BONUS: Morella Speaks! w/ Crystal Balint

For our last Bonus episode of the season, we spoke with the award-winning actress Crystal Balint, who played Morella Usher!

Thanks for joining us this season! And let us know the next show you want us to Psychoanalyze!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Straw Hut Media. Hi, I'mStacy Nye and I'm Lindsay Jones. Welcome
to the final bonus episode of psychoanalyzingthe Fall of the House of Usher.
We are so excited to give youthis final episode. We have on the

(00:23):
show today actress Crystal Balance who playsMarella on the show. And I'm gonna
tell you you better stay tuned becauseshe tells us why Marella went to the
orgy acid sex party. So hangin there and stay tuned. Okay,

(00:45):
So today we have Crystal Balant onthe episode. She is an award winning
actress with a career that spans morethan twenty years working in television, film
theater in Canada and abroad. SoShe made her television debut in two thousand
and one as Nepthis in the fantasyseries Myth Quest, and she is well

(01:07):
known for some of other Mike Flanaganshows. She played Dolly in the Netflix
horse You'r's Midnight Mass. Welcome Crystalto the show. Hi, Crystal,
Hello, we are so excited thatyou're here with us today. Yes,

(01:27):
I'm happy to be here. Thanksfor having me. Guys. Oh man,
We're super excited to talk to you. So I made a joke at
the beginning when you first popped inthat I didn't recognize you without all the
bandages on. So that's definitely myfirst question, which is what was it
like to film that whole show prettymuch fully covered in bandages? Well,

(01:51):
you know, I'll start by sayingI was warned. It was given a
fair warning when I took the part. My first conversation with Mike when he
offered me the role was he saidit's not easy. It's not going to
be easy, and I was like, okay, tell me more Like as
an actor, you go like,great, so I want to like chomp
into something that's like not going tobe easy. But as it, you

(02:12):
know, started to unravel, Ibecame as I read the scripts. First
of all, I thought, oh, okay, so I'm going to be
like spending a lot of time onmy back. Fine, that's fine,
I could do that. But thenas we got into like the more that
got uncovered, I was like,oh, there's prosthetics, right, I
didn't think of that. Oh there'sbandages on top of the prosthetics. Oh
right, Oh, there's a tremendousamount of goo and time and contacts and

(02:34):
so like, as we started toget into the process of creating post Party
Morella, suddenly I was hearing likeflashes of that conversation in my head,
like it's not going to be easy. I was like, oh, yeah,
you were me. Oh, thisis what he meant, and I
wasn't listening. I wasn't. No, I clearly wasn't listening. So anyways,
to answer your question, you know, I've never done anything like that.

(02:58):
I you know, I'm fair tothe horror genre. Mike was very
generously brought me in to Midnight Massand then of course Midnight Club and now
Ushure and so aside from being aged, which we did in Midnight Mass and
I had done before, this wasmy first foray into actually what goes into
that level of prosthetics and mind.Was really in terms of the scale of

(03:21):
what you can do for bosthetics andme. If you look at like the
Angel and in my Ass my maskfor example, mine was kind of really
kind of on a pretty mild level. That said, there were hours and
hours and hours of stuff outside ofwhat I had to actually do that went
into it. So it was Idon't think it was challenging. I mean,
there were days that I was like, Oh, I just want to

(03:43):
get out of the spandages and Ijust want to get off the bed.
But it was also so fun toget to be the way I described it
to my husband as is said tobe kind of be a monster, you
know, to be this thing thatpeople will remember as like this kind of
garly, grody thing that will kindof haunt you to some extent. It
was really fun to get to createthat. And the tactile elements that went

(04:09):
into it, I found them justreally helpful as opposed to cumbersome erre as
something I had to sort of likesurvive. I actually found it to be
really a lovely interesting part of theprocess. Yeah, you know what's interesting
about it is I think a lotof people can identify with your character,
unlike some of the other characters onUsher who are just these you know,
brutal humans looking to destroy everything intheir path, whereas Morella really makes a

(04:34):
mistake, you know, and istrapped inside of this situation as a result.
And I found myself really watching yourperformance and just figuring out you were
really having to do a lot ofcommunication just through your eyes, Like that's
the only thing was just literally youreyes we're doing all of your acting for

(04:56):
you. I'm just wondering, like, how do you prepare for that?
Like, how does that? Howdoes that process work? Of like I'm
literally going to act this entire rolethrough through my eyes only. The short
answer is you kind of don't.Like you know, again, when I
my first initial conversations with Mike andTrevor, Trevor Macy his producing partner,

(05:17):
you know, Trevor very adequately saidthat there's going to be a tremendous amount
of eye acting, and I waslike, Okay, well, I can
use my eyes, Like that's fine. I think I have pretty expressive eyes.
But then again, when we gotinto like especially the stuff in the
hospital room and in the bed andall that kind of stuff, and what
I started to understand what it wasbecause it's very I think the thing is

(05:39):
is on the page, you readit and you think, okay, well
she's confined to a bed. Butwhat I didn't really fully understand until probably
a couple of weeks before we gotinto the bulk of that bed work was
and this is some of the initialwork that I did do, which is
researching what kind of limited mobility doesa full body burn victim have, you

(06:00):
know, like there's it's one thingto research, Like I researched some burn
victims, stories of people who havebeen horrifically burned. It's difficult to find
stories of people who have been chemicallyburned and survived. I could only really
find a few that online that werelike, okay, this is what an
actual like a full body chemical burn. But I was able to find on

