In the beginning, there was Queen Catherine and Maid Marial. T’was a love story for the ages: an out-of-place debutante, optimism sketched across her dewy face, and a hardened local with cynicism beating out of her chest. Throughout the first season of Hulu’s The Great — a mostly fictional retelling of Catherine the Great’s early days overthrowing Russia created by Tony McNamara, previously Oscar-nominated for writing royal satire The Favourite — Catherine (Elle Fanning) and Marial (Phoebe Fox) are complete opposites, yet bond over their shared hopes for a more equal Russia. Marial, having been born into the royal court, lost it all when her father came into the ill graces of their mercurial leader, Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). Demoted to serf, she begins the series as one of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting, but quickly rises to trusted aide and closest friend as Catherine and a small band of confidantes try to coup their king. But at the end of last season, as the coup seemed to be failing, Marial betrayed — or saved, depending on your point of view — Catherine by informing Peter of her pregnancy. Which is why, when we open on season two, Marial is back in the court’s favor, but perhaps out of favor with her dear Catherine. With the second season of The Great out now on Hulu, Vulture caught up with Fox just as she hung up a call with her co-star Fanning, to talk about the intricacies and complexities of female friendships and whether or not Marial is a Judas. This interview contains spoilers for season two of The Great. If I say that I am more invested in the love story between Catherine and Marial than I am in the love story between Catherine and Peter, does that ring true for you at all? Historically speaking, do you know anything about a “Marial” — a person like that who was close to Catherine the Great as a friend and confidante? Did you take much from what you read about this nameless best friend and put it into Marial? Everyone has an angle on this show. What is Marial’s angle? Because I feel like on the surface, it is maybe obvious, but then sometimes, I’m not sure. Perhaps Marial is just too damaged with not enough therapy and will burn even her own house down. Marial is a real key player in this story line. She is the one who ended the first season with a reversal, betraying Catherine, and she’s done it again, sort of, by the end of season two. So you really don’t have much to go on with your character prior to each episode, do you? That’s mad. In season two we get even more of Marial’s backstory, and one of her relationships that intrigues me the most is that with Archie. What is going on there?! And then there’s this backstory with Georgina and Grigor. That was fun to find out, that she and George used to be best friends growing up and that she and Grigor lost their virginity together. Royal courts are always such an incestuous, hilarious place. Marial’s line to Catherine — “You’re a singular individual and you helped me be one. You have changed me and you’ll change millions.” — that’s such a poignant moment, because it’s Marial finally opening up and being a more positive person. Did that come as a surprise to you? And that leads to this question, or rather accusation, raised by Catherine’s mother Joanna: Is Marial a Judas, stabbing Catherine in the back? Marial is the most violently tempestuous person I’ve played. I have really enjoyed that, because in drama school, all the boys and all the girls learn how to do stage combat, but as a woman acting, you very rarely get to throw those punches. I just love how angry she is. It’s not an emotion that people expect in women, which is ridiculous, but historically we’ve erased anger from the retinue of women’s emotions. A lot of the time anger is misunderstood to be something else, whether it’s hysteria or depression. The truth is, women get fucking angry. And I love that Tony has written a character who gets really angry really easily. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t see enough of that. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. The Great’s Phoebe Fox on Marial and Catherine’s Love Story https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/b6a/de2/898f2d8e77e3b68a1a4fb26dfbdb9ef2e7-phoebe-fox-chatroom-silo.png |