Présentée en avant-première mondiale au festival de télévision de Monte-Carlo, le premier épisode de Madam, nouvelle dramédie néo-zélandaise menée par Rachel Griffiths.
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00:00ORIGINALS
00:03Discover our interviews in preview on the series that make the news.
00:07BETASERIES, Media Partner of the Montecarlo TV Festival 2024
00:12BETASERIES, Media Partner of the Montecarlo TV Festival 2024
00:15We are at the 63rd Montecarlo TV Festival,
00:18of which BETASERIES is a partner,
00:20and we welcome today Rachel Griffiths,
00:22the heroine of MADAME, in competition this year.
00:25Hello Rachel.
00:26Hello.
00:27So, how did the project of MADAME come to you,
00:30and have you read the book, the memoirs,
00:33before you accepted this project?
00:36It came the usual way, via agents,
00:40but it did kind of come with a tag, you know,
00:43it came with the tag,
00:45we really think you'd be great for this.
00:48So, they don't always say that,
00:50when they say, they're like, oh, there's this offer,
00:52but my agents unanimously were like,
00:55we love this for you.
00:59So, then I read the underlying material,
01:01and I did think that it, you know,
01:04every narrative is just a coat hanger
01:06to hang interesting other themes,
01:08ideas, and conversations around,
01:11and I thought that, you know,
01:12the story engine of it definitely had opportunities
01:16to explore some really great territory,
01:18both funny and serious,
01:20around women's lives, around sex work,
01:23and then, of course, I met the team,
01:25and just fell in love.
01:27So, in the end, at my age,
01:30you don't want to leave your family,
01:32and go overseas and make a show with a bunch of assholes,
01:36and I didn't,
01:36because they were just one of the most beautiful,
01:40it was one of the most satisfying collaborations,
01:43I think I've ever had.
01:44Tell us a little bit about your character,
01:47Mac, her situation,
01:48when we start the show,
01:49and how it will go.
01:51Mac's that kind of woman in pre-menopausal rage,
01:54where she's just kind of had enough
01:56of carrying the whole load,
01:58you know, the mental load we talk about with women,
02:01the figuring out the school,
02:02where do we live?
02:03How do we do this?
02:04Are we going to have a holiday?
02:05You know, just everything for the,
02:08finding the matching socks,
02:09and she's just so tired,
02:13and I think when she,
02:14and I think she's kind of lost herself a little bit,
02:17like many women do,
02:18who have been putting most of their energies
02:21into raising a family,
02:23and making sure they're secure.
02:27She just has kind of lost the young girl,
02:29that, you know, had bigger dreams,
02:31and thought she was going to,
02:33you know, achieve more in her life.
02:35So this idea for a brothel,
02:40and, you know, she's a California girl,
02:41so she's a little woke,
02:43a little, you know, crunchy,
02:45a little crunchy muesli.
02:48She really is,
02:49it's so important to her that this is successful,
02:51because it's going to make her feel like
02:55she is someone again,
02:57and also economically means that,
03:03you know, she gets a payoff for the hours,
03:06not doing minimum wage in some supermarket, you know.
03:10So of course, when I realized the whole idea of the show,
03:14I Google searched if it was true,
03:16that, you know, sex work was legal.
03:20And decriminalized.
03:21Yes, and it is since 2003,
03:24so that's quite surprising.
03:27But the same with the bank, you know,
03:28when you ask for a credit,
03:29and the bank is quite reluctant.
03:33So I guess it's true that it's not illegal.
03:36However, the, you know, the bias,
03:39the discrimination still exists.
03:43Look, it's inspired by true events.
03:46Not everything in the show is real,
03:48and we really have taken liberties with quite a few characters
03:52that didn't exist in Antonia's life.
03:54The girls who are working in the brothel
03:56are not based on girls that worked with Antonia.
04:01It's really the fish out of water kind of logline of the story.
04:05An American woman realizes that her child
04:07has profound disabilities,
04:09and returns with her husband to rural New Zealand,
04:13and discovers that sex work is legal.
04:15So she sets up a woke feminist brothel.
04:18Kind of everything beyond that is not really true.
04:21But to answer your question on discrimination,
04:24you know, New Zealand had the first country in the world
04:27to give women the vote.
04:29The first female prime minister in Western democracy.
04:31In fact, I think they've had three.
04:33We had one in Australia,
04:35and America's yet to have a madam president.
04:38So women have been respected
04:42at the kind of heart of New Zealand's economic engine
04:48from the ground zero.
04:50It wasn't a penal colony.
04:52So there weren't impoverished Irish women
04:55put on ships and sent there.
04:57And Australia still has a little legacy of, you know,
05:01damned whores and God's police,
05:03is what they called the women of the colony.
05:05And the first 10 years,
05:06but New Zealand was settled by free settlers.