(06:21):
the stories where there were these reallyheroic people who have survived like a chemical
burn to the face for example.So you do start to learn, okay,
right, so I don't have anyuse of my actual body, and
what would happen in one's throat,Well, you'd be probably breathing in a
lot of the fumes, so likeyour vocal cords would be trashed, you

(06:43):
know, and just the amount ofpain that one's body would be in.
So that was some of the preparationsthat I did. But a lot of
it I think I kind of discoveredmostly on the day. Once I was
in the bed. We had areally fantastic medical consultant on set, and
so I was able to kind ofquery with her, like what kinds of
things should I keep in mind?What would the drugs be doing to me,

(07:04):
Like I've never taken the kinds ofdrugs that Morella would be taking for
pain management, even before this drugthat Freddie gives me. Yeah, I
needed to understand all of those thingstoo. So some of that I just
was practical that I had to justfigure out on the day. But really
what it came down was like layingin a bed and trying to show how
terrifying it would be to have noway to communicate and to be tortured through

(07:30):
that. Yeah. Boy, Ican't even imagine like first of all being
in that position, right, butalso then acting like you're in that position,
And it was totally terrifying to watchyou. You know, it was
totally believable and you know, terrifying, and there's just like there's one moment
when your eyes are about to justlike pop out of your head. I

(07:53):
think probably when Freddie gets like theplayers out and you were starting to talk
a little bit, then you know, just like kind of rasping. That
was truly terrifying. Yeah, thehardest part for me is just like you
start to imagine yourself as a asa viewer at being in your position of
like what if I was completely aptand bantaged that it could move and you

(08:15):
start to feel claustrophobic just from theexperience of it. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you know, onthe day when we were shooting some of
that stuff, and then the discussionsI had had with Mike, both Mike's
because Mike Filmiuri as well as Mikewanting to get we're directing some of those
scenes. We sort of had towork to discover like how much vocal quality
can she give and what is theappropriate level of terror you know what I

(08:39):
mean? Like does she understand what'scoming when he grabs the flyers? Like
what is he going to do?Like, so there was some discussion around
what is information that she's just getting? How much is she really getting?
How much is it like oh,after the fact, like you know,
there's very early on she starts tofigure out that he's continuously paralyzing her with
the drug so that she cannot heal, like he's not allowing her to actually

(09:01):
go through a healing process, whichis you know, and then of course
he just Yeah. The ultimate thingwas taking of the teeth, which I
actually thought when we shot it,I think we shot some of it,
not not him actually pulling the teethout, but there were shots I think
they didn't use that maybe just lookto I mean I remember getting blood and
goop put in my mouth so thatthey could see that after, and I

(09:24):
feel like there's probably was a pointwhere they went like, Okay, I
think I think we're good with justthe suggestion, even the gross themselves out
doing it. Yeah, exactly.But you know, like again, like
those guys are so great, it'srare that I think either one of them
really shoots a frame that they knowthey're not going to use, and so

(09:45):
they also probably got into posts andrealized like this is actually scarier. Sometimes
just your imagination does the work foryou, you know. So Okay,
I want to ask about pre bandageMorella for a second, which we don't
get to spend enough time with.But I'm really curious about pre bandage Marella

(10:05):
because Lenor, who's your daughter.It plays the character of your daughter.
You know, she's kind of themost good and kind and you know,
like the person that we all kindof aspire to be. Like, she's
constantly surrounded by these demons of humanbeings in every room, and yet she

(10:26):
continues to have a pleasant and kinddemeanor, and so like you start doing
the math on that, right,and you realize, Okay, Frederick is
certainly not where she's getting those traitsfrom, you know, because he doesn't
seem particularly kind or good. Andso obviously that's got to come down to

(10:48):
Marilla's influence right as to why sheis that way, and I think why
ultimately Morella lives on. And soI'm wondering, did you ever have conversations
with my plan again or the othercreators' show in terms of like what the
tenor of your character is in preaccident to sort of lay the groundwork for

(11:11):
the sort of kindness that Leonor isgoing to show in your stead once you're
incapacitated. Mm hmm. That's agreat question. I don't recall having any
specific conversations around the family tree lineof that. I mean, I think
that's a really great thing that obviouslywhen I saw it, I was like,

(11:33):
oh, yeah, like that isinteresting. I Mean, we always
knew that Leonor was sort of likethe best seed. I think it's probably
like potentially in my mind, Ithink, well, she's the apple that
fell furthest like she's the sortest lineof from the top of the food chain.
There's probably parts of Usher's mother inher, you know, that kind
of go through like she was agood woman who just got her in a

(11:54):
bad situation, and just like shehad good stuff. I also feel like
this is gonna I don't know ifthis will be controversial or what, but
I also feel like Frederick gets abad rap. Okay, now here's my
point. Now, Frederick for sure, when you come full circle through the
series, Frederick for sure deserves todie. Like there's no question he is

(12:18):
not viewed as a great guy.However, my argument is that Frederick actually
has good stuff. He Remember,he's one of only two just like Tamerlane,
he's one of only two Ushers whowere born of Roderick. And I
can never remember his wife's name,right, Annabell Lee, Anna bell Lee,
Right? And Anna Belle is likesuper like, she's pure, she's

