Since MTV's reality juggernaut The Real World aired, audiences have been fascinated by the human study of putting complete strangers together in one location. What's not to love about watching “what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real”? It's a tried-and-true formula that we've also seen translated into some of the biggest TV dramas today, like the seemingly perfect hotel getaways of The White Lotus, the infamous Hollywood quarrels of Ryan Murphy's Feud, and the luxury wellness retreats of Hulu's Nine Perfect Strangers. Each chapter of these anthology series, set in new locations with a new group of interesting characters (save for one or two recurring characters) at their center, offers an extremely captivating microcosm of society that is wholly entertaining—if not mildly stressful—to watch.
Lucky for us, one of those brilliant shows, Nine Perfect Strangers, is back following a record-breaking first season. Trading in the California sunshine and idyllic Tranquillum House for the icy Austrian Alps and sprawling mountaintop resort Zauberwald, season two welcomes nine new wealthy guests for a complete mind-and-body healing experience. Returning at the helm is the program's fearless leader and wellness guru, Masha Dmitrichenko (an excellent Nicole Kidman)—this time sporting a severe bob and facing her own financial and emotional demons—to guide her patients through unconventional microdosing treatments.
Much like its first season, the Nine Perfect Strangers season two ensemble is jam-packed with talent that shines from every corner: Mark Strong as angry billionaire David; Christine Baranski as the impossibly glamorous absentee mother Victoria; Murray Bartlett as disgraced children's TV host Brian; Annie Murphy as the smart yet troubled Imogen; Henry Golding as rich kid Peter looking to reconnect with his father; King Princess as creatively stuck piano virtuoso Tina; and Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Wolfie, Tina's smothering girlfriend. The story and arc of Wolfie and Tina—a couple on the brink of despair, one half just hoping to escape the intense expectations of being a music prodigy and the other desperate for her partner to find herself again—is a particular standout. King Princess, in her acting debut, and Richardson-Sellers deliver dynamic, heart-wrenching performances in this pressure-cooker relationship ready to burst open.
Following last night's pivotal episode for Tina and Wolfie (episode four), we talk to actor, producer, and director Richardson-Sellers about feeling unsettled in Wolfie's vulnerability, the “magic” of working with King Princess, and the master class that is watching Kidman at work.
What was your entry point to Nine Perfect Strangers? Liane Moriarty's book? Season one?
I'd watched Big Little Lies and loved it. Through some research, I was like, “Interesting, it's based on a book.” When Nine Perfect Strangers came out, I was like, “Okay, same writer.” I watched it, and what I love about her books and how they have been translated is the human studies. It's the diversity and the gray area that it leads into. It's very much what's not said as much as what is said, and it's all about the tension building as well. I think what they did well with this season is it's nine completely different humans. It's such a weird, quirky mix of people put together in the middle of nowhere left to figure it out for themselves.
Speaking of new characters, what were the qualities of Wolfie that really interested you?
She's a character unlike any I've ever played before, which, as an actor, I find extremely exciting. I tend to play quite strong, empowered, badass characters, and she, at this moment in time, is slightly lost. She doesn't really know who she is outside of the relationship. She's quite insecure, quite fragile, and her whole life is geared toward trying to save Tina and revive Tina's career and, therefore, their relationship. I thought it was interesting because her heart is in the right place. It's just [that] she's lost her compass. The journey you see her go on in the whole season is refining that compass and what, therefore, is the consequence. Can their relationship survive that? Up until pretty much the final draft coming out, none of us knew whether they were going to stay together or not, so the whole time we were filming it, it felt very real. We were like, “Is this relationship going to work? Is it not?” which was a really fun way to go into it rather than already knowing the ending.
In what ways could you personally connect with Wolfie? On the flip side, what ways did she challenge you?
It was hard not to get frustrated with her sometimes because I wanted to just shake her and be the best friend like, “Sort your shit out! Can't you see this is not healthy for you?” But then to have to go against that and live in it and to feel what that felt like was hard. It actually started leaking into my life a bit. I just felt a bit unsettled and a little bit uneasy and had all these feelings. … I kept being like, “No, that's Wolfie. That's not you.” So that was interesting to experience.
