TV

Mandana Jones Has Her Say

Despite her three-year starring role as Nikki Wade in Bad Girls, the hit British prison drama about to begin its third season on Logo (AfterEllen.com’s parent company), actress Mandana Jones rarely received serious attention from the British media.

That was painfully evident in a rare TV appearance Jones made with cast mate Helen Fraser (who played Sylvia Hollamby) on a British variety show. The interviewer asked Jones just one direct question (negatively phrased, of course) about her character: “Did it bother you at all that your part is a lesbian part?”

Jones gave an articulate answer that opened up a rare opportunity. The interviewer could have had an intelligent exchange with an actress who was clearly willing to speak insightfully and unabashedly about playing one of the most fleshed-out lesbian characters in the history of television. Instead, without so much as a polite pause following Jones’ response, the interviewer turned to Fraser and abruptly changed the subject to footwear: “It’s quite interesting … they always say [shoes are] the key to every part. Is that true?”

As Jones proves here on AfterEllen.com in her most extensive interview to date, you can learn a lot when you don’t change the subject. Jones talked to us at length about the show’s lasting impact, her chemistry with co-star Simone Lahbib, her opinion of the show’s third season, which premieres on Logo this Thursday, Aug. 30 – and what really happened in that potting shed.

AfterEllen.com: Nikki Wade is stubborn, moody, prone to jealousy – not to mention she’s a sexual minority and killed a cop. Yet she was adored by, it seems, both a gay and straight audience. That’s quite a trick. Mandana Jones: She was moody and this and that. But she was also very intelligent and very aware and talked most people under the table. She was forthright and brave and lots of wonderful qualities that made her, I think – I hope – a good spokeswoman, if you like, for a gay character or a gay identity to be perceived in a straight world. She was a well-turned-out, well-polished, not-bad-looking woman who was clearly very bright and could hold her own in nearly impossible circumstances.

AE: Were there any types of scenes in Bad Girls that were especially challenging for you? MJ: Yeah, most of them really. [Laughs.] I can remember it being quite traumatic because I didn’t really have a sense of exactly who I was trying to be. The person in my head was very different from what I saw on the screen. That made that quite awkward.

AE: Because of the heavy makeup and earrings and such? MJ: I found I’d look in the mirror and just think that’s not how I saw her. If this is a person who is so clear about what she is and what she believes, why is she wearing a mask at six o’clock in the morning? I just didn’t feel like I was being real. I didn’t feel right, especially the first series. It was a very, very insecure time. You just hate that feeling that you’re fobbing people off and you’re fobbing yourself off, and you just don’t really quite believe the whole thing knits together.

When I got to the second series, I found my stride and got more comfortable playing Nikki. I went with my gut, which is that she’s just a person and what you play is the truth. It’s just feelings. Forget about what she looks like; forget about the labels. If you want people to understand her, what makes her powerful is being somebody who breaks prejudices.

AE: By the third season, Nikki appeared to be a little less involved. MJ: When Linda Henry’s character of Yvonne came in – who I have to say is a brilliant character – there was a blurring. Sometimes I felt that some of the lines that Yvonne had were lines that Nikki would’ve said, say in a crowd scene. Yvonne would create lots of mayhem where Nikki would have in the past. Nikki became more peaceful, basically. She was keeping her head down and keeping her nose clean, but I still think there was room for perhaps a little bit more privately, where we could have seen how difficult that was for her to swallow what she wanted to come out with. But it didn’t seem like she had the same urgency to say things; it didn’t seem like it caused her the same inner strife it had in the past.

AE: So her journey in the third season wasn’t as complex? MJ: I felt that by the time the third series came about, she wasn’t so militant. She was essentially a lover; her identity was that she was in love with Helen. I felt in Series 1 and 2 that you saw a much more rounded picture of the woman and all her attributes, but there’s a gradual weaning away from it. I actually missed her in Series 3.

AE: The sharp-tongued, rebellious, political Nikki. MJ: Exactly. A less sort of layered onion was presented come Series 3, and that’s what was most interesting about her.

AE: There’s one line that sticks with me from the third series. Nikki tells Helen: “You were always more than someone I just fancied. You were my hope.” MJ: I remember that. I think it’s the nature of relationships, isn’t it? When you love someone, and you really love them, they draw you out of that sense of terrible isolation that you’re actually treading around on this planet on your own and there’s nobody you really share it with. And yes, it’s all very nice, and you’ve got a nice house and a nice car, but whatever. It doesn’t mean anything unless you have someone to celebrate it with.

