“Mistresses” at the TCA Press Tour

Mistresses is a six-episode British drama series coming to BBC America in February about a group of female friends with relationship problems – including Shelley Conn (Nina’s Heavenly Delights) as a promiscuous, commitment event planner who falls for one of her clients, played by Anna Torv, who is now the star of the Fox supernatural drama Fringe. (Americans who don’t mind some spoilers can read our review of the first season.)

The show is a hit in the U.K., with a sizeable audience of about 6 million viewers, according to Mistresses executive producer Douglas Rae – “mainly women, but men buy the DVDs, I suspect looking for extras which aren’t on it.”

Most of the cast (minus Sarah Parish, who plays Dr. Katie Roden), creators, and BBC execs were on a panel on Saturday at the Television Critics Association Winter Tour in L.A. to promote the show’s debut on American TV. Since we weren’t able to send someone to the event this year, AfterElton.com editor in chief Michael Jensen kindly attended on our behalf and reported back.

S.J. Clarkson and Mistresses co-creator Lowri Glain were inspired by the question, “Does anybody actually choose to be a mistress?”

“I guess we felt that nobody did,” Clarkson continued. “But I said maybe somebody would choose to be it because it would suit their lifestyle. So that was really where the seed was sown, I suppose. And from then, we just started looking at the various sides of infidelity from the mistresses’ perspective.”

There are no truly happy mistresses, said Clarkson, “because you’re only ever going to get half the deal, really.”

But I think what we tried to show was the truth of being a mistress, the fact that I don’t think it’s necessarily all stiletto-heeled secretaries hanging around in hotel bars. It’s often you meet somebody, you have a connection, you fall in love, and suddenly you realize they’re with somebody else and what do you do in that situation?

You’re told follow your heart – or the fairytale is, you know, you love someone, fall in love, get married, have children, have a happy lifetime together, but what happens if the person you fall in love with is already married?

I think that’s a real dilemma and a truthful dilemma for many women today.

Despite the inevitable comparisons, Mistresses isn’t a British Sex and the City.

“It’s not a fluffy show,” said BBC Worldwide president Garth Ancier. “It’s actually fairly dark and complex.”

“Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are terrific shows,” Rae added. “But what we wanted to do is, I think, reflect the kind of truthfulness and honesty that women have between each other, particularly at an age in their 30s when their families may have moved to another city and the girls are becoming family in a way that, you know, has moved on from the ’50s and ’60s.”

“So the girls themselves are a family and they share the stresses and strains of everyday life with each other. And the series is not about promiscuity. It’s about how people can bond together and share secrets together.

Clarkson elaborated on this theme:

Mistresses was almost a working title that stuck because we couldn’t think of anything else, I suppose, that summed it up as much. And it’s a red-flag word so it makes people sit up and take notice. But inevitably it was always about truthful performances and to try and – all the storylines, performances and the look of it needed to feel truthful, cinematic and grounded … Films we looked at for reference was Three Colors: Blue and Unfaithful and L’Apartement which is a French film. And we looked at a lot more films for reference for it, rather than sort of lighter television.

At its core, Mistresses is about how “friendships have become the new family,” said Clarkson. To help the cast portray an authentic friendship on-screen, Clarkson attempted to create a sense of familiarity between them off-screen.

Brady: [Clarkson] got us in a room for what she called “rehearsal” before we started … I’d seen the other actors. We all had seen each other. We didn’t know each other. And we thought we’d be doing traditional rehearsal, and she actually made us – got us into a room and made us tell secrets about each other and things that I hope have never left the room.

Clarkson: Never left the room.

Brady: And because of that, we just all kind of saw each other’s vulnerabilities immediately.

Shelley Conn: And we had a history together, and … it sort of meant that, yeah, there was a sort of anchor between all of us, and it was a really lovely basis to be able to work from because there wasn’t a lot of time to get that history.

Clarkson: …You know, in all television schedules, it’s really tight to kind of – you’re very lucky to get any rehearsal period at all, and I feel that you need to break down barriers very quickly. And I always find – and they weren’t really asking – they started with very simple questions like what was your favorite job? Which one of your parents are you most like? And actually, if you actually looked at the questions I asked them, they were actually really basic and they couldn’t have said much at all, but these guys –

Conn: It was like therapy.

