think I make some choices, but that’s the fun of the show and why I love acting is the immediate switch of emotion. And that’s what Tony writes so beautifully, is you can have a scene that’s so emotional and then everyone’s screaming at each other, and in a moment you’re laughing. And I mean, we’re literally describing emotions and crying, but I think our show really does that well. And what I like to challenge myself, I like to fit as many emotions into the smallest amount of time, and I feel like I can with Catherine, because she’s quite all over the place so.

MN: When you’re playing so many emotions and other actors in the show are too, and you have all these tonal changes and you’re working on these scenes with other actors and things, do things surprise you in the moment? Do you learn things as you’re playing and exploring the characters?

EF: Oh, 100%. Yeah. Because our dialogue is very set in stone. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s written and that is kind of our Bible, the words, and there’s not a lot of, in the writing, not a lot of direction in between the lines, the way Tony writes. So it’s quite just the dialogue. And so then you have to, as an actor, kind of fill in the emotion, fill in the body language, and the physicality and the blocking of a scene. And so our rehearsals can be quite long sometimes. It definitely feels like a play in the way that we film because they’re very long takes. We always go from beginning to end. It’s quite wordy, and you’re constantly discovering new moments in the scene that you want to explore. Or someone, a brilliant actors in our show, they’ll say a line and you’re like, I never thought of that you would say it that way. And it informs you of the next step and where you want to take it. And so I try to always kind of, and I think all of us, we all try to kind of give as many options as possible. So we never do a scene the same way. I know, it’s like, all right, we got that. Let’s do something different. And normally our directors as well will, the last one will be, all right, this is a take for you guys. This is a fun one. And you get really good moments in that because you’re just very, inhibitions are gone and.

MN: Yeah. Do you ever surprise yourself just the way a line comes out or the way you play something?

EF: Yes, definitely. Especially with the language, because it’s words that you’ve never said before. You’re talking about, I’m like horse fucking, and they’re just crazy, talking about clitty bitty and just funny words. So yes, it is quite shocking. Sometimes you’re like, did I say that? Or it’s something else took over in the moment. And our set is definitely full of a lot of laughter, and we have a great blooper reel. Really good.

MN: Oh, awesome. Such a great hallmark of the show is the absurd humor and just this wild world where sort of all these just crazy things happen and these wild characters sort of, particularly with Peter, but now I think even with Catherine, just like they can sort of do what they want to a degree and they do some wild things. What do you think the wildest thing is you’ve gotten to do on the show?

EF: In three seasons, I can’t.

MN: Yeah.

EF: What’s popped into my head? Okay, well, I got carried in a bathtub full of water down a hallway. That was one. And the guys did have some help with green screen posts that were holding me. But I was out in the middle of everyone in the hallway in a bathtub demanding jokes. I’m like, this is crazy. This is so funny and so absurd. But you just buy into it. I mean, at this point we’re kind of desensitized to like, oh yeah, that makes sense. That’s totally normal life. Yeah, that was really fun for a third season. Gosh, I would have to go back and rewatch, but I did love that. I did love that moment. I know. I mean also like the creations that we had. I think the lemon top for contraception. She created the rollercoaster. I think the oh, yeah, the cum catch you, AKA condom was created apparently in our court. So it’s just Tony’s imaginative mind. It’s like just a place that I want to live because it’s so limitless, it’s so limitless. And as an actor, it’s so freeing because you really have every possibility in the world to explore. Yeah. It’ll be hard to, I don’t know, hard to top. I always say that to Tony. I’m like, I read other scripts and I’m like, oh, you’re just the best.

MN: There’s those big, wild things. There’s also just funny little one-liners and quips and stuff in the show too. What for you is one of the funniest moments from the show? What made you laugh a lot?

EF: I had, okay, well, the clitty bitty scene in season two with Nick and I, I couldn’t get through. We were laughing so hard, and I actually think that it was really good for the scene because there’s something too, when you’re flushed and you can kind of see the rosiness in your cheeks and your neck, like I kind of use that. There’s something about it. That tension, I think is really truly our show, if that makes sense. Getting kind of overwhelmed and flushed and those moments of feeling uncomfortable is really good to use in the scenes and actually makes for good moments. Gosh, another funny, because Nick and I, we were talking the other day and he’s like, remember when you said this? This was so good. And this was a funny, because people ask me, what’s your favorite line? It’s like, oh gosh. I always, you have to clear them out. I have to watch it again to remember. But yeah, this year we had so many amazing moments. We were in like, it’s also just funny things, like we were in a carriage with all the girls. It was Belinda, Charity, and Phoebe, and I and Belinda had some line, and we’re just busting up laughing. Like you just can’t. We also, we’re just too close at this point. Yeah. No, I have to get a good line that I say that I like.

MN: Yeah.

EF: Yeah.

MN: So Elle we’re going to shift tones now, but I know you’re a pro at that. Okay. Because you have talked about the death of Peter and with that scene on the snow, which is a tragic scene in the show. Right before he goes through the ice, there’s a scene, you have your final conversation with him, and you as an actress know that this is sort of these characters two last moments together, but she doesn’t. How do you sort of balance those two things as you’re performing it?

EF: Oh, gosh. I know. Oh, you know what? I actually also just thought of a good line.

MN: Okay. Yeah. [inaudible 00:14:27].

