Outrageous' Shannon Watson, Joanna Vanderham Take Us Inside Episode 2's Highly Disturbing Nazi Rally
BritBox's Outrageous chronicles the lives of the Mitford sisters, British aristocrats whose exploits filled British gossip columns for the better part of the 1930s. The series' two-episode premiere last week introduced us to the ladies and what they were up to in the early part of the decade. Amid the coming-out balls, proposals and a whopper of a divorce scandal, a more insidious theme emerged: the rise of fascism in Europe, and two of the sisters' infatuation with it.
Diana, played by Joanna Vanderham, leaves her husband for Owald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists. At the same time, her teenage sister, Unity, played by Shannon Watson, becomes obsessed with Adolf Hitler and his rise to power in Germany. In Episode 2, Diana offers Unity a chance to leave England to see fascism in action in Germany, and the younger woman jumps at the chance.
The trip is presented almost as a lark, something to break up the sisters' otherwise not-that-exciting lives. "We are independent women with independent means," Diana says airily, having just received her divorce settlement. "We can do whatever we like." But when the pair attends a Nazi rally in 1933 Nuremberg, Germany, it's hard to see the event as anything other than a harbinger of unspeakable darkness to come.
Swastikas are everywhere. Armband-wearing soldiers escort Hitler to the stage as a huge crowd enthusiastically shouts "Sieg heil!" and throws up its arms in a Nazi salute. As triumphant music plays in the background, Unity, in particular, is in rapture. (Read a recap.)
The scene was so notable that I had to ask Vanderham and Watson about it when we recently spoke. Here's what they had to say:
TVLINE | I realize that TV shows are not reality, and that we we are covering an era of human history here that is dark. But your characters are at a Nazi raly where everyone is giving the salute — how does that feel for you, in your body, when you're filming?
VANDERHAM | Shock. We had to do some stills photography, and we were filming in this country village in England, and [the production team] took great care of covering it because it is so sensitive. But you're right: It was the reality of the time, but we had a runner out on the street making sure that, you know, if anyone was walking past or driving past, that it was like, "Arms down!"
WATSON | It was like, "1,2, 3, arm up!"
VANDERHAM | And it was holding the arm up for as little time as possible, because I think we all were aware of the fact that yeah, it was so shocking. So shocking. And Shannon's first day on set was the Nuremberg rally. So it was like, "Welcome to Outrageous!" [Laughs]
WATSON | But the crew took so much care of us. Like you say, when your body is sort of like having a reaction or dealing with quite dark topics — they took such good care of us.
VANDERHAM | Also, it's so from a girl's perspective. I mean, Hitler doesn't speak. He doesn't even get a close up. There's no [real] coverage of him. It's aboutt how these specific people were radicalized. I think that's what, hopefully, people will take from the show. It's like, "How could this have happened?!"
TVLINE | Joanna, if you don't mind, I'm gonna stay with you for a minute. Moseley is such a striking character, and there's a charisma there, right? There's a power that, correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be at least the initial pull for her. But then there are times where he's not that nice to her. What do you think kind of kept her with him throughout all that?
VANDERHAM I think you're absolutely spot on in terms of the magnetism that she felt was completely undeniable. And I think he reminded her a lot of her father. He was very, I mean, obviously very political, but he was commanding, and he was manly.
And the casting is incredible. You know, Callum Lynch as Bryan Guinness is like the most cherubic, adorable, sweet man. And then you've got Joshua Sasse, who's like the manliest man. [Laughs] They just did an incredible job with the portrayal of those two characters. So it was not hard to stare lovingly and longingly at my Mosley, you know?
We worked really hard, and I spent a lot of time on making that connection feel like even they couldn't describe it, even they couldn't quite put words to this feeling. Hopefully that's what the audience gets: That it's just an instinct, and Diana's very stubborn. Once she sets her mind on something, and she's decided that's her path, she will make that happen. She makes Mosley marry her. Like, he would not have married her. That was all her, and that's all based on the truth. That's based on the letters and the research that that Sarah [Williams, series writer] did. We really wanted to to show that [Diana] was the one driving things.
And then what I find so fun to play is, she starts driving things behind the scenes politically, too. She's telling him, "Have you got your speech? Do you know what you're going to say? What are your talking points?" She's listening on the radio. She's she's like the Lady Macbeth behind the scenes, gunning for this position of power through Mosley. So she sort of made her bed, and now she felt like she had to lie in it, because she dropped such a bomb in terms of blowing up her marriage and the societal fallout of that. I think she felt like she couldn't go through that embarrassment, you know? It was, "I will make this work, come hell or high water." And hopefully, if we get more seasons, we can delve into how hard that was for her, actually.
Did Outrageous' rally scene shock you? Hit the comments with your thoughts.