Amazon Studios are really ploughing a lot of money, time and effort into their original content right now for Prime Video, and one of the most exciting upcoming shows has to be Carnival Row, starring both Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne.
Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne at the Amazon Prime Video Presents event in London
With a serial killer on the loose in a dark and futuristic city, audiences will see mystical creatures hunted by the murderer, and when a detective called Rycroft Philostrate (Bloom) goes from chief investigator to prime suspect, things get very murky indeed.
Speaking this week (October 2) at the Amazon Prime Video Presents event in London, both Bloom and Delevingne spoke a little bit about why they joined this project - which is their first time working on a television show - as well as teasing some of what we should expect from the series.
“For me, Vignette [Stonemoss], the part I play, she really drew me to it [the show] first of all,” explained Delevingne, “to play that character with so much fire and then of course, the other characters, the story, what it’s relating to in the world right now [in terms of social themes]; I just think it’s such an incredible thing we’re speaking about.”
Bloom added: “We have a fantasy, noir world, so those major issues of our time can be addressed with an abject, outsider’s point of view…”
“Through a different lens,” added Delevingne.
Speaking about his own character, Bloom said: “He’s a human detective investigating a series of murders that take place on Carnival Row, and the world of Carnival Row… it was like nothing I’d ever read before.
“There was these mythical creatures which we’ve seen in fantasy and things, but it’s a sort of Dickensian, steampunk kind of Victorian world, with these remarkable and beautiful mythical creatures, but then this darkness, and as Cara said, there are bigger themes within that.”
Agreeing with her co-star, Delevingne continued: “I think it’s fantasy we’ve never seen before: the way they wanted to do all of the creatures that have come up, whether it’s fae, they wanted to change the way they were seen, so going through that, the interview part of that, the discussions on what we look like and what we wear and how we act; that was also very interesting to push the boundaries on that as well.”
When opening up a little more about Vignette, the star explained: “To me, the fae folk are kind of what I think humans should go towards. They take everything from nature, but they give it back, they’re fluid, they’re all about love, they don’t take more than what they need to survive. They’re honest, they’re open, and they try to stay away from things like violence.
“So to me, my character is a survivor, she’s not a victim. Everything she does is to try to survive, but she doesn’t know what she’s surviving for when everything is being taken away from her: her culture, her family; there’s a fire inside which is undeniable and that’s what I stick to. But it’s also her vulnerability. I think we’ve all had a different perspective of the powers that be in our lives and she’s that person, so it’s trying to keep her authenticity, which she does, and hopefully people resonate with that.”
Bloom concluded by promising an incredible world with rich detail for audiences when Carnival Row does make its debut on Prime Video, teasing: “I will say that having worked on screen on big and remarkable sets around the world, when we got to Prague and saw the set they had built for Carnival Row I was blown away. It was remarkable, the detail, the world that they… It was a sign, a real indicator of the epic size of this, that they’d achieved, so that was very cool.”
We’ll bring you more news surrounding Carnival Row as and when we get it.
Tagged in Orlando Bloom Cara Delevingne