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Entertainment

Cara Delevingne on starring in new Amazon show Carnival Row as a refugee faerie

The British actress plays Vignette Stonemoss in the new Amazon Prime Video series set in a Victorian fantasy world
Also: co-star Orlando Bloom on this his first TV role, and series producer Marc Guggenheim’s frustration with show’s ‘next Game of Thrones’ label

Associated Press

Published: 8:00pm, 1 Sep, 2019

Cara Delevingne and Orlando Bloom in new Amazon Prime show Carnival Row. Photo: Amazon Prime / Backgrid

Actors prepare for roles in a variety of ways, but that doesn’t usually include hours and hours of wearing a heavy backpack to simulate what it would be like to have wings sprouting from one’s back.

That’s what Cara Delevingne did to get ready to star in Carnival Row, a new Amazon Prime Video series released on Friday, in which she plays a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss who, as such creatures tend to do, possesses the power of flight.

“I want to be the female

Tom Cruise

and do all my own stunts,” Delevingne says with a smile. “That helps with this character because you fly in, you fly out. It’s part of the energy of the character.

“I couldn’t take the wings home and practise with them so I just got backpacks and carried heavy books on my back to understand what it would be like to have wings all the time. Even her balance would not be normal.”

Delevingne arriving for the Los Angeles premiere of Carnival Row at the TCL Chinese Theatre on August 21. Photo: AFP

Delevingne’s faerie lives in a Victorian fantasy world in a city called Burgue that has become a haven for mythological immigrant creatures.

The creatures have been forced to find sanctuary after their exotic homelands were invaded by the empires of man. Living with humans is a struggle as the creatures are forbidden to do everything from flying to falling in love.

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There is a source of hope, however. A human detective, Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom), rekindles a forbidden affair with Vignette. They must work together in a rabidly intolerant society to deal with a series of gruesome murders on Carnival Row, an area within Burgue.

“This is my first time in the TV space,” Bloom says of his latest role, “and with TV you get to explore the long form of a character. And you don’t have to show all your cards immediately.”

The new show has already been touted as the next

Game of Thrones

, which its producer Marc Guggenheim finds “frustrating”.

“Anyone who sees the show I think instantly knows, for good or ill, that Carnival Row has as much in common with Game of Thrones as Star Warsdoes to Star Trek,” says the former lawyer, whose credits include The Practice, Law & Order, Eli Stone and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

“It particularly vexes [series co-creator] Travis Beacham because Travis wrote [the feature film spec script] A Killing on Carnival Row 17 years ago, long before there was even Game of Thrones. So it’s a bummer to be compared. I always said comparisons don’t serve us well. We’re our own thing.”

Marc Guggenheim at the Los Angeles premiere of Carnival Row. Photo: AFP

Guggenheim says he likes the ethos of genre stories.

“On the one hand, genre stories tend to be very black and white. There’s a protagonist, an antagonist, a good guy and a bad guy. On the other hand, one of the great things about genre is that you can really delve into issues in a way that’s more freeing than a non-genre show can do, and Carnival Row’s a perfect example of this.”

For Delevingne, taking on a character in a fantasy world is nothing new. Along with portraying The Enchantress in the comic book film

Suicide Squad

, the model-turned-actress played Sergeant Laureline in Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
.

Her continued work in the genre, however, is not by design.

“I love fantasy and sci-fi, but I’m not the biggest fan,” Delevingne says. “I really don’t have a favourite genre of movies. I love them all. It’s interesting why fantasy has come into my life more. I suppose the reason behind all of these fantasy roles is the fact they have all been these incredibly strong female roles.

“I think in most real-life stories, women are not made to be so strong, but in the fantasy element they really are.”

Delevingne in Suicide Squad.

All three of the big fantasy projects gave the London-born Delevingne the opportunity to take on strong roles, but Carnival Row has given her far more room to play as both Suicide Squad and Valerian were much heavier in terms of action.

While the series has plenty of big action moments, Delevingne has been more excited because of how much depth there is to the characters and how the storyline about immigrants resonates with what is happening in the real world.

I also have a high tolerance for pain because [as a model] you get stuck with pins all the time and get pushed aroundCara Delevingne

Additionally, Delevingne loves that her character can be strong and determined while also dealing with a broken heart. Vignette is a character who picks herself up no matter how many times she gets knocked down and will do whatever is necessary to survive.

“She’s a realist,” Delevingne says. “With the amount of horrible things she has seen, she’s not tainted. She still wants to see the best in people and try to make things better, which is kind of crazy when you have lost all hope in the world. She had every reason to give up but still has these morals in her that to me are generational – that’s just who faeries are.”

Connecting with the elements of her character was easy for Delevingne as she spent years working in the modelling world where rejection and disappointment are constant. Her response to those elements was to be named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and 2014. She made the move to acting in 2012 with a role in Anna Kareninabecause she was looking to have more creative outlets.

Delevingne and Bloom in Carnival Row. Photo: Amazon Prime

As for how her work as a model prepared her for acting, Delevingne says: “It’s not the modelling part of the job that’s hard. It’s the scheduling and the time. What helped me was that it gave me a thicker skin in terms of rejection.

“Modelling when you are literally half naked outside in England all day, I have [expletive] thick skin at this point. I also have a high tolerance for pain because you get stuck with pins all the time and get pushed around. I’m pretty good with that now.”

That means training with a backpack full of books was never a problem.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

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Sunday, September 1, 2019