(12:43):
moral, she's got a great compass, right Like. She is literally the
other side of the coin of theother Ushers, you know, because she's
the person who just wanted him todo well. And if things had gone
her way, it would have beena totally different story for the Ushers,
and it would have been a differentstory for Frederick and Tamerlane. Right.
So I think Frederick because of theway that things went, and as you

(13:03):
often I think find I don't sayalways, because that's an unfair stigma to
put on people. But when yougot an enormous amount of money and you've
got someone at the top of thatwho's giving the money, who is just
devoid of really kind of any moralcompass to a large extent, I e.
Roder Krusher, that is going totrickle down coupled with a great deal
of money. So Frederick ended upinstead of getting some morals and things like

(13:26):
that. I do think he stillhas that. At the beginning of the
series, I do think Frederick islost. I think he feels slighted.
I think he feels looked down upon. If you put anybody in a corner
like that all the time, Imean you see it at the family dinner.
The joke is Juno, yes,but you know's new. So that's
just new to that. But Frederick'sbeen getting it his whole life. He's

(13:48):
the joke that everybody makes. Everybodymakes fred Frederick. Right, So you
put that on someone long enough,and then you throw in the one person
who you thought you could trust.He believes that Marella does that to him,
and it's like he snaps. Soit's I think understanding Frederick in that
way. I think Leonor gets somegood traits from Frederick. I do believe

(14:11):
that some of that core, thecore base of Frederick. Leonora gets some
of that, which is like,there are good people, we want to
do good things. I mean,the guy makes bottled ships in his spare
time, Like he starts out bettinga pretty decent person to some extent.
You know, he's got some weirdvalues for sure, but I mean,
who can blame him with his familyaround him. For Marilla, I think

(14:33):
Marilla, you know, she wasa model and an actor. I will
say actor loosely because I don't knowthat her acting career was potentially very successful.
I think she was always more sherelied on her looks. She've relied
very heavily on her looks for hercareer, which is why there's the model
element. And she had a wedon't really learn this in this series.
We don't talk about it too much, but I thought this was a really

(14:54):
interesting point that Mike gave me,which was that she had a cooking show.
It was a big show that wasmoderately successful, hence making of the
realistic cake for Roderick at the dinner. And you may or may not remember,
but there is a line that Rodericksaid, is if you had baking
cakes like this, then your showwould have run for more seasons, right,

(15:16):
yes, Yeah, So she hadthis little kind of like she sort
of converted some of her modeling successinto like this pseudo celebrity the host of
a baking show, which I justthink is kind of an interesting thing that
we never really get to learn moreabout because it doesn't really serve the purpose
of the overall story. But Ithink that Marilla finds herself. She really

(15:37):
sees Freddy's goodness. I think that'swhy she married Freddie. You know,
I think the money was a pleasantlittle bow on top. But you know,
he says it in the scene beforehe pulls her teeth out. He
says, you know you saw mestanding in the corner, and like I
say to him, you know,this is someone who looks like you need
a friend. Like I really dobelieve that Marella saw his goodness. And
I think she has goodness for theunderdog. She has a real She's able

(15:58):
to see that in people and tobe a friend and to be someone who
you can talk to. I thinkshe's a safe place for people. It's
maybe why Perry opens up to her, and so I think Leonora gets some
of that from her. You know. The trick with Marilla is that,
like everyone in the Asher family,she gets blinded by the money, you
know, And I think it's justlike she sort of looks off the top,

(16:22):
like someone who is kind of agold digger. But I don't I
really don't believe that's who she is. I believe she really cared for Freddy.
I think she really loved Freddie andfeels for him when his family kind
of makes in the butt of thejokes. Okay, so forgive me for
asking this, but if that's thecase, I just want to know why
does Marilla go to the sex party? Like why does she do that?

(16:48):
Good question? Okay, So nowwe're talking about I think Lenora is fourteen
or something, so they've been marriedfor I'm going to say they've been married
for fifteen sixteen years, Freddy andMarilla. You know, relationships are hard.
What those of us who are inone will know that, Yes,

(17:11):
the marriages are hard, and evenwhen you've got a ton of money.
I'm sure they've had nanny's galore,and they've had help all over the place.
People sometimes grow apart. Now Freddie, there's no obviously there's to my
mind, there's no mistaking that he'sbeen kind of growing in the direction that

(17:32):
is not super altruistic. And Ithink that's been doing He's been doing that
for some time in his overall quest. Again, you would have to speak
to Henry to like really flush thisup, but in my mind it's part
of his quest to be noticed,to be taken seriously, to get his
father's approval, to get respect ofhis siblings and the board and everybody who

(17:53):
you know, he really is theUsher. What does he say, I
am the something about being like thehopes and dreams of the Usher family,
right, like you know, he'sthe heir, but no one takes them
seriously. So several years of overand over trying to get people to take
him seriously and then nobody does.It turns you into something else. And
I think Marella sees that, andshe gets older, she starts having to

(18:17):
work a little harder to keep henHenry, to keep Freddie's attention. And
you grow apart. You know,you start to grow apart we have I
think we've probably started to have lessin common, see things differently, have
fewer interests that we kind of enjoyedto do together, as sometimes happens in
marriages. And you know, Ithink by the time we find Marilla,
she doesn't really have a purpose.Her show is not on anymore. Leonora's

