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Emily VanCamp: 'Revenge' Never Looked So Good

Jarett Wieselman

By Jarett Wieselman
@JarettSays

October 12, 2011

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Part thriller, part film noir, part campy soap opera and all awesome, ABC's Revenge is the year's biggest, boldest and best surprise. And at the center of this fierce firestorm is star Emily VanCamp, proving once and for all that good girls make the best bad bitches!

The former Everwood actress is using a decade of playing squeaky clean characters to her advantage, since her Revenge heroine (or is she?) Emily Thorne requires the outward appearance of a pristine princess in order to mask her ulterior motives -- and razor sharp claws.

I caught up with Emily to talk about tonight's episode but found out it's next week's installment that actually flips everything on its head (once again), ensuring Revenge remains one of the most twisted and thrilling hours of television you'll find on any network.

TheInsider.com: I was a huge Everwood fan, so it's been great seeing you be such a kick ass character. Was that part of the appeal?
Emily VanCamp: Absolutely. I wanted something totally different after Brothers & Sisters, so when this came along it felt like the perfect thing. I've always been really attracted to strong female characters and she is the epitome of kick ass. I am having so much fun with this character.

Insider: I also love your on-screen relationship with Madeleine Stowe -- for me, it calls to mind TV's greatest soap rivalries, like Melrose Place's Allison & Amanda or Dynasty's Alexis & Crystal.
Emily: Oh wow, I love that! We have so much fun. Madeleine is so brilliant and everything is behind the eyes, she can kill with that glare of hers! We just have so much fun playing the surface of these scenes with so much going on underneath. It’s unbelievable. We laugh all the time because it’s so catty.

Insider: Because of those things, many have called your show "a soap" -- which some may see as an insult. What do you think?
Emily: There’s no way around it. Some of what we do on the show is so far from reality, you have to embrace that style. If we take ourselves too seriously, we'll fail and won't be producing this great show. I embrace our guilty pleasure status!

Insider: So far, we've seen all of Emily's plans go off without a hitch -- do you look forward to the day one of her schemes fails?
Emily: That’s coming up! The first four episodes are big take-downs every week but episode five is going to blow everyone's minds. It really lays the groundwork for what's to come – you see how calculated this is getting. There’s no take-down in that episode and in the weeks that follow it's more about what happens in that episode. If you like the show, you’re going to love what's coming.

Insider: How much do you know about what's coming up?
Emily: I'm learning as we get the scripts. I know generally what is going on but I don’t think the writers really know everything for sure either. I think so much of it depends on how things play out – how the characters interact based on the actor's chemistry. I think they're really making sure to honor what the product is and not go by what they think should happen.

Insider: The show, while about revenge, also has a big undercurrent of love -- what do you make of the Daniel/Emily/Jack love triangle?
Emily: When you asked about her schemes that don't go as planned, Daniel is very much someone who changes the plan. I think Emily assumed Daniel would be this pompous spoiled boy and it would be very easy to manipulate him in this quest for revenge. But I think ultimately they have a lot more in common than she expected. He's just as imprisoned in Victoria's world as Emily is, he is trying to be a better person and it doesn’t hurt that he’s incredibly attractive [laughs]. At the end of the day, she's a young woman. She has feelings, even if she's slightly sociopathic and insane on many levels. I think there are real feelings there and I think it will be really conflicting for her because there is that struggle of how much she’s willing to use someone she actually has feelings for. But at the same time, you've got Jack, this pull to her past. It's such a sticky triangle.

Insider: You just called Emily "sociopathic" -- is that how you see her after all those years she was basically imprisoned?
Emily: Absolutely. I think that's what really did it. You'll see more of that in flashbacks coming up. We go back to that time and you'll see how something shut off in her – I think there's a couple of loose screws in her head, which  ultimately allows her to go and make this masterplan for revenge.

Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.


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