In terms of the good things, even though it's in the wrong way, the ability to completely debase yourself [and] to dedicate yourself to love and life, I think, is a beautiful quality if it's not misused by you or the other person. That subservient, passionate dedication to art… She's so enamored by Tina's talent that she will do whatever she can to preserve it and to get it to as many people as possible. I think putting yourself secondary to art is not something which I necessarily say is the right way to do things, but it is an interesting and admirable quality to be able to do that.
In episode four, we get more of Wolfie and Tina's backstory, and their relationship hits a turning point. Why do you think Wolfie is so dead set on helping Tina get back to herself?
I think she genuinely believes if you have an extraordinary talent you have a duty to give it to the world. It's so beyond us as mere humans. You're basically channeling brilliance, and she feels that Tina is holding that back from the world, and she's determined to release it into the world. She almost can't separate Tina from her talent, so when she's trying to get Tina fixed, get her back out there, it's because she genuinely believes that this is what Tina's destiny is and how lucky Tina is to be able to have that because all [Wolfie] ever wants is to be able to have talent like that.
Wolfie is so focused on getting Tina on track—what about her own music dreams and needs in this relationship?
I think she had that passion. She was willing to give herself up to the art, but she didn't have the opportunities. As you'll see later on, there are other reasons why that got capped for her. She had kind of given up on that dream when she found Tina, and then Tina gave her a second chance to not live it for herself but to live it through Tina. It was like this final lifeline to keep her tied into her passion. That's why it's so complicated.
Tina is played by King Princess in her acting debut. How was it for you two finding these characters together?
We were both in New York, so we met up for a day before we went out to Austria. We spent the day just running lines and chatting about the characters, and that was really helpful. We also did a chemistry test together, and it was undeniable that it was this effortless chemistry between us, so I think that really helped. She's very organically talented, so it's really fun to work with someone who it just feels very natural with. There was some improvisation. There was some rewriting. We were just finding the characters together.
Do you have a favorite day of filming with King Princess?
I loved the scene in episode four when I come rushing out and finally lay into [Tina]. It was awesome. It was like, finally, after all this buildup to stand up for herself and say her peace. We both practiced that separately, KP and I, so when we came together and did it, afterward she was like, “Whoa. I did not expect that to come out.” That was the magic of it. It's a moment for both of our characters to finally release together, and it's heartbreaking, but it's also empowering. You're both celebrating finally and then also so sad because it's hard to come back from that. Once you've said and heard those things, you can never forget that.
You got engaged earlier this year—congratulations! If you could offer Tina and Wolfie some relationship advice, what would it be?
Oh my gosh. I think the pillars myself and my fiancé really hold up above all is honesty, communication, radical communication. So it's always saying the thing that you don't want to say that you know is inside you and … being vulnerable enough to say that. Another thing is respect, maintaining respect for each other above all else no matter what. All of those, I feel, are lacking in Tina and Wolfie's relationship. If they can have a go at that—try some radical communication, just be honest and vulnerable with each other—I think it would get them a long way.
This season is set in the snowy Austrian Alps. How did being in this cold environment over months of filming with this group of people impact the filming process for you?
Well, it was interesting because with the horrors of global warming, it was actually the warmest summer they'd had in a long time. Where there was meant to be so much snow, there were times when all the snow had melted, and we were having to get trucks of snow from higher up in the mountains, and they were rolling out fake snow blankets. We were there roasting in all of our snow gear. It's actually a strange experience, especially because we filmed until May. In the beginning, when we first got there in January, that was incredible because it was literally just this icy wilderness. We toured all over parts of Austria and the Alps. So we go to tiny, little villages and go to the most amazing lakes. Hallstatt is like this postcard town, which is just amazing. Salzburg is amazing. While not filming, we're hanging out in these amazing cities and just getting to immerse in the culture, and we're walking down the streets like, “How is this real? How is this our lives?” It was a very surreal backdrop.
