Moss dives back into `Lake' miniseries
Four years after the events of the original “Top of the Lake,” Golden Globe winner Elisabeth Moss and her character of haunted police detective Robin Griffin resurface in a new murder mystery airing this week on SundanceTV.
In “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” a six-hour miniseries airing in two-hour blocks tonight through Tuesday at 9 p.m., Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Mad Men”) reprises her role as Robin, who is back in her native Sydney trying to rebuild her life.
When the body of an Asian girl washes up on nearby Bondi Beach, there appears to be little hope of finding the killer, until Robin realizes she didn’t die alone. Robin is looking at the investigation as a way to restore herself, but her anguish over the daughter she gave up at birth and the truth about her conception weigh on her heavily. As she descends into the city’s dark recesses to learn the dead girl’s identity, she’s forced to come to grips with her own personal demons.
The story comes from “Lake” creator/writer Jane Campion and also stars Oscar winner Nicole Kidman (“The Hours,” “Big Little Lies”) as Julia, the adoptive mother of Robin’s daughter; Gwendoline Christie (“Game of Thrones”) as Miranda, Robin’s police partner; Alice Englert as Mary, the 17-year-old daughter Robin gave up for adoption; and David Dencik as Alexander, Mary’s 42-year-old boyfriend, who is associated with a brothel.
“For me, this season is so much about motherhood,” Moss said, “and Robin’s ... main challenge is to figure out how she’s going to be a mother to Mary, essentially somebody who is a stranger. And, you know, she is not even necessarily a friend. She knows nothing about her, and yet she has to kind of figure out what their relationship is. So that’s the kind of main challenge for her.
“Robin is, the entire season, faced with her own ideas of how life should be,” Moss continued, “being challenged by Gwen’s character Miranda, by Alice’s character Mary, and by Nicole’s character Julia. They are just constantly pushing her buttons and challenging her, and ... the most important thing for her is to solve this case. It’s always the most important thing for her. And then in typical ‘Top of the Lake’ fashion, of course, the personal always kind of lines up with the political, and she has to kind of figure out both.”
After garnering critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination for “Big Little Lies,” Kidman welcomed the chance to be back on familiar ground collaborating with Campion, who she’s known since she was 14, and with whom she has worked on projects including the 1996 theatrical drama “The Portrait of a Lady.”
“It’s lovely to be what I call a ‘Campion woman’ because, yeah, there’s a truth to it,” Kidman said. “There’s an honesty. It’s not a presentation of a female. It’s just the female, and there’s all the different aspects to it. I met her when I was a teenager. So she encountered me with all of my insecurities and my hopes and my desires. So she really knows me, and I feel unbelievably safe.”