Stephen King's fan-favorite short story, "Jerusalem's Lot," is being adapted into a prestige miniseries titled Chapelwaite. Created by the Filardi brothers, the miniseries follows sea captain Charles Boone as he returns to his ancestral home. Following the death of his wife, he hires Governess Rebecca Morgan (Emily Hampshire) to look after his young children. However, as the Boone family endures racism and violence from the locals, they quickly discover that this sleepy coastal town has even deadlier secrets lurking in the shadows. As the Boones and Rebecca quickly learn, the evil may be lurking within Chapelwaite's very walls.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Hampshire discussed how her character bucks the expectations for a Victorian governess, praised the set and costume designers in helping her develop her performance, and the joys of playing opposite co-star Adrien Brody.
The idea of a governess is a bedrock in Victorian horror and romance but your character Rebecca is a post-modern twist on that, aware of the local legends. What did you want to redefine with your take on that trope?
Emily Hampshire: I love that you recognize that because I wish that it was me, with my performance, who redefined that, but that trope was redefined in the writing. Just the fact of having Rebecca, who is nothing like a governess and so ahead of her time, and just having a female at the forefront of this story as a writer in that time, I think, really turned it on its head. What's so interesting is that she wasn't in the short story, so this is a creation by the Filardi brothers and what I like to think is that she is really Stephen King. If Stephen King was a woman in the 1850s, with brown hair and smart, she would be Rebecca Morgan. [laughs]
With this being an original character, you have a relatively blank canvas to work with. You've also got these lush sets and if the clothes maketh the performance, you've got that too. How was it working with all that?
The clothes maketh everything! I feel like that does so much of the job for me and that's why I love doing stuff like period pieces. Stuff with costumes does so much of the work and then there are these sets that just each time chip away at the believability so you [feel] like you're actually in this place. And then you're acting with Adrien Brody, who is basically from the past at birth, he's just so great in those roles. It was amazing and made my job so much easier to just be Rebecca Morgan and not worry about making the old-timeyness of it.
Developed for television by Peter and Jason Filardi, Chapelwaite premieres Aug. 22 on Epix.
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