Perhaps it sounds like a needy line because we’re told all the time that we should be happy on our own, but I don’t think man is an island, and I think we’re born and we’re meant to meet people along the way that do give it all meaning. When you don’t have that … I think being connected to somebody makes you feel like you’re not alone; it makes you feel a lot more supported by the universe and a lot more hopeful, really. I think that’s what that was an expression of.

AE: Did playing Nikki give you greater understanding of the lesbian experience? MJ: I think so, yes, definitely. It gave me huge respect for that notion of being marginalized. It was wonderful in that regard. And I realize there’s still a long ways to go. In some ways, I don’t think gay women have reached the same level of integration as gay men, because essentially it’s a man’s world. And if it’s a man’s world, and there are some men in it who like other men, that’s easier for some people to deal with than if it’s a man’s world and there are women in it who don’t like men; they like women. It may be a more threatening departure for limited people to get their heads around.

AE: Once Bad Girls started to take off, did you and Simone [Lahbib] talk about the cult-like following you were developing? MJ: Simone and I worked very hard together off the set, but it was purely script-based and story-based. We never talked much about that kind of stuff.

AE: You didn’t talk about becoming lesbian icons? MJ: We were different kinds of icons, really.

AE: She was the coming-out icon? MJ: Yes, and I was the one who already knew who I was and my sexuality. She had a lot of fairly lascivious mail. She was more of a fantasy figure than I ever was. I didn’t get that. I got very little sordid, racy, “I’m totally crazy about you” kind of mail, whereas she got some fantasy-type stuff that was probably tough to handle. Mine was always incredibly polite and very full of praise. In a sense, I think it was easier for me, is what I’m trying to say. Simone had it much worse. AE: I imagine you had to go through a coming-out experience of sorts with your family and friends who saw you in that role. MJ: Yes, I think so. I remember one boyfriend — he came back to my house one night, and normally there’s nothing, but he came back and there was this string of six women, all going, “Hello, darling, hello!” He was a bit thrown by it, by the very female world I was in, the strong female world.

I also remember being quite irritated, even with friends, because it was this whole “woman-on-woman” thing. You could see it in them, and they’re supposedly your nearest and dearest. You come absolutely full-on collision with their own difficulties and limitations.

AE: Did it change their view of lesbians? MJ: Even my mom has been affected by Bad Girls and by Nikki. When I was 11 or 12, I had a gay friend who lived down my road, and I remember at the time my mom finding it awkward because she dressed like a boy and the rest of it. I don’t think she would think that way now.

AE: I assume the show and your research influenced your opinion of the prison system? MJ: It did. I wouldn’t say we should never punish anyone, but I think the problem is it all comes too late in the day, doesn’t it?

When we visited South Africa, we saw that women would often go to prison because they were poor and stole to feed their family. They’d get out and go back to the worlds they left behind, but they still wouldn’t have any wherewithal to change. And their family and friends would want them to go and steal again. If they didn’t, they would sometimes be completely cut off and ostracized. They had no way out of that cycle.

I don’t know what it’s like in America, but here I think there is very little inquiry. The general climate socially is, you know, it’s black and white, should someone go down or shouldn’t they? We’re living in a society where we’re waiting for people to grow up and f— up and go to prison. We’re prepared for it. You’ve surely got to go deeper than that and start to figure out how to reverse the cycle that’s creating this.

AE: Can you talk about the lingering impact of your character and the show as a whole? MJ: Two things. I think that Nikki Wade … certainly I see a huge climactic change in this country since Nikki Wade, and I’m not saying it’s down to her or the program, but people were exposed to something they hadn’t been exposed to before. There is more equality there, and it’s not such a slightly awkward conversation as it used to be.

The other thing, though: I don’t think it’s made an ounce of difference in how we view prisoners. I think that’s where the program fell short, unfortunately, even though there were plenty of episodes with prisoners where we saw their backgrounds or their family or personal lives and problems.

AE: Is your fan mail still about Bad Girls, or has it moved on to other topics? MJ: It comes in waves, depending on where it’s transmitted. I’ve got an incredibly touching and devoted following, but I have to confess, I’m a total website dinosaur. However, I have finally bought myself a … an Apple laptop.