(18:41):
growing up. She's at that agewhere she probably doesn't want to like hang
out with her parents anymore. Andso what's Marilla doing. You know,
she's like at home making very youknow, elaborate cakes of law textbooks,
like she doesn't have anything to do. She's probably shopping a lot. You
know, she sees her friends likeshe's brunching a lot, but like nobody's
looking at her. And I thinkalso the thing for Marella to is when

(19:03):
you're someone again in my mind,who your career is based on your looks,
and those looks start to wane,and you're working harder and harder to
keep people's attention and keep their focus, but you don't really have any other
skills that people really want to respector recognize. Then what you do is
when someone looks at you that way, the way Perry looks at her in

(19:25):
that seduction scene where he sees throughthe mom or the ex model or the
wife and sees like this like thingthat she was and that she is.
She's sexy. Yeah, yeah,light's a little fire in her. And
then it's like, okay, well, you know, she starts irrationalizing,
well, maybe it will be cool, Maybe it would be nice to go
with dance. Maybe it would benice to get dressed up and have somebody

(19:47):
look at me the way my husbandused to look at me, you know.
So in that way, I thinkshe's very human, right, and
I think, you know, again, like people, I've had a few
of my friends who've seen the showgo like why did she go? And
I'm like, she didn't know acidwas gonna fall from this stealing mom.
She just you know, she probablydidn't even know that she was gonna like
flirt with Perry. She just knew. She was like, I want to
go out and feel good and looksexy and maybe just have like a good

(20:12):
dance, you know, like theway we sometimes do. So that's why
that's why she goes to the party. There's no other thing but Perry.
Through Perry's ulterior motives, things gettwisted. Yeah, so I've just been
like dying here because you know,I'm a psychologist, which is why the
show is called psychoanalyzing for the Houseof Usher. And so I really like

(20:37):
the way you just described that backfrom what's up with Freddy and the narcissistic
injury, you know, repeated narcissisticinjury he suffers throughout his life, right,
and the final one being You've gotthis like secret phone and maybe had
an affair, and that I totallysee that put him over the edge.
And he was a little hyped beforethat, that scene with the bowling ball.

(21:00):
He's just I could spend hours justtalking about his performance in this show.
So that was like remarkable and Iand I really appreciate that you,
as the actress who plays his wife, can appreciate, you know, like
your continued love for him despite whohe is in his family. It's hard

(21:21):
to love that person in the familysometimes, right, it's not the cool,
it's not the cool role to havein this family. And so now
you Crystal played this role with likea vulnerability that I would frequently notice,
you know, and that moment inthe party when you're just not sure what

(21:44):
your role is, you know,are you dancing and sexy? Are you
is actually now Perry looking at someoneelse? And it was a moment that
like I really like went ooh,you know, like, oh I feel
I feel that, you know,that moment when you suddenly like weren't sure.
And I agree, like even ifshe hadn't, you know, had
any hard feelings in her marriage,the way that Perry looked at her,

(22:07):
you know, like that, Ican see how that would have kind of
tantalized Marella. So I just wantedto let you know how much I appreciated
that moment at the party. Butyou know, I think you played the
whole role like that, So Ireally appreciated that. Thank you. Yeah,
you know, I think there wasa moment. You know, I'm
not a spring chicken myself, andI also have two kids, twin girls

(22:30):
that are about to be five.So there's a part of that that I
think I tried to bring to it, which is like I don't go out
anymore, you know, I don'tgo to clubs. I mean, I'm
in a happy relationship, what Ifeel very grateful for. But still,
you know, it's like there's timeswhere I like get dressed up and my
husband's like, hey, you know, like we're out of Margarine, And

(22:52):
I'm like, great, you're whatI'm doing, you know, And like
that's not through any fault of hisown, right, Like he's just trying
to get through the day, andyou know, you, I'm lucky to
be in a relationship where we havethat ease and comfort. And then there
are days where I do nothing andhe's like, you look so beautiful today,
and I'm like, oh, man, like you know so. But

(23:12):
that's the thing is, I don'tbelieve. I'm not sure. At least
I shouldn't say I don't believe,but I'm not sure that if given the
opportunity, Marella would have slept withPerry. I'm not sure. I think
she it's one of those things whereit's like the game is really exciting and
it's like, oh, it feelsgood to be seen and to be looked
at. But I think if pushhad come to shove and the events of

(23:33):
the evening had taken a different turn, I don't know. I think if
he had actually really, you know, propositioned her with sex, I think
she probably would have gone like no, no, this is too real now,
Like I have to go home tomy husband and my kid so that
she could like salvage herself. ButI do think that when when she sees
him looking at someone else, it'slike, oh, okay, there's a

(23:53):
little bit of like, oh,I'm such an idiot? Why did I
Okay, I'm just going to likesee it through, you know. I
think what's so interesting about that wholeepisode and about your sort of experience of
that party, which has a lotof different things all happening at the same
time. Right it's the build upto the big acid drop Verna is there
tempting Perry, You're in the midstof this party moving around. Is that

(24:17):
we follow you throughout that evening andyou seem like you're there and you're giving
it the best sort of college tried, like I'm going to fit in at
the orgy, But you also atthe same time seem slightly noncommittal of the
whole thing. You're like, youhave this thing about you the whole time,
which is like should I be here? Should I go home? What

(24:40):
am I doing here? And evenyeah, at the end by the end
of that episode, when the aciddrops, we don't know if you're even
there. We have to wait tofind out whether or not you took off
or whether you stay, which itturns out you did. And I'm just
wondering, like how you're You're sortof straddling that line of like, oh

