Anna Tierney (Psycho Goreman) is winning raves for her role as Clara Morrow, an artist caught in the 8-episode mystery at the core of the story, in the smash hit series Three Pines.
Adapted from Louise Penny’s New York Times best-selling Chief Inspector Gamache series, Three Pines follows Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (Alfred Molina) as he investigates cases that happen beneath the idyllic surface of the Quebec village of Three Pines, finding long-buried secrets, and facing a few of his own ghosts.
The empathetic and astute Chief Inspector Gamache is tasked with solving a number of mysterious and perplexing murders in the strange-but-beguiling village of Three Pines. Assisted by his trusted team—the combative and troubled Sergeant Jean-Guy Beauvoir (Rossif Sutherland), the intelligent Indigenous working mother Sergeant Isabelle Lacoste (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), and the accident-prone rookie Agent Yvette Nichol (Sarah Booth)—Gamache and his group are initially treated suspiciously by the village’s residents. Yet despite the cool welcome, Gamache can’t help but find himself oddly drawn to this unusual place and its eccentric residents, including the owners of the bistro, Gabri (Pierre Simpson) and Olivier (Frédéric-Antoine Guimond), artists Peter (Julian Bailey) and Clara (Anna Tierney), bookshop-owner-cum-psychologist Myrna (Tamara Brown), gallery owner Bea (Tantoo Cardinal), and the irascible poet Ruth (Clare Coulter). The deeper Gamache delves into the secret lives of these people who have found sanctuary from the outside world in Three Pines, the more it affects him.
Check out our interview with Anna:
I love a good murder mystery. What I didn’t realize was that it was originally a book series. Did you know that going into filming?
Anna: I did know that, yeah. The way I heard about the project was that- originally I was working on a project in the UK called “Deceit” for Channel Four and the writer and creator of that show, Emilia di Girolamo, she wrote to me after filming finished on that project, and she knew that I was living and working between Toronto and London, and she said, ‘Look, I’m writing on this project and it’s filming in Canada and I know that you’re out there. These are the books that it’s based on. I’ve got no idea when it’s going to audition, but I’m just letting you know that this is happening.’ That, you know, doesn’t always happen in our industry and it was a really generous thing of her to do and what that gave me was a number of months where I could go and buy the novels and dive into the literature and the story. And that was a real gift when the audition finally came around, because I’d had all this time being able to be immersed in the stories and you know, I was really drawn to Clara Morrow, and I really felt like she was in my bones by the time I got to read for her because I’d been able to read all that source material, which is a gift for an actor if you get that much time to work on something before an audition.
For fans of the books, how closely would you say the show follows them especially regarding your character Clara?
Anna: So, for fans of the books, I think what they’ll love about the show is that the essence of the characters is really true to the books, I find having read the books myself, and I think they’ll love the charm of the town of Three Pines that the art department created, which is something really incredible. They really transformed this little town in the Eastern Townships in Quebec, called Saint-Armand into, in my opinion, something utterly magical. They build a pond that lives in the novel, they redid all these kind of empty buildings and structures to look like Myrna’s bookstore, and Olivier’s Bistro, and all those details were so well observed, you know, down to things like the kind of sweets that Olivier keeps on his counter. The art department really paid attention to all those things as much as possible. So, where it does deviate from the books, you still have this wonderful essence of the characters and Three Pines, which is another character in the novels and in the TV show…For me, I think Clara stays fairly close to the novels. We maybe don’t get to go into as much depth with all of the villagers in this first season because we kind of have to believe that anyone could be guilty and so we have to sort of fall in love with these characters, but also mistrust and at the same time, so I think that’s something that if we come into a season two, we’ll hopefully get even more depth with the villagers. Episodes five and six follow Clara and her husband Peter’s stories. Peter’s family who, you know, behave terribly, that’s all in the books. And that’s based on a book called “The Murder Stone.” And one thing that may be most different is the storyline that follows Blue Two-Rivers who’s a missing indigenous young woman. That story isn’t in the book in the same sense, in the books, there’s a missing indigenous boy and in the series, Emilia di Girolamo, our writer, has very desperately taken that seed of a storyline and made it into something that is very present in Canadian stories and in Canadian history. It’s something that I find the most powerful really in the show, and it’s something that Louise Penny, the author of the novel series wishes that she had managed to achieve in her books. It’s something that she really applauds Emelia for in the series. I think that’s maybe one of the biggest departures and also one of the biggest strengths of the show because it just really manages to speak to the Canadian identities that we have and doesn’t kind of whitewash things like most mainstream TV does, unfortunately. So yeah, hope that’s a good summation of some of the differences and similarities.