AE: I feel like I’m talking to somebody in 1997. MJ: I know. I feel like some sort of orphan from a Dickens novel: “Please, please sir, I can’t bloody well read, now can I?” I just realize I’ve got to get with the 21st century.

I went online the other day and had a look at what was going on at [www.mandanajones.net]. I’m gobsmacked at the activity of it that’s still there, to be honest with you, but I think people get in touch on that site because they’re moved by the portrayal of Nikki Wade or it’s touched issues in their lives. I’ve been a bit swept off my feet the last couple years, but I really, really value the continued support of my fans. I’m very touched by it.

AE: Could you tell me about one of the well-known scenes from the show, the infamous potting shed scene from the first season? MJ: The potting shed scene is the culmination of … it’s something that’s been building up and building up and building up. You’re incarcerated and you can’t get through and you don’t know how to and you’ve got a whole system against you, and it’s just a boiling-over scene. It’s the first time that Nikki really expresses how she’s feeling, and what’s she feeling is so much more powerful than anything she can put down in words.

That scene was reshot because the first time we did it, I was wearing those sort of rather fetching green overalls that somebody might wear who was changing your car tire. They decided that didn’t quite work, so they had me wear a white T-shirt. It was a classic reshoot, in that for me I felt it went better the first time around, but I’m sure it didn’t go over as well in the green boiler suit.

AE: I think a scene like that could easily fall flat or come off awkwardly, but the two of you could pull it off because of your chemistry. MJ: Part of that was simply because we both did our work. Simone and I, quite apart from the director, decided what we thought the play was. Sometimes we went in, and they’d say, “No, we think it should be like this,” and the director would completely and entirely change it.

But I think the fact that we sat down and line by line and beat by beat, moment by moment, made decisions about it together — even if they weren’t all put in — somehow it meant we trusted each other and we were going to play in sync together. I don’t think the chemistry was random. We used all the tools you use to suspend disbelief.

AE: In your public appearances, you and Simone would kiss; you’d hold hands; you were very physically affectionate with each other. MJ: That’s what they wanted in pictures, so you know …

AE: Really, you were asked to act at these events? MJ: Really, when we would have press conferences, they would ask for a kiss or just say can you stand together, can you do this or that.

AE: Can you imagine two male actors being asked to kiss on a press tour? MJ: You’re absolutely right. It’s kind of … we’ve done the gig, we’re actresses, we’re acting, but you need to extend this now for a bit of sensationalism. It’s a bloody good point. I don’t think [male actors] would be asked to do that on their press tours. I always was a bit scared of the sensationalist angle of the whole lesbian thing. You say to people, “I played this lesbian character,” and men used to say, “Oh, really!” I used to find all of that really irritating.

AE: You think … MJ: You know, sorry, but I have to say, I’m having a kind of intelligent conversation with you, and you’re taking the show and that relationship seriously. In Britain, however, it never reached that status, the show. It was popular; it won best drama; but it was never taken seriously. It was always seen as this rather camp, high-gloss, super-reality, over-the-top show. Any of the issues that were raised within it could never climb out of the straitjacket of the format they were presented in.

AE: That surprises me. The show may have become lighter over time, but the first season was quite dark and serious. MJ: I think that’s something that got mixed up. The creators wanted it to be more hard-hitting, but the TV executives wanted to tone it down because it wasn’t something you wanted to drink your tea to. It was a little bit too grim watching a woman miscarry or having a random drug test. They wanted to make it a little more, “Prison’s quite fun, really,” with lots of girls, a bit of slapstick and kissing and all the rest of it.

I should add that I think to some extent Bad Girls had to be sensationalist because that’s the society we’re living in. You couldn’t do some fly-on-the-wall documentary about what it’s like to live in prison, because people would turn over. That’s a fact. People would rather read Hello magazine than War and Peace, myself included. We have this kind of need for the quick fix. Entertain me now; I don’t want to have to read 20 chapters before I get into it. I think Bad Girls had to play to that. AE: Prison Break and especially Oz are far more violent and bloody than Bad Girls. It seems strange to me that a British network would have a problem with presenting a hard-hitting show. MJ: Well, that’s interesting. It’s a women’s prison and it was women’s issues, and maybe that’s what it was all about. You don’t really want to see anything to do with menstruation on television. Some things … perhaps it was a little too icky for the British personality. There’s violence on television here, but it’s more in a police format. You see a horrible cadaver being analyzed, but the violence that is shown is all quite controlled, and it’s often in a very mellow way. Hysterical women and extreme female roles we don’t see. Maybe that’s what it was all about. There may be a slant to appreciate the nitty gritty in the male world, but not in the female world.

