Lauren Ambrose back to non-reality in Season 2 of ‘The Servant’
Lauren Ambrose came to Oscar-nominated director M. Night Shyamalan’s supernatural series “The Servant” ready, she thought, for most anything.
But how bizarre life has become as the second season begins Friday with the first of 10 new episodes.
Ambrose’s character Dorothy has this intense, nearly manic energy that overpowers everyone else. She’s been like this since her child — which is now a doll — was kidnapped. She doesn’t know that her husband, Sean (Toby Kebbell of “Kong: Skull Island”), and younger brother Julian (Harry Potter star Rupert Grint) are plotting behind her back.
Ambrose, 42, came to “Servant” from TV’s longrunning “Six Feet Under” and Broadway’s hit “My Fair Lady” revival.
“I’d never been in a thriller before, had always wanted to try that and I felt like I was in good hands with Night because he’s very good at what he does.
“And,” she emphasized in a Zoom interview, “it’s a really interesting character where I wondered, ‘How do you do this? How do you have this person who isn’t perceiving reality the same way that everyone else is?’
“It was mysterious to me. And scary. And seemed fun because of that. As it evolves, it continues to be challenging.
“Just a moment ago I was talking about how you read the script and go, ‘Oh gosh, what is this! How on earth! What is this tone? How do we do this?’ Then you figure it out on the day with the other creative people in the room. And that’s rewarding.”
Does she see her Dorothy as being linked, culturally, spiritually, to Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz”?
“I think it was. One of the characters keeps repeating, ‘Surrender Dorothy.’ I couldn’t believe at the time but yes, ‘Surrender Dorothy.’
“This season,” she continued, “Dorothy seems to go from — she was very vulnerable last season. Like, is this person going to break into pieces? Because she’s gonna realize that she’s not perceiving reality and she’s not able to look at this trauma (the kidnapping) that’s happened to this family and which, you know, she would blame herself for.
“Now the couple is faced with a very practical problem, which is the baby’s missing and she wants the kid back. She will basically stop at nothing to get her kid back.
“That’s why she takes control. She doesn’t like the way she’s being treated and comes into her strength and uses all of her journalistic prowess and skills and verges into criminality. And rage.
“So this was a very different vibe of the character.”
(“The Servant Season 2” streams on Apple TV+.)