(25:03):
I am I'm going to play thispart of being this beautiful, sexy,
mysterious person but also this totally vulnerableimpostor syndrome thing that's sort of hanging on
your shoulder of like should I evenbe at this party? Mm hmm,
yeah, I think again. Ithink I sort of tried to tap into

(25:23):
what would be real for me,Crystal, Like there was a time probably
fifteen years ago or even twenty yearsago, where I might, you know,
I don't know, I'm not sureI should say this, but I
might find myself in an orgy andgo like I totally been in here,
like the music, like I get, you know, like I would know
how to keep up. I mayor may not partake, but like I

(25:45):
would feel comfortable in that environment becauseI was going clubbing more often. And
I think, you know, forMaury and for me, Crystal, I
really I just tried to use whatwas kind of really kind of happening for
me, which was like this isnot the kind of I normally hang out
in. And also there was thisother there's additional element which is like I'm
kind of recognizable. There's a partof me that like, because the Ushers

(26:07):
are quite a well known family,there was this element of like, I
don't actually want to be seen here. So the fact that it's a masquerade
is a little bit more enticing tome too, because I'm not just like
there with my face and people golike, hey, isn't that one of
the Usher wives? Like what thehell? So I think I tried to
take that into consideration. There wasa scene that again, you know,

(26:30):
for probably for time and just trustingthe wonderful minds behind the post process,
Mike and his editing team and allall of those people. There was a
scene who was sort of shot atthe bar just before Perry came up for
There were shots of me attempting tosort of like order drinks. I'm like
not really sure, like what arethe kids drinking these days? You know,
and like and then like how doI get another drink? And how

(26:52):
do I and the bartender's interacting withme, and I'm like I don't even
know how to have a conversation withthe bartender like I'm so shet of water,
And then they shot another bit ofa coverage of me where I was
like you can see I like,I down a vodka like I have,
and we've made this decision. Thisis sort of a side note that Marilla
only drinks clear liquids because she doesn'twant to stain her teeth, and she

(27:14):
only ever drinks things out of astraw. So I, like you may
or may not notice at the dinnerscene, I only have have straws,
like I always have a straw onmy drink. Okay, so I'm yeah,
so I sipped my drink really quickly. There's one coverage where I'm just
like, okay, get the firstone down the hatch, like just to
like ooh, you know, likeget on an even keel, and then
I get another drink. And whichis why when Perry comes up to talk
to me, I say something likeit's taking forever to get a drink,

(27:37):
like that's the only line I cancome up with, which is like,
it's just so benign. But Iwas trying to find what would be normal
for me if I were in agroup of people. The other thing,
you don't really see, and Ithink they had they edited around it and
maybe it's just quick is that therewere performers there on the day who were
completely naked, completely naked, right, And that's weird thing like when you're

(28:02):
as a person, as an evenas an actor, like you know they're
there and you're like okay, butthere was like again, I don't think
they used this shop, but likethere was a point where like I got
my drink and I turned and therewas like a person there. It was
just like completely in the bat andI'm like okay, like I'm not you
know, like you don't know whereto look. So that's like kind of
a real reaction as an actor,but also as the character, you do

(28:23):
have to find a way to likeget over that when you know you're not
supposed to be here and there's justlike nudity Freddy saw me here, you
know, like he would lose hismind. So yes, there was some
of that was like real real life, like where do I direct my gaze
right now? Like, so thatwas a lot of it. A lot

(28:44):
of it was just like me tappinginto what Crystal would be like at this
party. Wow. So it's likejust this weird dream where one day you
showed up to work and everybody wasnaked, and then you just had to
pretend like it was totally normal.Exactly the way you justribe having that drink
is my pre karaoke behavior. BeforeI do karaoke and a room full of

(29:07):
people my age, I have totake a few drinks. Yeah. No,
I'm like that. Like at anyholiday party, I do the same
thing, right, Yeah about thestraw and your teeth. Was that choice
so that you can have really niceteeth when they pull your teeth out later
or is that something else that's happening. No, it was just part of
like a character I sometimes do this. I'm just saying this to my husband

(29:29):
of the day. I'm working onsomething right now, and I've made a
decision early on. I was,you know, doing some character prep,
and I'm like, oh, youknow what would be great. It would
be great if she did like this, And it's something that at the time
I'm thinking about it seems like agreat idea, but like the actual follow
through and acting of it is liketime consuming, and I'm like, oh,
I got to do that again,because she has for continuity, I
got to keep this thing up,whether it's like painting my nails or I

(29:52):
don't know, she's always chewing gumor something like that. So then like
on the day, you're like,I don't want to chew gum, but
I have to because I made thischoice. This straw thing wasn't necessarily like
that, but I made that decisionbecause I thought, Okay, like,
what are the things that define Maury. Well, she's very much tied to
her appearance, and because she hasno other real purpose in her life,
especially now that, like I mentioned, Leonora has grown, she doesn't have

(30:15):
a job per se. Well,then she invests in how she looks.
Okay, the hair, everything's gotto be just so she's got you know,
we tried to make her look likeshe's had a little bit of work
done, although that was a bittricky. But my makeup artist, I
worked with Tia Martin. She andI worked on a few things that just
to kind of give a hint ofsome stuff. I toyed with the idea
of getting botox. That's not somethingthat I normally do, but I thought

