How Cristin Milioti crafted the most sympathetic psychopath on TV.
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Farrell is giving the bigger, sometimes outlandish performance, but Milioti renders Sofia as the series open wound.
Watch the encounter in full below, or read on for a transcript of the conversation.
Its been a week today sincethe finaleaired.
What has that week been like for you?
Its so rare that you make something you love and also people respond well to.
Well, not actively hated, but been like, That was crap!
So thats been really nice.
I was so aware of how rare a role like this is.
DIY!Its very DIY!
And theres something about the vigilante of it all that I always found so compelling.
We are failed by so many various systems and you get so frustrated sometimes.
Who hasnt wanted to sew a cape and go out?
Theres something about it that really moved me.
I also loved that it was New York adjacent.
I sort of believed that itcouldhappen because there were no superpowers and everybody was sort of fabulous.
I also love how many different iterations there are.
You said, Iused to pretendto be Batman villains in my backyard.
What villains were you pretending to be?Michelle Pfeiffers Catwoman was deeply seminal.
I saw that movie when I was 7, which was wildly inappropriate.
I was really drawn to it.
And then Jim Carreys the Riddler!
The Penguinwas a long production, right?
It felt like a kid at camp or something a very dark camp.
The darkest camp anyone has ever been to.For sure!
We got along so well as a cast and crew.
Theyre long hours and intense scenes, and we all were so bonded.
I was really nervous about ending.
Do you remember the moment you heard you guys were going to come back?I do remember.
So I was like,Uh-oh!
Gotta drink some water!I remember being relieved because we live in a really uncertain time.
Obviously, thats why those strikes needed to happen, but were still living in such uncertainty.
I was just grateful to be back.
There are women in this writers room.
Lauren I dont think I will ever be able to sing her praises enough.
Lauren is the special sauce, you know?
I will be indebted to her forever for finding this character deep in theBatman-comic catacombs and resurrecting her.
Theres this blood in it and raw, sinewy bone, and its also campy and funny and dark.
And thats all from her.
Lauren mentioned Rosemary Kennedy as an inspiration for Sofia.
I just consumed a lot of it.
You worked with a movement coach, and you had a playlist.
Is there one movement you felt unlocked Sofia for you or was most useful for your performance?
You never know how things are going to be edited or whats working or whats you just swinging wildly.
But its so hard to know inside of something.
Id watch everyone else and be like,Well, I dont feel that way aboutthem.
Are those artists you listen to in your normal life?
And Rosalia has always been I think the two of them are peak power.
Theyre like sea witches or something.
I cant believe what they conjure.
And yeah, certainly that did help lock in the energy we were going for.
You feel that you might really fuck shit up when you listen to them.
Its mystical in some way.
Yousaid something about Sofiathat I loved, which is that she is someone who has missed pleasure so much.
Clothes, food, sex its like someone coming alive again.
But it does have to be on her terms.
How did you work to convey Sofias pleasure?Shes someone whos very
Omnivore?Omnivore, yeah.
And one of the many things I love about her is how unpredictable she can be.
Part of the fun of playing her is that she makes decisions in the moment.
So that was always very fun to play with.
We have to talk about the mullets.
Youfought for that hairstyle?I felt very strongly about her hair and makeup.
Id never been part of a franchise before, so I wasnt sure how much that would be welcomed.
Thats how you would express yourself in that sort of Mafia patriarchal … hootie-skootie.
There was something that was animal about it.
Its also part of the way she presents herself in battle, too.
And the clothes are, like, outrageous.
Our wardrobe designer, Helen Huang, is a complete genius.
So every time theyre like Sell it!
and youre like Okay … and its 6 a.m. and you feel crazy.
Those clothes later on are so flowy and free and fabulous.
Like, shesfabulous, even when shes burning houses down and straight-up killing people.
There are definitive phases to this character.
When we meet her, shes a decade into the asylum.
We then get the flashback where she is the Chanel-straitjacket daughter.
Then, of course, we follow the transformation as she becomes more free, a little more deranged.
Youre going through so many time periods, and you only have ten days to shoot that.
Arkham, all the mess-hall stuff, was shot in, like, a day?
A day and a half?
You are just shot out of a cannon.
Thats the nature of making television, I guess.
That was definitely a challenge.
It was a lot of that.
Maybe some of it actually ends up turning into a kinetic energy on-camera.
Youre up against the wall at all times.
And she took this ten minutes and she was like, Im just gonna roam with you.
It felt like we were a company.
She did it witheveryonein that episode.
I cant sing her praises enough.
Lets talk about a scene from the finale: Its Oz and Sofias last interaction together.
What do you remember about filming this?I mean, this scene issobrutal.
He has found a fate for her worse than death.
I just was so sad for her, especially when she gets to taste this freedom so brilliantly.
Its pretty short that she knows freedom and knows where shes getting sent back to.
Lauren did such a great job.
But inside, playing her, I was likeThis sucks!
This sucks!Its just so cruel.
What I love about that profile shot and the pan is the implication that she has accepted death.
I didnt think that far ahead.
Has that changed at all?That hasnt changed.
Its embarrassing at this point how I would love nothing more.
Ive said it a lot.
Weve heard that Colin is going to be inThe Batman Part II.
I had to try!No, you had to try.
We all want to know!For sure.
And I would really love it, and I havent heard anything.