The place we filmed some of the interior for the hotel is this mad mansion in the middle of nowhere in Austria, and it's quite creepy. In between scenes, you'd be in these beautiful but kind of eerie rooms where everything is just collected from so long ago. That was really cool to be around.
Nicole Kidman returns as guru leader Masha. What was it like for you to get to watch her in this role?
Amazing. She is someone I've grown up admiring. I think I fell in love with her in Moulin Rouge. I was a teenager [and] knew all the lyrics, so I'd sing them all the time. To finally be with her and to act with her and to see her presence and just how committed she is in every single moment, you can't help but feel unnerved, and everyone steps it up a bit. There would be a really strong energy on set when she was in a scene. When she steps into Masha, it's just so 360. It's amazing. I actually got to shadow an episode as a director, so I got to watch episode five, which was predominantly her and Mark [Strong's] storyline. It was incredible just to watch her do her thing and the nuances and how different every single take was. It was like a master class in acting.
After doing this, what are your thoughts on health and wellness retreats? Do you buy into it?
It's all about the intention and integrity of it. I love health and health things, but it has to be done from a place of genuinely wanting to change, wanting to better, wanting to do the self-work. … So often, I think it can get misconstrued as a luxury item or a luxury product, which I don't think it should be. I think it should be something quite humbling, actually. I want to be shaken outside of my daily comforts. So that's my personal take on it.
I feel like a lot of the season we're actually self-therapizing each other and ourselves rather than [Masha] being the constant guide that she is in season one. It's a very different way of doing things—a lot more risky.
I'd also love to talk about the work you are doing with your production company, Barefaced Productions. Can you tell me about your mission for the company and what you have in the pipeline?
We're doing a relaunch of it because it got stopped by COVID. And my partner, Saba, and I are going to be helming it together. She's an incredible producer, which is finally the missing piece for me. We're working on projects which provide a stage, a platform for voices which are often not heard and not prioritized, the global majority voices, in a very nuanced way. Whereby the projects, who they are about is also who is creating them behind the scenes. It's a full experience, and we have a whole range of things coming.
We've got a couple TV shows. We've got an action-thriller drama. We've got a documentary we're working on. We've got a short film which I'm going to be directing as well, which is a drama-comedy. We have a short film called Mushy which will be coming out soon, which is an activism film looking at the asylum seekers who are crossing the Mediterranean by boats and what they're experiencing from the coast guards in Greece at the moment, which is horrific violence. So it's a full range of things. We're not going to slot ourselves into any kind of genre, but it's all the same shared theme of promoting underheard voices.
I know filmmaking is as much a part of your DNA as acting. What is really exciting to you right now from a directing POV?
I would say the main thing is the nuance. It's the gray. It's the really human stories, complex, layered, textured characters. It's the psychological play as well, so things may appear one way, but actually, there's something completely different going on. It's world-building—whether that's a completely different universe or whether that's just taking you into a world that you wouldn't normally have access to. And it's projects that really challenge you outside of your preexisting notions of humanity, society, culture, all these different things. I have a degree in anthropology and archaeology, and I think that leaks into everything I do, psychological study.
We will see you back on TV screens this fall with The Talamasca: The Secret Order. What can you tell us about it?
It's leading on from the Anne Rice universe, so like Interview With the Vampire, Mayfair Witches. It's a gritty spy-thriller drama. [It's] a very normal world you recognize, yet we are a secret organization that deals with maintaining supernatural creatures—controlling the witches and the vampires and the other mystical beings. I play a spy who works with the organization. She's very much a femme-fatale sleuth, lives deep in the gray. It's a very different character from Wolfie, which was really fun. I also did one called Wolf Hall, which came out earlier this year, where I played a 15th century British aristocracy member. To do Wolfie and then to do this one, the range is wide.
Catch up on season two of Nine Perfect Strangers, now streaming on Hulu.
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