SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for Episode 4 of Hulu‘s Nine Perfect Strangers.
Musician King Princess’ acting debut in Season 2 of Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers comes to the forefront of the series in the latest episode, which marks the halfway point.
As one of the nine new cast visiting Masha Dimitrichenko’s new wellness retreat Zauberwald, this time set in the Austrian Alps, Princess’ character Tina comes to the retreat at the invitation of her girlfriend Wolfie (Maise Richardson-Sellers), who hopes to help the stifled artist work through some trauma surrounding playing the piano. The ennui becomes more significant and apparent when viewers learn that Tina was a child prodicy musician.
“For Tina, it goes back, deep. This is not just about piano. This is about identity. This is about feeling like you don’t have any self-worth aside from one skill, like this skill determines everything that’s important about you,” Princess told Deadline ahead of the show’s launch. “So our goal was to make a really flawed relationship between these two characters [where] you’re rooting for them, but you kind of aren’t.”
Episode 4, titled “The Major Lift” specifically shines the spotlight on Tina’s backstory in a concert-like hallucination she has from the mushrooms that flows into a montage of memories from her past from her trajectory to performing and how she met Wolfie, who Tina blames for hovering and not giving her enough space while she works through her pain.
“Maisie and I worked tirelessly to create the most toxic lesbian relationship possible. It was important to us that that these characters are both likable and unlikable in certain ways,” Princess said. “At certain moments, you’re like, ‘Oh, just break up.’ That was important to us because, again, it’s complex, it’s weird. We’re finding these people — they don’t like each other. They love each other, but they don’t like each other, and we’re meeting them six years in.”
In he below interview, King Princess discusses her character’s relationships with other strangers at the retreat, the collaboration for Episode 4’s opening outfit and her thoughts on Tina and Wolfie’s relationship as their arc picks up mid season.
DEADLINE: How much did you know about this role when you auditioned for it?
KING PRINCESS: They sent me a character description, and I knew that she was a concert piano player, that she had grown up doing that, and that she was gay. I knew those things to be true. They gave me pretty generous scenes to audition with. I got a lot of context from what was going on within those scenes, and I could tell that [this] girl was troubled. There were chunks, I think it was like two or three scenes of me being bitchy, but it was fun. It was nice to get to play with that.
DEADLINE: At least in the first four episodes, we see your character form bonds with Murray Bartlett’s character and Dolly De Leon’s Sister Agnes. What was it like working with those two, and what you wanted to get across with those relationships?
PRINCESS: When I got the role and then I read the scenes with Murray, immediately, my heart sank, because it was so beautifully done. I loved that there was this intergenerational friendship that forms. Tina is a person who I don’t think was shown a lot of kindness and a lot of empathy when she was a child. She spent a lot of time in the practice room practicing, honing her skill, probably in a pressurized environment. And think about it, a kid on a TV show… What type of parents put kids on TV shows?
L-R: Dolly De Leon, King Princess and Annie Murphy in ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’
Disney/Reiner Bajo
I was thinking about that, and then in the context of this scene where this kind man is like, “Tell me about yourself, not just your skill or your ability or the reason why you’re on my TV show, tell me about you.” It’s a little thing, but I think it was really impactful for Tina, and then to see this man again in the middle of her quarter life crisis, I feel that all the time when I see somebody that I knew when I was a kid, like, “You showed me kindness.” So I think that’s exactly what that dynamic was.
And obviously, in real life, Muzzy and I are, that’s my special man. And then same with Dolly. That scene with her in the snow was the first scene I shot. She was incredible as a first scene partner. I told her, I was like, “Girl, I’m nervous. I’ve never been on camera like this. And also it’s cold, we’re in the snow.” We just sat there vaping, talking sh*t, and she just made me feel calm. A really generous actor. It’s such an interesting dynamic. A lesbian and a nun, in the woods. Very special I think.
DEADLINE: I love when she says, “Only she can have the answers.” And you go, “Masha?” And she goes, “No, God.”
PRINCESS: I was like, “So you’re a funky nun.”
DEADLINEL: We see your relationship with Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) unfold. Do you feel like she is kind of overbearing and smothering? I’m interested your take on that part, but then she did bring your character to this retreat because she wants to help her.
