TV

Troian Bellisario talks new queer short “Still A Rose,” loving Shakespeare and “Pretty Little Liars”

Troian Bellisario is the kind of actress who stops you in your tracks. Smart, funny and totally captivating, it’s no wonder filmmaking team hazart sought her out to play one of the world’s most famous roles, that of Juliet Capulet. In their stunning and sumptuous short film Still a Rose, hazart takes the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and adds a twist by casting two Romeos (Tinuke Oyefule and Brandon Crowder) and two Juliets (Troian and Will Branske). The result is a queer and modern interpretation of the timeless story, that feels new again.

“Since we feel that one of the civil rights issues of our generation is that of the inequality – in law and respect – towards the LGBTQ community and their relationships, we had been searching for a way to make a meaningful statement about the equality of all love,” hazart tells us. “While attending a performance of Queer Classics’ (an LA based theatre company) we found such inspiration in their version of ‘Romeo + Juliet’. Different in that their performance was act one with two women and act two with two men, we thought that a cinematic take could lend an interesting and unique ability to cut between all four couplings. From there, we thought about how the tools of filmmaking could re-translate that story in a fluid and varying perspective. What better way to express equal love than with the most famous love story ever told?”

Working with Troian again was something the team really wanted to make happen. “There is an immense list of things that make her a great leading lady, not least of which is her immense talent. She is such a thoughtful actor, that really takes the time and puts in the effort to craft a character and performance that feels authentic. Her ability to adjust on the fly and internalize nuance to a director’s note is another well-honed skill. But we think most of all it is her generous and collaborative nature that makes her so great to work with. She, as you can imagine, has an extremely busy and daunting schedule and for her to invest the time to make a small (but ambitious) project like this shows the true passion she holds towards her craft and the commitment she brings to her collaborators, something we feel very fortunate to be one of.”

We had the chance to talk with Troian about Still a Rose, which premiered at Frameline last night. She was also kind enough to give us some insight into Pretty Little Liars and the upcoming time jump.

AfterEllen: I was utterly enchanted by Still A Rose. I know you’ve worked with hazart before on Immediately Afterlife, but what drew you to this project?

Troian Bellisario: They were awesome because we worked together first on Pretty Little Liars and they went out to continue directing. They were directors before they started working on the show. We worked on Immediately Afterlife and then when they got the idea, they came to me because they knew I was a huge theatre nerd, and especially a Shakespeare nerd and I had already done my kind of version of Romeo and Juliet. They know a lot about filmmaking but they felt that they didn’t really know enough about Shakespeare and theatre, so they were at first kind of talking to me about it just saying like, “what would you do, how would you approach this text?” And then they were like, “Oh, of course. By the way, if you’d like any role in this, we would really love your help and your portrayal of the character.” It was such a dream come true to get to work with them on that. That’s how it all began, really.

AE: Had you ever played Juliet before?

TB: I had done a lot of different scenes from Romeo and Juliet in school, and then I did a short film, that I wrote and produced and acted in where I played Juliet, but it was a different version of R&J. I’ve played her a couple of different times but not in a full length production. But I have definitely done the balcony scene a number of times.

AE: I had a feeling you might be a Shakespeare nerd. [laughs]

TB: Oh yeah, huge!

AE: I can always tell when someone understands the text really, really intimately when they are doing Shakespeare and I could tell that this was something that meant a lot to you. It comes through in the production.

TB: Oh thank you. I definitely love that text and it’s one of my favorite plays ever. Before I was on the show, I used to busk in the subways with my boyfriend, and we did the balcony scene. That was how we made money over the summer in New York.

AE: That’s amazing.

TB: It’s definitely been in me for a long time and I still would love to do a full production too if I got the chance to do it because it was so much fun.

AE: There something so universal about Shakespeare, and it lends itself so well to different interpretations. While you stay true to period, Still A Rose definitely opens up the Bards words to a totally new feeling and expression. For the first time, R&J felt like it was just a love story between people, regardless of gender or sexuality. What are your thoughts on that?

TB: I definitely think that’s completely accurate because the most interesting thing was in rehearsals, when I would watch the two guys playing Romeo and Juliet. There was a sound that they had to react to and they were kind of clutching each other. Then when we, me and Tinuke, would do it as two girls, all of a sudden, because we don’t really have the arranged marriage or they’ll just lose their family kind of thing over here in America, all of a sudden the fear for these two people coming together took on a totally different reality and I understood that in a more modern sense. That was really kind of illuminating. It’s really cool to get to watch other people’s interpretations and to get to integrate that into yours. Watching Will’s Juliet, really informed my Juliet in ways that I never really thought. That was a very cool thing because every time we would rehearse it, I’d get to sit out and watch Will do it and it was a totally different take on it. It was about integrating and making our Juliet and their Romeo. That was a really great experience.

AE: Everyone in the short is fantastic, but of course we are interested most in the f/f pairing. Tell me about working with Tinuke Oyefule.

TB: You know, it was so interesting especially jumping between Tinuke and Brandon. He’s much taller than me, much bigger and so when he would stop me, when Juliet’s trying to get away or when she feels kind of overpowered, it was a very easy jump. And when Tinuke would do it, there was a softness in her. It was something we really talked about. How does my Juliet then respond to her Romeo if there’s a softness in Romeo, or a vulnerability in Romeo rather than a sort of lovestruck boy who’s being cavalier with her. What is it when you get that female/female energy and then what does that bring out in Juliet? Is there a strength in Juliet then that vulnerability in Romeo can afford, or does it have to remain sort of an aggressor and a person who is being aggressed? It was definitely something that was a challenge to me at first because it kind of came up against what I thought the scene was, but then it was wonderful because it opened up a whole new interaction and a whole new dynamic between them.

