'If the human race has to die for her family, then they do,' Brigid Brannagh on being possesed by an alien matriarch on 'Marvel's Runaways'
There are a lot of changes in store for the extensive cast of characters in ‘Marvel’s Runaways’ third and final season - one of the biggest being that Stacey Yorkes (Brigid Brannagh), Victor Stein (James Marsters) and Tina Minoru (Brittany Ishibashi) are possessed by a ruthless family of aliens.
In an interview with MEA WorldWide, Brigid Brannagh talks about the challenges associated with portraying the possession, and just how far a mother will go to keep her kids safe - whether she’s an alien or not.
With her possession becoming apparent at the end of Season 2, Brigid Brannagh was aware she’s be portraying both Stacey Yorkes and the Majestrix matriarch, but wasn’t given a lot of information before that.
“Marvel tends to keep things close to the vest so they actually don't give you too much information to play with,” she said. “It gives them room to change it, so they don't want you to get too attached. So, actually, the only information I got about the alien, really, from the writers was that I was a magistrate, like a queen,” she explained, leaving her with the challenge of preparing for a role she had limited information on.
“I tried to really just think of myself as a queen mother who will do whatever I have to do for my cause, and my cause I decided with my family, and that left me room so that if they changed anything - which they did, plenty” she said, chuckling, “I could change with it.”
Another challenge involved was figuring out how to make the switch between characters when the script called for it - a challenge faced by her co-stars, as well. “Brittany Ishibashi and I had a very similar experience in that, we kept calling each other like ‘How are you gonna change from one to the other?’ because we were trying to make it match a little bit.”
The switch between the alien and Stacey Yorkes personalities wasn’t always clear cut - there are times when their personalities would bleed into each other, which could make some scenes additionally challenging. “I said ‘Who am I supposed to be here?' And they said ‘You're Stacey.’ I'm like ‘This doesn't sound like the normal Stacey, it doesn't sound like her.’ I'm like, "Sounds a little aggressive," and they're like, ‘Well, maybe the alien's bleeding in a little bit,’ I'm like, ‘What? What do you mean? I thought I was playing one or the other,’ and so sometimes they made it you know, spill over a little bit. So I had my work that out for me.”
“Usually I over prepare - this was an act of letting go a little bit,” she said, commenting how different a process it was from what she’s used to. “I tend to be very old fashioned in the acting department - know your lines like, really work on the emotion,” she said. “This was different and I'm really hoping it comes off.”
On of the key aspects of her role as the family’s matriarch was her relationship with the fourth member of the family, her son - who we discover has been hiding in Alex Wilder’s (Rhenzy Feliz) body. One of the few things she was initially told about her character is how important her son was to her. “I was told in that moment that my son is everything,” she said. “In fact, the husband doesn't matter, the daughter doesn't matter, it's the son ‘cause he carries on the line.“
Through the series, we find out that the alien possessing Alex was the one responsible for getting the Majestrix family exiled in the first place - meaning that even if the aliens could return home, they would not be welcome there if the son was with them, leading to the mother alien having to make a very difficult choice.
“You're fighting for something that doesn't work. It's sort of like you have to let him go,” she said. “It's always nice to have something grounded to play with when things are so fantastical. That was a nice moment we had with Rhenzy.”
She then spoke of the overlap between the ways Stacey Yorkes and the alien possessing her are mothers - and how that overlap helped portray the characters’ personalities bleeding into each other.
“One of the reasons I felt that was doable was because I think the reason Stacy and Dale [Kevin Weismann] are in Pride is because...they're trying to save the world and be these, wonderful hippies, and then they end up in a situation where their kids could be harmed,” she said. “Once they realize that they're willing to do anything, including participating and killing other lost children to save their children.”
The alien will, likewise, do anything to save her children. “If the human race has to die for her family, then they do, and Stacy, if other children had to die, for her kids - she had to save her kids. Not that she was relishing doing that...but the simple fact is she participated in doing very, very dark evil things to save her children. So, in that way I think they overlap quite a bit.”
The final season of ‘Marvel’s Runaways’ is now streaming on Hulu.