(30:37):
it would be kind of fun forthis part. Although someone said, if
you start, you're gonna get hooked, and I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna wait. I'll wait untilI'm ready because I have like zero judgment
around anybody who does get it.I just that's not something I've done yet.
So but you know, this strawthing was nice because I just thought
she would not want to stay onher tea. She probably has, like
she keeps everything looking the way shewants it because everything that she sin for

(31:00):
herself is about She's so tied toyou in appearance, which is why what
happens to her is just like sodesperately tragic, Like she loses all her
skin. She's like invested in alland and her teeth, her beautiful white
teeth that she's been like, youknow, salvaging drinking things through a straw
forever. No, but the greatpart is, eventually, someday you could

(31:21):
make a sequel of this where wejust see you traveling the world, giving
away incredible amounts of money to charityand having as many drinks through straws as
you want, Like you could justhear yes, yeah, I think if
Marilla get a second chance, ifwe could see, well she did,
she did survive. If we couldsee Marilla second chance, she would just
be like thirty pounds heavier because she'djust be like eating whatever she wanted.

(31:41):
Like I think she'd like just throwall of that out the window. She'd
be like drinking coffee and red wineand like eating cakes and this joke.
We joked a little bit about heron set. But I have this idea
of, like, great to seea spin off of like what happened to
Marilla and Built and Juno, becausethose are the only three people who's vibe.
Do they team up? You knowwhat I mean? Like do we
keep Built Nation going? And Norella'sbecomes the face of like the humanitarian face,

(32:07):
and between she and Juno they havethis like conglomerate where they they are
helping people as opposed to hurting people. And then Build this got the health
you know side they I'd like topitch that I'd watch that. I would
pay to watch that, Yes,and then you guys could like fight crime
and stuff. That'd be amazing.Exactly. So I have to ask about

(32:28):
Midnight mass if just for a moment, because that show freaking terrified me.
So I just would love to hear, you know, briefly about your experience
doing it, especially from someone whowas like didn't watch horror. So it's
been a joke throughout this because Lindsaydoesn't like horror, and I got him
into watching this show, which wasn'tlike, not the same. I don't

(32:50):
think degree of horror as Midnight Masswas, but so someone who wasn't a
fan of horror to be in ahorror show, and then we just have
to talk about I don't know,it was just so scary, but can
you say something about that? Soyeah, I hadn't done anything even remotely
scary, and I'm not a fanfor generally speaking. When I got the
audition for Midnight Mass, it happenedbefore the holidays, and I was very
busy, and I started went like, oh, okay, I'll quickly shoot

(33:14):
it, and then I just forgotabout it and I got into the Christmas
season and then completely forgot about it. And then I got the call in
January saying, oh, you gotthis job on a show called Midnight Mass
And I was like, I'm sorrywhat? And then I looked into the
you know, into Plant again andhis work, Yeah, it was literally
lost in space, So I yeah, I had to go watch Hunting and
Hillhouse. I thought, okay,I should go familiarmize myself with his work.

(33:34):
Hillhouse terrified me, completely terrified me. I was like, could not
sleep for weeks. It was theBent neck Lady. Yeah, I still
get nightmares from bet neck Lading.But it was so beautifully done and the
family drama of it. I mean, it moved me and I thought,
oh my god, I'm about tobe a part of something really interesting.
Yeah, Midnight Mass was like onseveral levels. It's funny that you say

(33:55):
it was scarier because I actually findthat the opposite. I found pressure to
be more traditional horror, Like that'sthe kind of show I would traditionally avoid
because there's gore and it's like alot of like jump scares, and that's
the kind of stuff I don't like. Midnight Mass was such a slow burn
for me. I think also,you know, seeing how the sausage was
made helped take some of the stingoff the scares. But it was such

(34:17):
a slow burn for me and sucha psychological thing which I really enjoyed.
But the process of making masks wasjust such a gift. Because it's funny
because it happened during the pandemic.We were meant to start shooting literally about
three days before the world shut down, and then by the time we came
back around in August to go tocamera, we'd all kind of built this

(34:38):
like online community that some of uswere texting and there was emails flying back
and forth. So when we cameback together after having several months off during
the lockdown, we'd spent so muchmore time with the material than we would
have spent if we'd just gone rightinto shooting in January. Because some of
those people might included obviously Mike andTrevor Rabu COOLi, a few other people

(34:59):
were just coming off of out theprojects. I think they just wrapped Blind
Manner at that point, and soit gave us several months to sit and
really steep in the material and thecharacters in a way that we might not
normally have had a chance to do. And it also allowed us to build
this really interesting community that served thepurpose of what we were the story we
were telling, because it actually kindof felt like we were on this little

(35:20):
island because of COVID and because therestrictions were so strict at that point.
We were one of Netflix's first showsto come back, and there were so
many testing protocols and mass protocols.None of us were really socializing outside of
things. I was one of onlytwo Canadians of the key sort of cast
that were fortunate to work here inVancouver. But most of the cast were
from la so they were isolated uphere. They couldn't fly back and forth

(35:44):
like they normally would have, sowe were in this little bubble. And
what that did is it kind offelt like a Crockett Island bubble. All
of our socialization happened with our castmates on set. I think that's part
of the reason. I mean,also, you know, the material is
just so dense in the best way, you know, like it just is
like a delicious, amazing piece ofwork that Mike. You could see,