AE: We know now that you are a Shakespeare nerd, and you are playing Juliet who is one of your dream Shakespearean roles, but what other Shakespearean characters would you love to play someday?

TB: Oh my god, so many. For sure Lady MacBeth, Miranda (The Tempest), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), there are so many. Honestly since we are doing all this gender bending stuff, I’ve always been fascinated by both Ophelia and Hamlet. I’ve done Ophelia a couple a of different times and I think that Hamlet is one of the most incredibly complex and layered plays in the world and to get to take on either if those roles is just so much fun. Actually I played Hamlet when I went to Vassar, but it was in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead so it was the reverse but it was fun to get to play. They just slapped a really short wig on me and I was playing it as a guy but it was fun to kind of take on that masculine dynamic with a female Ophelia and then these two guys playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. So I was having fun being one of the guys.

AE: I can imagine you being an amazing Richard III.

TB: Oh my god! I saw Mark Rylance do that and I was blown away. He totally changed the way I saw that play. That would be incredible. I would do that in a heartbeat if somebody would let me. Start spreading the word.

AE: You heard it here first, people. Get Troian a role as Richard III.

TB: It’s an AfterEllen production.

AE: [laughs] That would sell out like hotcakes. So, obviously our readers were excited because one of your Romeos is a woman. I don’t know if you were aware of this but you are kiiiiiiinda popular with your queer fans. I’ve seen fans ship Spencer with pretty much every female character in Rosewood. Knowing you have such a positive impact on your queer fans, what does that mean to you?

TB: It means the world. I don’t know what it is about Spencer. I know I’ve played a lot of roles of women who have been attracted to women. Every time it comes up in my life, people are like, “Are you comfortable playing that” and I’m like, “Are you kidding?” I love to play it, it’s so much fun. And it really doesn’t matter, the gender of the person, it’s kind of more about the love between them. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve done so many short films or other characters where I’ve played somebody who is a lesbian. I don’t know if it’s that or just something that Spencer gives off, that’s kind of attractive to the queer fans but I definitely am grateful for it. I have no idea what I’m doing that’s making them so happy but I’ll keep doing it, whatever it is.

AE: You know what I think it probably is? I think lesbian and bisexual fans are often attracted to strong and talented women. You just have a presence about you that’s really commanding and I think that’s probably one of the reasons why queer fans are drawn to you. It’s a universal thing, but it just happens that you have a lot of queer fans.

TB: I’m so grateful, and that’s just the greatest thing that I’ve heard in a long time. So I’m very, very grateful for that. Thank you.

AE: You are welcome. I can’t let you go without asking you a tiny bit about PLL. Your character Spencer has been given such amazing material to work with between last season and now this season, and it’s even darker and more intense than ever. Has it been exciting for you as an actress to get to tackle some really meaty storylines?

TB: Absolutely. I don’t often watch the show, but last night I really wanted to watch it because, well first of all, my best friend was on it, which is really great. So I wanted to see her work, but also last night was an episode written by a very talented writer, Jonell Lennon. She’s one of my favorites in the writer’s room. I have so much fun with her episodes because our show can be incredibly fun and it can be campy, which is awesome but when Jonell writes she treats it with such a seriousness and gravitas that I just kind of feed off as an actor. So last night, I don’t know if you saw the episode…

AE: Oh Troian, I watch every episode. [laughs]

TB: Oh ok! So last night, when I first read the script and she was like, “you’re going to wake up covered in blood and you’re going to dig through Aria’s trash for drugs,” I was just like, whoa! This is different. It was so wonderful to have somebody trust me with that. I constantly look at material I’m given and I say, when am I ever going to be asked to do this? I’m so lucky as an actor to be asked to go to these places. To be admitted to a mental ward, to go to the dark side, to deal with an addiction to Adderall, all of these different things. I’m like, how do I get to explore all of this with one character when most actors my age are just kind of dealing with relationship dramas?

I think that’s also something that you are talking about portraying a strong woman, is that so often on television especially – I think we are getting out of this with characters like Dany on Game of Thrones and now we have Rachel McAdams on the new season of True Detective and everybody on Orange is the New Black—we’re starting to get more interested in women outside of their relationships with men. Which I think opens them up to being loved by everybody. Being loved by women who are heterosexual, by women who are homosexual and men too. Seeing qualities in female characters that they see in themselves, it’s really opening up a universality about characters outside of their gender. I think that is something our show does really well and I’m super grateful for that.

AE: Everyone is really excited about the time jump. You’ve been playing this character for five years now, how is it now that you are experiencing Spencer as a true adult for the first time?

TB: It’s funny because they keep talking about this time jump where they are like we are going to be 24, and I started this show when I was 24. So it’s funny because they are kind of treating us like we’re adults and we have our shit together — pardon my language. And I’m kind of looking at everybody and I’m like, “Yo, I’m going to tell you something right now: I was a mess when I was 24, when I started the show.” I was terrified, I had no idea what I was doing. People are talking to us like, “well now you have jobs” and I’m like, “we’re scared out of our minds!” We’re one year out of college, we have no idea who we are. So it’s interesting to play Spencer because when I think back to actually being a 17 year old, I was kind of more like I thought I knew everything in the world, which Spencer does have that quality. She thinks she knows everything, she knows what’s best. She’s very confident even though she’s being terrified and has a weird world that she has to live in. And now all of a sudden, she’s 24, so for me it’s fun. It’s a lot more complicated because you get to present this polished exterior, but inside I think is a whole new set of insecurities and fears and questions that I get to deal with as Spencer. We all picture our mid-twenties like, yeah, I’ve got this figured out, but no way. It’s been very fun but it’s also been very illuminating for me to sit back and be like, what does it really mean for her to be at this age.

To find out when Still a Rose is playing a festival near you, follow the film on Facebook for updates.

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