Logo text
[Thisstorycontainsspoilersforthesecondepisodeof[Thisstorycontainsspoilersfromthesecondepisodeoftrance Season three .]
Martha Kelly was surprised to watch trance Like the rest of us. The comedian and character actor, who earned her first Emmy nomination for her menacing turn as drug dealer Laurie last season, returns this year for season three to wreak more havoc on Rue (Zendaya), even with the five-year time jump. Kelly knows this much: Laurie brings her former teenage hostage back into her cyber network, “offering” to hire her to pay off her debts, only for Roe to flee again — this time to the home of another drug lord, Laurie’s ostensible rival Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). As for everything else that happens on the show? “I don’t know a lot about what’s going on this season because I’ve only seen my scenes,” Kelly says.
A lot about him trance This was a revelation for Kelly, who made her acting debut to widespread acclaim in the Zach Galifianakis filmBaskets. She entered the show intimidated by the level of talent and intensity of focus given to each frame, and exhausted by the extremely disturbing material she was presented with in season two. But as the second episode of this third season shows, he’s lightened that burden a bit: This segment kicks off the feud between Laurie and Alamo, with her calling him a “fucking pig” during a tense phone call before he sends a shitting pig into her house in retaliation. At least Kelly knows what happens next in this world, but she doesn’t tell us — just that, yes, she wants Rue back, and she may not know the best way to do it.
***
How is it? trance Is mania going for you?
Any time in my life when I do something exciting, I get paralyzed with fear – and once it aired, it was really fun.
It should feel like you’re in a Marvel movie or something, with all the secrets you have to keep. How are you managing?
I try not to say anything about specific things that happen, and I still don’t even talk much about the first episode in my TikToks because I’ve watched the first three episodes and don’t want to accidentally confuse what’s going on. The other thing that makes it easy is: In every episode I’ve watched so far, there are things that happen that I’m like, “This is weird.”
What was the biggest surprise for you in the first two episodes?
Driving street over the wall in Mexico. Ru and Faye have to swallow all those balloons.
I’m surprised you didn’t know about this part!
I really didn’t know that! I mean, I knew they smuggled drugs, but I didn’t know how it was done, so I thought they had a big bag of drugs that had somehow gotten out, or maybe it had been planted or something. And I didn’t know any of the stuff about Maddie or Lexie. I didn’t know anything about Cassie and Nate. I didn’t know about Roe going to the Alamo house and all that stuff that happened. I didn’t know about any of that.
When you started working on Season 3, did you feel more comfortable in that role? Was there anything you wanted to play with?
In season two, all my scenes were on the soundstage. It was Laurie’s dark, ominous house, and all the material was really heavy and disturbing. Whereas season three, she’s still a dangerous, terrible villain, but she’s in a different location — we shot on location — and there are other actors in it. Rue, thank God, is no longer a baby and there’s not a lot of skin-crawling, “Lori is a predator and we don’t know how far she’ll go with a baby” — which is what season two was. So this was definitely more fun. Also, you can see Lowry as not being the smartest businessman.
This season overall is a bit more comedic, so I think that fits with what you’re talking about.
A lot of the characters, in the five-year time jump, have fallen from the high hopes we as an audience had for them when they were in high school — which unfortunately often happens to people outside of high school, who have a good time and then go out into the world, and things aren’t as amazing in your early twenties as you’d hope. Lori gave a bag full of drugs to a teenager, kidnapped her, and then passed out, allowing this girl to escape. So it’s really like, yeah, of course this character is going to step back a little bit. ( He laughs)
Through the first three episodes, my biggest laugh remained when you just brought up the amount Rue owes you, from the season premiere.
When I said that number, I said, This has to be a joke. It can’t be the amount you’ll really owe. I made a video on TikTok yesterday saying, “I don’t even know if the calculations are correct or if they’re just supposed to be an exaggeration.” Some people in the comments were saying: “No, the math is correct. This is what it would be like with this unbridled interest.” And I say “cool”.
The second episode lays out the tension between Laurie and Alamo more fully — with Rue caught in the middle. She kind of loses control by calling him a “fucking pig.” Then he sends a literal pig her way. What’s going on there?