Clarkson: It was a bit like therapy, but I hoped what it would do is break down those barriers. You know, they had to talk about intimate things. They had to play intimate scenes, and they had to feel like a group of friends that have known each other for a long time. And even though they knew each other, they didn’t know each other that well.

You’ve only got a week to sort – to break through those barriers. I thought it might be a good way – and it all depends on the actors as well. They were very receptive to it, which was great, which made it very easy for me to help with that.

Clarkson was very happy with the results.

“The four of them are fantastic,” she said. “Even if there were scenes that didn’t quite feel comfortable for them, they always worked to find a way of bringing them to life truthfully.”

The cast did admit to being a little nervous initially about the show’s sex scenes.

Brady: We asked S.J. in the rehearsal week, you know, what would be showing and she said, “All you’ll see is some side arse,” is what she said.

Conn: That’s the technical term so you know.

Brady: Side arse being that [motions].

Clarkson:And that’s all they quote me on.

Brady: And, of course, our response to that was to frantically ask the producers whether there was a gym in the hotel. So we spent weeks pestering them saying, “There will be a gym, you’re sure? And it’s open early enough for us to go to?” And they assured us it would be. And I think Shelley looked into it one day, and I think Sharon went for a sauna another day. And we just went to the bar and had crisps because we kind of have crisps and wine every night.

Well, that’s the broad difference between an American actress and an English actress. We just couldn’t do that. But we knew we would get away with it because we would only ever see side arse.

Conn: The sexuality in the show is suggested more than, you know, in there.

Clarkson: You do see some of it, but I think we hopefully didn’t show anything that was gratuitous. It was always earned … It was hopefully only to help move the story on or to satisfy a story point or a peak or a turning point. And it was never just “Let’s just have a scene with sex in it.” If we had some of those in the early draft, they got cut. And there were a couple. You added things in and they just went pretty early on.

When asked how much the sex scenes were edited for American broadcast, BBC America’s Jo Petherbridge said, “very little.”

Conn had an amusing exchange with a reporter specifically about the lesbian role on the series.

Reporter: Anna Torv has gone on to be a star in America, and she’s an FBI agent [on Fringe] and stopping monsters every week and so forth. And you’re probably the only one in the room who had a chance to have a lot of makeup – make-out sessions with her and so forth.

Conn: Lucky old me.

Reporter (continuing): First of all, what was that like in general, that role, and —

(Laughter)

Conn: Do you mean in general – making out with Anna?

Reporter (continuing): Yeah, just to film those scenes, what was that experience like? Because it’s probably a different kind of acting than you usually have. And also, how surprised were you when Anna suddenly jumped over to a big series in America?

Conn: Well, firstly, not at all surprised. She’s a very talented actress, and I watched the pilot on the way over here, so I got to take a look at what she was doing, and I’m just really impressed with her work and wish her all the success. And, you know, we’ve kept in contact a little bit, so I’ll be e-mailing her very soon to tell her that I’m really impressed with her work.

And on the question on what it was like to be making out with her all the time, well, it’s – you know, I was very lucky in that she’s a very talented actress and she’s – you know, she’s very sensitive – to be able to work with her. And we were very, sort of just honest with each other and allowed, you know – that just allowed a sort of freedom which is essential.

I mean, it is always strange to be making out with somebody who you don’t usually make out with, whether they’re male or female. So to me, that wasn’t an issue so much as it’s just, you know, odd if it’s not your regular partner.

Jessica’s trajectory from cocky and confident, to vulnerable and uncertain, is one of the things that attracted Conn to the role.

“It’s just great fun to be able to have somebody who thinks they know everything about the world,” said Conn. “They have this philosophy on life that they’re dead set on and then to have their world turned upside down by something so simple and so real and human as love was a joy. I like character-led pieces and relationship-led pieces, so it was an ideal job for me in that respect.”

Conn added, “I sort of feel like [Jessica] has the alter ego I wish I had.”

The first season of Mistresses airs Fridays on BBC America beginning Feb. 20. The second season is scheduled to debut in the U.K. early this year.