Aisling Franciosi Talks BBC’s New Version Of Black Narcissus

Religious Devotion

The BBC has just remade classic film Black Narcissus for TV and here’s one of its stars Aisling Franciosi, who plays Sister Ruth in it, talking about it…

How did you get involved in the project?

I was sent the script and then was invited to meet Charlotte (Bruus Christensen) in LA for a call back. She had seen a project that I’d been in the night before which I think may have helped a bit. We chatted and got on really well and were very much on the same page about the character. I was really excited to work with her after seeing her work as a cinematographer. Getting to see her direct has been really exciting. She’s so full of energy, she’s like a superwoman!

Had you read the novel beforehand or watched the 1947 adaptation?

I hadn’t read the novel or seen the film – I just went off the script. I’m quite led by writing when I choose material that I want to audition for and I really liked Amanda’s script. I knew the film was a cult classic so I was a bit wary of watching it, and I knew that Ruth herself is quite an iconic character. I read the novel afterwards as Amanda had focused her adaptation very much on the book. But doing it this way gave me the freedom to make the character my own.

What were your first impressions when you read the script, and of your character Sister Ruth?

I thought it was an interesting premise and as I hadn’t read the book or seen the film, I really was coming into this as though it was a new project. Five nuns isolated in the Himalayas in this very restricted lifestyle is a great premise for a drama. One of the first lines in the book about Sister Ruth is, “nobody wanted Ruth in the group, she was a very uncomfortable person”!

I actually prefer the version of Ruth in the script, there’s room there to make her a little more likeable. She’s a great character in the novel, but playing her, from an actor’s point of view, there’s a little more room to have some empathy for her. I always find it’s more interesting when you have a character who’s the antihero in a way. She’s a difficult character who is under a lot of strain from the isolation and having her identity stripped from her.

How did you approach the role? What research did you do and what inspirations did you take?

I read a little bit into the lifestyle that nuns lead. From my point of view, Ruth as a character isn’t devoted to this vocation. Ruth strays pretty quickly from that path. She’s very quick to rage and finds it hard to control her emotions. There are periods where she just completely withdraws and doesn’t speak very much; flashes of rage and uncontrollable emotions. I spoke at length with Charlotte about how we didn’t want her to be a caricature, we wanted to be able to empathise with her. I wanted her to feel like a real person and it becomes quite understandable that she ends up where she does.

Was it draining playing someone who has such a range of emotions all the time?

She’s quite negative a lot of the time so you do have to put yourself in a negative headspace fairly frequently! Although I will say that it is alleviated by moments of laughter and messing around with other cast members. Thankfully, I am finding this one fairly easy to leave at the door when I leave work, but I also stand with really bad posture when I play her so at the end of the day my neck is quite tired!

Did you feel you had to physically act more as you had a wimple on?

The costume definitely changes the way that you move and so a lot of it is done with your looks. Certainly with Ruth, when she’s in her periods of quiet where she doesn’t say much vocally, I have to do that in other ways with my face. The costume also helps with the stance. We wear socks and sandals, and you can feel a bit frumpy as it changes the way you walk when you have lots of voluminous material.

Could you tell us about the locations you’ve filmed in, along with Nepal?

Filming in Pinewood feels quite special because the original Black Narcissus film was shot here too. Filming in Nepal was an incredible experience. It’s spectacularly beautiful, and one of the themes in the story is that they are all quite distracted by the natural beauty and it forces them to question what they are doing.

It was an incredible bonding experience because we were without internet and phone reception for about a week! So in the evenings we all hung out chatting, reading books around the fire and very much in each other’s company.