One of my flaws as an actor is that I don’t ask a lot of questions about characters’ motivations except when we’re about to shoot a scene. “Is that line supposed to be angry?” But I didn’t actually ask Sam about that. My impression is that Laurie, like a lot of narcissists or sociopaths — whichever it is, maybe both — has convinced herself that she cares for Rue, even though there’s nothing about the way she forces Rue to become a drug smuggler. She has convinced herself that she has some kind of connection to it and also feels that maybe she is a little bit ahead of herself again by Rue’s presence.
So I found her and had her deal drugs for them – and then Rue went with Alamo. They have a controversial past that didn’t start out as enemies, and by the time this season starts, she’s selling drugs to him — because she’s not a great businessman, but also because she’s like, “Okay, I’ll sell drugs to anyone.” But she thinks he is a bad person. There’s something weird about people like Lori, where if they meet someone as bad as them or worse, especially if that person hurts them personally, their sense of injustice and anger is completely ignorant. Normal people will say: “You’re terrible too.” But people like her say, “How could anyone do this to me?”
You’re a comedic actor and you played this very intense dramatic role in season two. What was it like to join the world?
I had a great time shooting it. I really love Sam Levinson and Zendaya and everyone I’ve worked with, they’re a great crew. But I was very nervous about it coming out because I thought trance Fans tend to be very young, very passionate, and very sensitive, so I was prepared for them to hate the character – and perhaps hate me by association. I was also very insecure about my acting because the actors on this show are road Here, I am a comedic character actor. I thought to myself, “There’s a chance people will say, ‘This bitch ruined our favorite show.'” I was really relieved and happy when that wasn’t the reaction.
I imagine there’s a whole different group of fans stopping you in the street Baskets Fans.
I love Baskets Fans too. It’s been a really important part of my life and I love the people on that show. the trance Fans are more likely in public — because a lot of them are Gen Z — to laugh a little and say, “Are you playing Lori on… trance“I say yes, they say something nice and then they often say: ‘Can I take a picture with you?’ And I always say ‘Yes, as long as you don’t mind that I’m not good at taking pictures.’ Then they take a selfie with me and then they say: ‘Thank you, I love you’ or whatever. Not always ‘I love you’ but very nice. Then they go about their business.
Given your concerns about doing something in such a different register, have you watched Season 2? If so, how was it?
I always monitor myself. I’m like Lucy carrying the football to Charlie Brown, where I’m Lucy and Charlie Brown. As I’m watching it I’m like, “Maybe this is the thing where I’ll say, hey, maybe I’m a good actor.” Then I watch it and think about the way I look on screen and my acting abilities. But the more you are lucky enough to do so, the more you will try Let’s go into it as if everyone’s job has hard things to do. And if the hardest thing about this amazing job is seeing myself on screen, who cares?
Have you thought about how to make it scary within your own skill set?
Honestly, I think it’s Sam’s writing and Zendaya’s acting that makes her truly scary. He decided to create a mild-mannered sociopath. In real life, these are the most terrifying people, the disarming, weak, seemingly nice people who have no conscience. I kind of talk and have the same mannerisms in every role, so he wrote it down to where it would be like I act the way I do and everything I’m into, honestly.
What was Zendaya’s opposite character like? What does it give you in those scenes?
She was really intimidated in season 2, partly because she’s really talented. She would just have a short conversation with one of the people doing her makeup, or with Sam or someone else on the crew, and then it would be like, “Okay, camera rolling, action” — and she could go straight into really deep emotions. It is a high level of natural talent and a high level of skill and discipline. He’s exciting to work with. It made me excited to work with her too because she doesn’t act like one of the most famous people in the world while filming. She acts like everyone else, so it doesn’t make it scary – her talent is scary.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot going on in Lori’s house this season — we see her housemates, we see her bird. What was it like working in space?
There was also a mouse living in that house and we all got to see it. He had a tendency to walk out as soon as the camera rolled, get into the shot, and sometimes scare people. This house was a location in the movie noand was also in an episode of Baskets. On the second or third day of filming there, Jeff Barnett, our stunt coordinator, was also the stunt coordinatorBasketsthere was; I thought to myself, “This looks a lot like this house,” and that was about 10 years ago. I asked Jeff and he said “this is the house.” So that was fun. It’s fun to be part of a group together instead of just being a creepy, despicable character who would be terrible for a kid in a dark soundstage.
***
Euphoria releases new episodes Sundays at 6pm PT on HBO Max.