AE: When you were in the midst of Bad Girls, did you worry about your comments to the press? MJ: No, I don’t think I cared much because people will think what they want. It really doesn’t matter what you say. Though I should add, it’s always a little difficult for me because I am actually a private person, even though I am a bit gobby. You want to be able to have your privacy but somehow you’re not quite allowed to these days. You’re entitled to have a private life, and yet you feel like it’s never enough what you do.

AE: There’s something about a character like Nikki Wade that makes fans want to know the person behind the role. MJ: I always have the feeling they’re going to be disappointed when they do. There’s a gray area in which I think sometimes they’re blurring the line between the character and who you are in real life. Sometimes you’re really not interested in me, you know that, you’re interested in your idea of me, that I’m the closest to who Nikki Wade is.

That was brought very clearly home to me on that promotional tour of Bad Girls we did in South Africa. A guy came up to me and said, “So, you’re Nikki Wade, glad to meet you,” and started bombarding me with questions. And then he said: “Hey, you know, what’s the matter with you? You’re really shy. You’re not at all like you are on the telly.”

I said, “What do you mean, am I a letdown?” He said, “Well, you know, you’re Nikki Wade, aren’t ya?” And I said, “No, I’m not Nikki Wade; I’m Mandana Jones.”

I was really quite offended because he expected me to be Nikki Wade, who had loads to say and was full of beans and, you know, life of the party. I wasn’t. And for someone to turn around and say, “You haven’t fulfilled my expectation of you, and I’m somewhat disappointed in you in real life,” is kind of hard to take.

AE: There’s a constant pressure to be on stage and larger than life. MJ: There’s not the notion that you could just be a craftsman, somebody who just does your thing. I saw this man on a train the other day — he was dressed in black, just a regular guy, minding his art. I got talking to him, and he taught art and was publishing his second book; he did the illustrations and he wrote it. He was just a bloke in a common suit on a train going somewhere. And I was thinking, it’s so rare to see somebody like that. We really expect you to be a little shinier than that to keep up. There’s a massive swing away from simply appreciating people’s crafts and what they do.

AE: The focus is on creating celebrities. MJ: It’s interesting, isn’t it? I don’t want to sound like a romantic ponce, but to me the archetypal British actor — we’re not talking Daniel Craig; we’re not talking that — I still see them very much closer to being the social outcasts. I really do. They’re knitted together because they’re a little odd, really, and they didn’t grow up a normal avenue. I don’t see them as people who live in huge mansions in Malibu.

As an animal, my training and my background, I am much closer to the graveyard freaks with the wicker handposts that just did their thing. People came and clapped — and distrusted them at the end of the day. I believe that an actor will always be this mask that we’re fascinated with, and we also want to know the person behind the mask. We never quite believe it: “She must be a little bit like that if she can play the part. Otherwise, how could she do it?” There’s this sort of archetype of distrust of an actor. They’re liars, that’s what they are. They steal your belief; they trick you; they’re not to be trusted.

AE: Do you ever watch your old performances? MJ: No, not really. It’s painful for me, acting, because I very rarely go: “Yeah, that was all right. I like that.” I’ll just keep a large paperback by the side of the sofa when they air it and that’s it, really. AE: And yet isn’t it almost pompous to think you know better than millions of viewers who appreciated your performance? MJ: Yes, it is almost pompous of me to say: “Well, I don’t think it’s very good. It’s nice that you million viewers enjoy it.” I’m quite aware of that, but I also think what’s curious about it is it really brings up the notion of security and one’s own sense of truth.

If the vast majority of people say something is wonderful and two people stand up and say, “No, no you could do better than that,” does that make them pompous? I know when I’ve done something good. It doesn’t matter if there are two people in the audience or 2,000 people in the audience. I know when I’ve done a good show. This is the infinite thing that goes on with actors. When you hit it, you know when you’ve hit it, because it happens so rarely. You don’t get a bull’s-eye every single time, but you’ve got to be aiming for a bull’s-eye.