PRINCESS: Wolfie is looking at Tina like, “Why would you throw this away? Don’t you know how many people would want this opportunity?” She thinks it’s f*cking privileged and annoying and she thinks it’s off-putting that Tina is having this crisis in the first place.
L-R: King Princess and Maisie Richardson-Sellers in ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ Season 2
Disney/Reiner Bajo
We thought it would be really amazing to play into all those moments that we were given in the script of like, when Wolfie is overbearing, she really believes that she’s doing the right thing. She really believes that she’s just doing what she’s supposed to be doing, and Tina is furious about it.
DEADLINE: Did you have any input on the dress or any of the outfits you wore for the big recital scene in Episode 4? What did you want to take into that moment?
PRINCESS: The team of people who worked on this are so incredible. Me and Lizzy Gardiner and Anthony Byrne had a conversation about — we knew there was going to be a flashback scene of young me, or young Tina, and we wanted her to be in this hyper-feminine, frilly type situation, JonBenét [Ramsey] type situation. We thought for the nightmare that, how fitting would it be for Tina, who’s like, all black-clad, fitted vibes to, in her nightmare, be back at 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, in one of these dresses, which obviously a parent or a guardian was, like, “You’re wearing this. That was a super deliberate choice by us. We tried on a bunch of dresses, and we settled on that one, but it was great. I mean, that was what was so fun with working with his team, is there was input. They gave us input. They allowed us to investigate these characters deeper than what was even written. And then if we had a thought or an idea, it was best idea wins. That was a pretty epic scene to film.
DEADLINE: When Sister Agnes flashes back and she’s helping that woman, is that supposed to look like Tina, or you? Do you know anything about that?
PRINCESS: Okay, so when I was watching it, my friend had the same question, but I have no idea at all. That’s above my pay grade. My friend was like, ”Are you pregnant in this?”
DEADLINE: Because then you have stomach pain during the hallucinations.
PRINCESS: I think the vibe is that when you’re hyper-sensitive to everything around you, from the shrooms, everything is interconnected, kind of like the shrooms themselves, the mycelium. See what I did there? When the characters get really high, everything starts blending together and and they show, I think they did a fantastic job of showing that experience through some of the camera work and Frank’s DP work and the direction, but yeah, totally. I think in that moment, Sister Agnes is like,” I can help. I can help you.” And I’m like, “No touching, no touching zone.”
DEADLINE: Towards the end of Ep 4, Masha comes out and has the one on one, and your character has some realizations. Can Wolfie and Tina come back from this? Is it just getting started, their work with each other?
PRINCESS: I like that our arc is in episode four, because obviously there’s more than four episodes, and I think it’s interesting to see that these people hit their breaking point pretty early, and then that’s the question, right? And we didn’t know what was going to happen to them when we were filming it, which also informed a lot of the acting we did. It was scene to scene, it was like, there are moments of kindness, and then all of a sudden it pulls back. So we also didn’t know, and I can’t tell you, according to Hulu, but it’s a really interesting, complex relationship. We wanted to put a lot of our own experience into it, a lot of our having so many friends who have had breakups and get togethers and situationships and long relationships. Me and Maisie really dug into our community and like who we knew and things we could pull into this to make it feel real.
L-R: Maisie Richardson-Sellers and King Princess in ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ Season 2
Disney/Reiner Bajo
DL: Has this experience influenced your music or inspired you in any ways to get back into that?
PRINCESS: Totally, because, honestly, it’s done nothing but make my music and my performance better. Acting has been this incredibly cathartic experience where I am silly and investigating myself and playing, and that’s all you can ask for as an artist, right? It’s like you got a tool belt and you’re sharpening these different tools. And that’s what I feel like is happening. I went and shot a music video the other day, and I’ve noticed watching it back, I’m more comfortable, I’m standing a little taller standing taller. I got back from Germany, my friends were like, you’re standing taller.
This experience was so incredibly moving. I met so many people who chaperoned me through it, who gave me grace and kindness, even though I was a first-timer, and a lot of them are veterans, and it’s really just made everything better, including the music. I feel a lot less self-conscious about anything, really, because it’s really revealing to be on camera acting. So once you do that, you’re like, “Oh, I’m ready. Girl, let’s lay it down in the studio.”
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