EF: So it was a good one where I say, and this was a funny moment. I had to slap Nick on the ass and go and slap him on the ass and say, I rode that one until he begged for mercy this morning. That I could not get through. I was like, Nick, every time in the readthrough, we were like, all right. I’m like, he’s like hit me harder. All right. Every time. Yeah, that was hard to get through. Okay, now back to death. I mean, this is literally our show.

MN: Yeah.

EF: Yeah. But,

MN: Huzzah.

EF: Huzzah. Yeah. So yeah, that scene on the ice before the death obviously is such an important scene, such a emotional scene, but not emotional. I mean, it was emotional for Nick and I on a personal level, knowing that that was the last scene that these characters will have together. And in the shooting order, it was our last scene as Peter and Catherine. So the day held a lot of heavy emotion. And I remember in the read through, when we read the scene together for the first time, it just summed up their relationship so beautifully. And although we as actors knew what was coming, we also couldn’t hint to the audience that we knew what was coming. So it was a fine line again, that you wanted the scene to really feel like a moment, but also you couldn’t give away the death. So our characters couldn’t be, oh, giving our goodbyes and being all mellow dramatic because they don’t know what’s about to happen. So we were very aware of that tight rope to calibrate it just right, that it felt important, but not too important, too foreshadowing. So we worked on that. And yeah, there’s a line where I say we’ve rewritten each other in the best, most infuriating of ways. And that line made me tear up every time I said it because I think that that is exactly what the characters have done to each other. And just showing who they are now and also how they’re desperately trying to change each other when they’re kind of unchangeable. They are who they are, which is like many, many relationships. But that tug of war between them was so fun to play and it’s so complicated. And that day was a hard one for all of us to get through. There was so many tears. But that scene I think couldn’t have been better. It was so poignant and a perfect ending of those two characters together and just represented them so perfectly. He still was talking about food.

MN: Yeah. The great salt idea. Also on that scene you call him the most enough you’ve ever met and you sort of say, this is enough, and there’s a lot of talking about enough. Did we get enough, Peter?

EF: Oh, we never get enough Peter, in my opinion. I love Peter. I think that I much as I do love Peter though, I understand the timing of it. And I think in order for Catherine to grow, she was stuck and she was inevitably held back by him. And so even though we don’t hold ourselves to history, we do know he did die. And also she was an incredible ruler as a person. It was her, the enlightenment period, and she has to come into her own. And I think that the dance at the end of the season summarizes that and summarizes the loss that she has grieved, but also her leaving it behind and letting out the last hurrah of that and really turning a new leaf. Yeah, it’s quite sad. But I think in order for her to go forward, it had to be that way.

MN: Yeah. And I think also, you never know. Peter was haunted by the former emperor.

EF: I said that.

MN: Yeah. Maybe Catherine will be haunted by the previous emperor as well.

EF: I know. We did talk about that. I don’t know. But I was like, we have ghosts in our show. It’s fine.

MN: And apparently that was really also a challenge for you acting because you’re out in the snow, but apparently it was really hot while you were filming that. Yeah.

EF: Yes. That was mostly, well, the whole lake was special effects. The snow, part of the snow was incredible production design that they had laid all this snow in and it was unbelievable. But it was, where did we, I mean, when did we film it? It was, yeah, definitely not winter. We were in these heavy coats and it was boiling hot, so we could definitely, yeah.

MN: As Catherine sees, Peter goes through the ice we just have silence and we have, like look on her face right after it happened. What was going on in your head Elle in that scene, in that moment?

EF: Well, that was okay. So we had filmed the final scene before and filmed everything with Nick and his falling through. And then we were all staying in this country house. And so I went back to the country house and after Nick had gone and he had to fly to some other place and get on a plane, so he was really gone. And like the badminton is written in the story season three, I stumbled upon a badminton court at this hotel we were staying in. So weird. So like my character, like Catherine, I played it by myself a little bit. I was so sad. And then I had to go film the next day of the aftermath of after he fell through. And so when we shot that shot of the, is it a zoom out? I think it’s a,

MN: I think so.

EF: I think so.

MN: Zoom’s out or zooms in, I can’t remember which.

EF: Yeah, maybe it zooms in, maybe it zoom in.

MN: I can’t remember.

EF: But yeah, on a crane, some crane movement. And we shot that. And so Nick was not there anymore. And you could just feel the whole of that. You could just feel it. And it was so real to me, the whole experience. It just, I think amongst the whole crew too, we could feel, and the cast, we just felt an emptiness. And so it wasn’t difficult to access those emotions at that moment. But yeah, it was there. And the shock, I think it was also specific too, because it’s not a oh sobbing moment because it’s a disbelief, it’s a shock and very can’t catch your breath moment. And so we wanted to again calibrate it finally because if she’s just sobbing over it, it means that she’s accepted it. And it’s almost like she doesn’t, what did I just see? I don’t understand. I really don’t understand. That couldn’t have happened. So yeah, we did that shot a couple times. But yeah, the crane. Yeah. Very sad.

MN: Well, yeah. Well Elle from sadness to comedy, to tragedy, to absurdity, thanks so much for talking The Great with us today. People watching this interview can go to goldderby.com to follow our awards coverage there. And all the best of luck with the Emmy Awards. You got nominated last season. Let’s hope you get back in this year.

EF: Thank you.

MN: And thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

EF: Thank you.

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