(36:05):
Mike has been pouring himself into forlike for a long time, for many
years, and he really brought somuch of himself to the piece. He
was so vulnerable about that while wewere making that. It was just such
a gift, it really was,and to this day it remains one of
like the best sets, the bestprojects, the best cast, the best
crew that I've ever had the greatfortune to work on. Even though we

(36:30):
were working in this incredibly terrifying timeduring COVID we were taking care of in
such a beautiful way, and itreally did when we say it. When
I say flat of fam like,which is a term we've all been using,
I really mean like they all feellike family to me now, you
know. Yeah, I was goingto say, we have been really amazed
since the end of the rider's strikebecause since the end of the actors strike,

(36:52):
Mike planned Again and other people fromthe show have been posting photographs and
video of you guys on the set. And what is so great to see
about it is that there you are, all of you usually covered in some
type of horrific prosthetic you know ofsome type. You've all been mangled and

(37:13):
destroyed in some way, and yetall of you are constantly smiling and having
a wonderful time with each other beinghit by an acid bath during an orgy.
And so it does seem like somehow, even though you know the show
is very sort of intense and ominousin a lot of ways, that you
all really bonded together in this greatway to make this thing. Do you

(37:34):
feel like you know that the cast, you really feel like the bubble really
made that happen. I do Imean again, I can only speak from
my experience because I came in froma night mass. I know there were
pre existing relationships with a lot ofhis actors he worked with before, obviously
Kate Siegel and Sam Sloyan and Truccohand Robert Longstreet, you know, Raul
Coley, they'd worked on previous projects, and so they in Carl up course,

(37:58):
and then of course Bruce Spruce Greenwoodcoming into this. But some of
those people had worked with him before. But there was something of I mean,
for me, again, I'm biased, but there's something about like something
really just kind of clicked into place, and I feel like you're absolutely right,
you know, like this show Usherhad the potential to have people really
struggled, really struggle. There werea lot of things that went on that

(38:22):
made it really challenging. Some days, there were a lot of most of
us had prosthetics a lot, youknow, like all of the Asher kids
who died sort of early on,like Kate and Rahul and and Sorri and
he, you know, they werein prosthetics for most of us show as
well. Yes, and some dayswere there all day just to like stand
there and loa preaky you know,that's hard, but because we were all

(38:44):
friends, you're just excited to bethere together. And that is just a
testament to the kinds of people,not only the kinds of people that Mike
and Trevor and Mike the Miari andthat whole group of from Intrepid put together,
Like they just kind of try notto work with people who are going
to be you know, at leastthat's my experience. Yeah, it's a
good policy for in general, butalso it's a testament to the environment that

(39:07):
they tried very hard to create andto protect, which is like, we're
going to take care of you.We know this is hard, we know
this is like three hours and themakeup chair is not fun, but we're
gonna try to make it a funatmosphere. We're going to try to make
you feel valued and as an actor, Like you don't get that on every
show. You just don't. Sowhen you find it, it's like there's

(39:28):
a reason why he's got this.He's amassing this like harem of incredible actors.
Because once you work on a Flannaganproject, like you don't want to
go back, like you know,it's seriously, it's like it's just so
great and a lot of us havebecome pretty close friends in fact, you
know, as a result, andso that's why you see that the behind
the scenes stuff is like there's somuch love and respect and very little ego

(39:49):
and everyone's just really kind of likethere to do good work and have a
good time. That great. Soundslike so much fun. Yeah, it
really is, it really is.It's I feel really grateful. And I've
said this four and I'll continue tosay it as many times as I have
to. I have said to Mikelike, if you need me to come
on to a set and like literallybe like hold a door, I will
do it. Just like, keepme in mind, just know that I'm

(40:12):
like, I'm available. It ismy point, you know. Same same
here. Okay, I don't knowif Mike listens to the podcast, but
hard same from Stacy nine. Yeahme too. We're I'll holden doors anytime
you need, perfect and I'll throwin some second analyzing too. Sure,
why not? We can always usethat? Yeah? Why not? Crystal?
Thank you so much for being withus today. We so appreciate you

(40:37):
sharing all of your experiences and yourtime with us. This is awesome.
We really really appreciate it. Thankyou. You're so welcome. Well,
thank you for having me. It'sbeen a really lovely conversation. Yeah,
thank you, it was so muchfun. Yeah, hopefully we'll see you
in another flan Again series. Thankyou. That was all so come on.

(41:00):
Yes, like that has once again, not that I didn't feel this
way already, but it has onceagain confirmed my life goal, which is
to somehow get onto a Mike flanAgain show. Like that's clearly what we
need to do, both of us. We both need to be on there.
Absolutely minor characters at a bar orsomething that could be us. We

(41:22):
could we could, yes, wecould do. Yeah. So Mike,
we mean it. If you're listening, we're available. I will drop everything
and come to come to wherever youare. And like students, clients,
it's okay, I'm there to beon your production. But we're not trying

(41:43):
to sound desperate, but technically we'redesperate. Yes. But Crystal what a
lovely personality that we didn't really getto see, you know, in the
show. And I loved hearing,you know, the whole psychology of what
she thought about not only you know, Frederick, but but her own That

(42:05):
was really poignant and relevant, youknow, Yeah, I thought you brought
up a great point too, abouthow you were able to identify with her
as you know, that person whofeels unsure of themselves in that situation,
and you know, like I thinkwe all can identify with that to a
certain degree of like that the feelingof am I supposed to be here?