And talking about the missing Indigenous women, can you dive a little deeper into what it was like to work on a project like this that was tackling such a current issue?
Anna: Yeah. I felt very privileged to be part of a show that, you know, not just tackles these issues, but has a really strong indigenous cast, which most shows don’t, you know, and I think that for the indigenous performers in the show, they really felt that that was something unique and special that they hadn’t really experienced on film and TV before, so I think we all felt like something really special was happening. And at the same time, the stories are quite heavy and quite difficult to miss as an audience member, like even watching the show now that it’s all been finished and put out there, I find it is difficult subject matter. And what I think the show does brilliantly is that it really takes its time through those stories, it doesn’t rush through them. It gives the audience enough of a moment to let those things sink in and to experience them. I cried quite a bit watching the show because it is very powerful. And the other thing is that the creators of the show, you know, we’ve got Left Bank Pictures who are from the UK and Emelia, our writer, and our director, Sam Donovan and Andy, Harries at Left Bank, they were all very conscious of wanting to make sure that they told the story properly and not just from their perspective. They hired many indigenous consultants and we have our other fabulous director, Tracy Deer, who’s an indigenous director, and they were all able to make sure that the scripts and the stories were ringing true for them. And that’s really important that our creative team did all that due diligence and also credit to Emelia that when she was writing the stories and adapting from the novel series, she was writing those indigenous storylines before it really became kind of front page news for mainstream Canadian media, so before the mass graves were discovered at the old residential schools. Way before then, Emelia had been writing these stories because maybe as an outsider to Canada she had picked up on something that needed to be told. I feel really proud to be part of a project where everything was really considered and really carefully held by the creative team and, you know, on certain days where the subject matter was maybe more heavy, we had therapists on set and indigenous consultants on set and it was a really special environment to be in and one that there isn’t always much time for and a TV set. Yeah. That kind of sums up how I feel about being on the show and being part of those stories.
Yeah, that’s amazing because you don’t hear about shows taking that much care to make sure that what you’re doing is authentic.
Anna: It is an adaptation and you’ve got a character who is a white male, but they wanted to make sure that, you know, they were making a lot of changes. They were changing characters who were written as Caucasian and they were writing them as indigenous, which was wonderful in itself, but they had to make sure that, you know, our lead inspector, played by Alfred Molina didn’t seem like some kind of white savior. They were all really conscious of that throughout the process. They were doing an adaptation and he is a white male and they wanted to make stories, something different and be more, not just inventive, but just more reflective, really, of Canada’s people and I think they’ve done a really good job with that.
Speaking of Alfred Molina, the entire cast is just stellar. And what I liked about it is that it felt more like an ensemble. So what was it like working with everyone, especially with Julian who plays your on screen husband?
Anna: Well, it’s interesting that you say that it felt like an ensemble because I think that’s how we all felt, not just as the cast but also as the crew. And that really trickles down from your number one. Our number one was Alfred Molina and he was such a joy to work with, so generous, so hilarious, always lifting our spirits and kind of keeping us entertained but also being so professional. It’s a big task to be on set every day, from morning till night, when you are the lead, you know, it takes a lot of energy to do that over a number of months and he really did that with such incredible empathy. And so he allowed us to become this ensemble, and there weren’t lots of egos flying around on set, everyone felt like family.
And with Julian, who plays my husband, I feel so fortunate that you know, we got to play those roles together because he’s a really dedicated actor and he loves to talk about the work, he loves to talk about the characters. Before we started filming, because we are both paint painters, we went to an art gallery in Montreal and walked around and talked about art and we just talked about our own personal history and our interests. It was really important for us to get to know each other before we arrived on set, and not every actor is like that. So, I felt very lucky to have someone who is as keen to talk about the work and about the characters as I am and I made a really good friend in Julian throughout filming. I’m just so very lucky.
Has there been any talk of season two?
Anna: We are waiting to hear. I mean, it feels really hopeful because it was number one in Canada and the US, in Australia and UK and Ireland. Now we’re just waiting to hear. There’s so many stages to this job and this is unfortunately one of them, where you’re just waiting with bated breath to see if these stories get to continue. I really hope they do because I think this has been the most successful show for Amazon Prime Canada so far. And, you know, like we’ve talked about, it covers so many brilliant stories and really champions Canada’s indigenous actors, and I just think they’d be foolish not to continue to explore these stories. And there’s so many novels that it’s based on, too, there’s really rich source material there. So, I hope they do.