05:10The Maori women are so strong
05:12within their own communities and cultures
05:16that I just think that country has,
05:18you know, been decades ahead
05:21of many other Western democracies for respect for women.
05:26And I think at the heart of that,
05:29of legalizing sex work is
05:34these women are making very often thought through decisions
05:40that this is the best way for them to provide
05:44for their dependence.
05:46Little time for more money,
05:48for greater control of your hours,
05:50flexibility, work from home, whatever it is.
05:54And I think the New Zealand attitude
05:56is like you're supporting your kids.
05:59Go you, go you single mom.
06:01Why would I like judge you
06:04for actually doing the thing we all say
06:06that women, you know, should do?
06:09So, yeah.
06:10You've mentioned one of her sons before.
06:13And I was wondering,
06:15was Toby written as autistic since the beginning?
06:18He's not autistic.
06:19Oh, pardon.
06:20No.
06:21No, he has cerebral palsy.
06:24He's incredibly intelligent.
06:26His brain is, you know, probably smarter than mine.
06:30But with his cerebral palsy,
06:33he, you know, it's harder to communicate.
06:37What his, yeah, what he's thinking and feeling.
06:39But her son was, did have a disability
06:44and sadly passed away.
06:46But we made the decision in our show
06:49that it would be so groundbreaking
06:51for representation to have an actor
06:55with that kind of challenges
06:57to communicate their heart and mind,
07:00you know, for the camera
07:01that to then make him die
07:04would be just kind of actually a little,
07:09almost old-fashioned in the storytelling
07:11or using his disability to manipulate the audience,
07:15which is not what we were trying to do.
07:18But I think everyone on the show,
07:20Australia and New Zealand particularly,
07:22we're so strong on inclusion.
07:24We think our screen should look like the streets.
07:26So if your streets have, you know, disability,
07:30one in four Australians has a disability,
07:33but probably one in 300 characters has a disability.
07:38So just as, you know,
07:39we've got a very Southeast Asian population in Australia,
07:42our screens need to reflect that.
07:44Otherwise, you know,
07:46and our younger and new Australians put on the screen,
07:49all they see is like white people.
07:51Like, but this is not the Australia I see.
07:54So whether it's First Nations or women's roles
08:00and including people of all abilities.
08:02And the other thing is that the characters are so compelling.
08:07So we've just got a new show in Australia called Austin
08:10and he is autistic and he actually is autistic.
08:12Okay.
08:13And you no longer get, you know,
08:15your Oscar winning actor to play that.
08:17You find the person who can really authentically do it.
08:23And this guy, it's his first role
08:26and he's just so funny.
08:29He's so compelling.
08:31His delivery is so like unique.
08:34And I think that's what the world is waking up to,
08:37that to watch people of all abilities on screen
08:40is just makes our stories better.
08:42And to follow up on that,
08:43the representation,
08:45because you're credited as producer on the show as well.
08:48Exactly.
08:50I did not do a lot of heavy lifting.
08:52Okay.
08:52But were you part of the casting process for the women?
08:57No, no.
08:59I was only really part of the casting process for my son.
09:05And we met with a few different actors
09:08and we met with a younger actor
09:11and he was really, really wonderful
09:14and incredibly handsome and good looking.
09:17And he communicates through a board.
09:20He's got a little role in it actually.
09:22And then we just kind of made the decision that
09:25to have an 18-year-old who has a disability
09:29and they age out of one system
09:31and they're on the brink of what is,
09:33where do you go once your 18-year-old
09:36is no longer able to fit into that system
09:39was just a really great way to put pressure on my character
09:42because she's facing a less certain future.
09:45And just to wrap this up,
09:47it would be a crime not to mention your previous roles,
09:50the ones probably we know you best for,
09:53Brothers and Sisters and Six Feet Under, of course.
09:56And there have been lots of talks about reboots and revivals.
10:01Is it something that you've put in the past
10:03or would you be in crime?
10:06I think Six Feet Under is probably dead.
10:09And I think Alan would probably want to do that.
10:13I was hearing things,
10:14but I do know that if Alan did that again,
10:17it would probably be not following the White family.
10:20He was so groundbreaking on diversity, inclusion,
10:24gay representation, queer storytelling.
10:27It just was like nothing that had come before.
10:31And it was so perfect
10:32and it has the best ending in television history.
10:35So maybe it's a generational,
10:37does he break out the world and it's the young mom and dad.
10:42I have been trying to get Brothers and Sisters
10:45Christmas special, Homecoming,
10:47trying to get Brothers and Sisters Christmas special,
10:50Home for the Holidays.
10:51I think it would be huge and get the cast back
10:54for a single like double episode.
10:58I think it would be massive
11:01and I would love to see all those actors again.
11:03So we're going to push that, push that for me.
11:06Thank you very much and good luck with Madame.
11:08Thank you.
11:17Beta Série, Media Partner of the Montecarlo Television Festival 2024.