(42:27):
Is I feel like I can actthis part, but am I really this
part? It's so great and justher points, you know, because that
that is what I do in myreal job, is help people who are
overly focused on their appearance or reallyput that above everything else and end up
doing a lot of unhealthy things,you know, for the sake of their

(42:47):
appearance. And you know, she'sright that focus on that. As you
age it, you know, there'snot much left. There's not much we
can do. You know, wecan have a bunch of plastic surgery,
but that doesn't really solve anything.So I totally appreciated that, particularly for
women. Let me ask you somethingas a professional here for a moment,

(43:10):
like let's say let's say you're atherapist, right, and let's say let's
just say hypothetically, let's just sayhypothetically, I'm a therapist. Well,
definitely, you're a therapist. Buthypothetically, yeah, yeah, let's say
that Marella was your patient. Okay, yeah, and Marilla calls you and
says, hey, I've been invitedby my brother in law to this sex

(43:35):
party, and I'm thinking about goingbecause I feel like I'll be able to
get in touch with my younger selfshould I go. What would your advice
to her be? Well, Imean, I want to make a clear
that I don't like give advice,of course. Okay, so I'm not
going to say yes or no,because yeah, if I tell her to

(43:57):
go and she gets an acid bathand she's going to go, well,
you told me to go to party, that's a lawsuit, yeah, right,
right right. You know, Iwould basically talk with her about just
what she said. It's nice tofeel seen, it's nice to have those,
you know, like feelings of ouryounger self kind of be woken up.

(44:20):
And I mean I probably would say, like, let's go through the
pros and cons here of going tothe party, you know, and I'm
sure that the cons would outweigh thepros, and then I would try to
say, how can we mimic someof those feelings that you're missing? In
some healthier avenues. Ah, Isee. So it's like how to make

(44:42):
your own sex party without going tothe sex party. Yes, like,
maybe she needs to work on herrelationship with Frederick, or if that's not
salvageable, well then she's got someother decisions to make, or or maybe
she can rekindle a different television show, or she could start a podcast about
a television joke with somebody who hasno experience with the psychotherapy whatsoever. Yeah,

(45:07):
that sounds like a bad yeah,but so there's other options. Because
even if that didn't end that way. I think she's right. I think
if Perriet actually, you know,propositioned her, she would have been out
of there, you know. Orthe alternative was that if she had sex
with him. I can't imagine shewould have felt good about that. So
I can't imagine any scenario that wouldhave ended well for that character. So

(45:32):
but I'd want her to come upwith that herself. Yes, of course,
that's very sound and reasonable thinking,which is clearly why someone would pay
you to do that. Whereas ifsomebody had called me up and said,
I'm thinking about doing this, what'syour advice, My only advice would have
been whatever, you do, justmake sure you're out of there before midnight.
You know what I'm saying, Likethat's the one thing. Avoid the

(45:55):
acid bat or like I was jokingbefore, like there's carry ok, right,
like there's there's less potentially. AndI don't have a problem with orgies,
sure theoretically, you know, butfor her not the right avenue.
Probably there's a fine line between anacid bath, sex party, orgy and

(46:20):
carry ok karaoke right right right,it's very close, very closely. Feelings
are the same. Yeah, allright, great, I think we've covered
a lot here today. This isvery Yeah. So that's a lesson to
everyone out there. As our finallesson. This is our final, our
final thing here. This is itour last, our last commentary. We've

(46:45):
bonused ourselves out. We have,yes, you know, that's that's how
these things go. We are supergrateful for everyone who has watched or listened
to the show, watched us ifyou like. I don't know what it's
like at your house, but weare super grateful for everybody who supported us,
and also to everyone at Netflix andall of our wonderful guests who have

(47:06):
come on and talked to us aboutthe show as well. As everybody at
Strawha Productions, Maggie and Ryan forbeing there and helping us record all these
episodes. And if you have listenedto the show and you thought, gosh,
I really liked it, maybe puta review up there on Apple or
Spotify or something and say that itwould be worthwhile to hear more from us
in the future. We would besuper super grateful, Yes we would.

(47:30):
So. It was so much fun. And we look forward to psychoanalyzing something
else in the future. And youknow, if you have some ideas of
shows you know that are coming thatyou think we should psychoanalyze, please feel
free to reach out. And Lindsey, let's not make it another year before
we do another show. Well maybewe'll do our best. Yeah, yeah,

(47:52):
I'm sure I'll have I'm sure I'llhave some free time at some point.
But I've had a wonderful time.This is always so much fun to
work with these Daisy Thank you somuch. This is always for having me
along this. Yeah, thank you, Lindsay. And now our time is
up. Take care everyone, solong, therapy's over, Get out of
here, go home. Yeah herewe live your life. Psychoanalyzing the Fall

(48:17):
of the House of Usher is aproduction of straw Hut Media. Your hosts
are Stacy and I and Lindsay Jones. Your producer is Maggie Bowles. Editing
and sound design by Daniel Ferrera.Theme music by Adrian Berenguer with additional music
from Marco Martini and Artie Son.Subscribe, rate and review, and come
back for new episodes every Friday,and tell us what should we psychoanalyze next.

(48:40):
Let us know by emailing us atPsychoanalyzing at strawhutmedia dot com. See
you next week.