AE: Can you tell me about a performance that felt right? MJ: There was one particular performance in ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore when it was almost like a group channeling was going on. The theater was in the round so the people were very close to us, and at the end of the play — it’s a very bloody masterpiece, and the stage was all bloody and awful. I swear to God, in this one performance, it was like being a sorcerer, because as my character died, I could see this wave of white hankies coming up to people’s eyes. And it only happened one time. It was like you held everybody in your hand. You could just see these white tissues moving.

But you cannot create that; that just comes from everything being in line, and it’s channeling and it’s working, and it’s like it just comes through you and you don’t get your own annoying self-criticalness in the way. You just put yourself away. It happens so, so rarely.

AE: The end of the third season, the culmination of the Helen-Nikki relationship, has received a lot of attention. Did you feel viewers’ pressure to give the couple a happy ending? MJ:I didn’t feel any sense of pressure, although I know people were dying for them to get together, and that’s no bad thing. I think the creators recognized the pressure and felt, “Listen, I’m glad you really enjoy the show, guys; obviously we really rely on your viewing, but don’t tell us how to write the story.” Which is fair enough, really, I have to say I agree with that. You can’t hand over control like that, or you’re into reality TV. Who do you want to vote off? Who do you want to keep on? Who do you want to shag who?

I think it’s a very interesting question because all TV now comes down to viewing figures and things like that. It’s important, but there comes a point where if you just start playing to the crowd, and if that crowd happens to be average age 15 and a half, you know, what’s going on with that? Where are you going to stop with that crowd-pleasing?

AE: When did you decide to leave Bad Girls? MJ: They wanted to know at the end of Series 2 whether I’d be considering Series 4. It seemed such an immensely long time away. I was probably incredibly ignorant, but I couldn’t understand why they needed to know that much in advance. A lot can happen in a year, how you feel about something. I think I asked whether there could be some extension before I decided, and I felt a little pressured. In the end, without seeing the material, it was a bit too much of a squeeze probably.

AE: I have to say I really appreciate you’ve spoken so openly and with such depth about your role in Bad Girls and the issues surrounding it. MJ: Thank you.

AE: Have you paid a price for being so open? MJ: I think one of the things I’ve got to learn to do is learn to keep my trap shut a bit more. It’s just really the way I am. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. It can really come back and bite you in the bum when you open your heart and say what you think.

AE: Which doesn’t seem to stop you. MJ: [Laughs.] It’s just … I believe truth is the greatest gift you give to anybody, ever. That’s it. It’s the biggest gift in life. It’s not always easy to receive it from people, so I can understand that when I come out with stuff, sometimes it can be a bit hard. One of the things I learned quite some time ago, but I still find quite difficult to put into practice, is knowing when to be more cautious about what you say before you say it. You can come out with stuff, and then people can use it against you and take it out of context and all the rest. I’ve suffered a lot with that.

AE: In the press or in your personal life? MJ: In my personal life, I’d say, which is far more important to me. When it’s with people you love, when it’s really important things about your experience of life and what you believe in, that really hurts.

It really goes against my grain to play games. I can’t really be bothered with it. I find it singularly uninteresting and unstimulating. I’m always wanting to play with those kind of stakes because we’ve really got a short time here, so if we’re going to fart about playing games, we’re never going to get very far. I think I’ve always been one of those people who’s gone a bit deeper, and consequently perhaps my world is a bit more up and down and rocks a lot more than it may have had I chosen to be more prudent.

Now I think if I get to come back and live it over, I’m going to try to learn to be a little more … I just won’t imagine that everybody tries to trade in some kind of übertruth, because most people don’t, really. They don’t.

AE: It seems to me you often have an outsider’s perspective, and that’s something Nikki shared in her best moments. MJ: That’s true, and that’s very clever. We share that very much. Just to return to that line, “You were my hope.” When Nikki was saying that, it was also colored with hope regarding her life sentence and getting out. She meant it on that level. I do think the lines got … I think Helen gave her hope whether she got out or she didn’t get out. She just gave her hope because she wasn’t alone anymore.

What’s that expression — it’s difficult to live a life without hope, isn’t it? I’m stating the obvious again, my special subject. [Laughs.]

Season 3 of Bad Girls premieres on Logo on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 10:00 p.m. ET.

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