Into the Badlands season 3 actress Orla Brady previews what we can expect from Lydia this year, what the show is like without Quinn, and who gets the coolest stunts.
Orla Brady has been on Into the Badlands since season 1, and over the course of two full seasons, we’ve seen her character grow in ways that one wouldn’t expect from an ex-baroness. She’s been cunning and calculating, but she also has a good heart and cares for people in a way her husband never did.
With season 3 about to kick off, I spoke to Orla about how Lydia’s character will continue to evolve. This is a transcription of our conversation, slightly edited for optimum clarity.
Related: Into the Badlands season 3’s Lorraine Toussaint says Cressida and Pilgrim won’t let us down
I should start off by congratulating you on making it to season 3. I feel like it was a little touch and go there for Lydia near the end, so I’m glad we get to see you again.
Yes, I know. All last year, we were all going, “Hm, it’s bloodbath time up at the end. I wonder if I’m in it.” So we were pleased to go to a second year here. We all think we live in Ireland now. We’ve sort of settled in here. We know our restaurants. We hang out. It’s heaven to do another year here. It really is.
So what are you most excited for fans to see in season 3?
I think the fight sequences are amazing this year. I mean, I think they’re always amazing, but they’re very, very character driven this year, which is a good thing. They’ve got that right, in the show. The fights very much involve people you know and they are driven by character rather than just being, “Oh, here’s a fight.”
Off the top of my head, I would say Tilda is an interesting one to watch. She has done some fights this year, and some wire work, that is just spectacular. She’s been so brave and ready for us, doing these huge things that I think I would not be able to do. I would have to ask a stunt person to fill in for that bit. Ally [Ioannides] just goes for it. She goes for it in a way where we all go, “Wow, that’s extraordinary.” So I think her character comes along beautifully. And she also has a relationship that I think becomes very interesting.
For three of the episodes we’re working with a director called Paco Cabezas, who is extraordinary. He’s a filmmaker. He’s so talented. He’s amazing. I have seen some of the footage on playback, and it makes Ireland look like heaven on earth. And then hell on earth sometimes. There’s a war scene at the beginning, where war wages across the land, and I just think it’s stunning, really beautiful, really filmic. There is also a fight at the very beginning between The Widow and Nathaniel Moon. Nathaniel Moon is Sherman Augustus, a really lovely actor who played a guest role last year, and everyone loved him so much and thought he was so good that he got invited back to be a regular. There he is right up front and center, before the titles, doing this huge fight up on a tower with Emily [Beecham], and it’s gorgeous. So I love the opener.
Lydia has gone from the top of the food chain to the very bottom of it in seasons 1 and 2. Where do we find her in season 3?
We find her in a place of acceptance. She’s gone back to the Totemist camp. I think, originally, at the end of season 1, we find her at the Totemist camp into season 2 because there’s nowhere else for her to go. She will literally be killed or starved to death unless she goes back to her father. But by the end of season 2, when everything is falling apart, Quinn is being killed and Sunny goes off, she goes back to the Totemist camp, this time willingly. This time to go back and, up to a point, preserve the legacy of her father. She is in acceptance that her life has changed, and she is at peace with that. That she is no longer a women in power, she is no longer a woman of status. But she wants to understand who she is as her own person and no longer live vicariously through husbands, fathers, sons. She wants to just be her own woman. So she decides to run the Totemist camp, take care of the people, and it becomes a de facto refugee camp because there’s war raging in the Badlands at the beginning of season 3. She is, if you like, the head nurse, the one who takes people in, takes in the wounded and takes care of them. So it’s a good place to be, in acceptance of your life.
In the trailer, we see Lydia on a horse, we see her riding into battle, and she always has Sunny’s blade by her side. Is she going to see more action this season?
She is going to see more action, yes! Lydia gets her knife out and dispatches a few people to oblivion. There isn’t tons of fighting for me, obviously. I’m not one of the main fighting characters, but I do get some significant moments. There is a fabulous battle scene, which I don’t think I can tell you very much about because it’s right at the end of our episode 8. And that is the mid-season finale. I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you much about it, but Lydia does get to take a weapon and go out and do something significant — and on horseback!
They brought this beautiful horse in for filming. It’s a horse that rears beautifully. On a little nudge, he will rear so high, that you can’t believe it. So she gets to gallop around the place on a horse, and then rear up and ride and have a weapon at the same time. For me, that was quite a challenge because I had to up my skills as a rider. So we had this fabulous [trainer come in] He’s not a horse trainer, he’s more an actor trainer. I call him the actor whisperer because he can come in and calm you down and tell you that you’ll be alive at the end of this, and he was right. He was fabulous.
It also looks like Lydia is trying to align herself with The Widow this year, which I think is interesting considering The Widow has destroyed Lydia’s lifestyle and has a record of changing allegiances at the drop of a hat. What is it that The Widow potentially offers Lydia to make her interested in an alliance?
Lydia, remember, is a pragmatist. She looks at what is, rather than what the world [could be]. She doesn’t dwell on, “Oh, if only…” She thinks, “Okay, this is what I have. Here’s the offer on the table.” It’s akin to: are you better out of government or in government? Sometimes you do a deal with people who are not aligned with you in terms of belief because you think, “Well, maybe it’s better to be on the inside and be in power than be on the outside and stay with your idealism.” It’s in fact an offer from The Widow: I will put you back in a position of power, you’ll ally with me, and we’ll work together. So at a certain point Lydia understands that this might be a better position for her to be able to help people, and it might be a better position for her to maybe regain her own power.
I think, along the way, after that, she forms a genuine affection for The Widow. From the outside, The Widow seems quite capricious sometimes, and quite fickle in her alliances, but if you understand what her motivation is, which was ultimately saving young girls and women from the brutality of that world, then you begin to understand who she is. I think Lydia becomes quite fond of her, actually. We loved doing those scenes. There’s not a lot of female friendship in this; it’s very much about a battle about amnesty than friendship, so it was a little lovely breathing space for myself and Emily to play those things.
I’m always interested about the aesthetic of this show because it’s just amazing, but you can also learn a lot about the characters by seeing how they dress. Lydia, in particular, is not wearing any baron colors in the promotional material. She was, in the beginning, wearing essentially rags, and then we see her in this beautiful green dress. So what can you tell us about some of the looks you’ll have this season and maybe what that could possibly mean for how well she’s doing?
You see her back at the Totemist camp and they just grab what they can. They all wear rags because that’s really all they’ve got. When The Widow comes to her and proposes an alliance, The Widow dresses her in a sort of livery, if you like, and that is that fabulous green dress, and it’s quite regal and so on. Lydia then chooses to go forth and try to create her own look, which is more pared back. You’ll see when you come to it. It’s plainer, it’s more to do with being free to act rather than being all done up in these costumes. She wants to create, ultimately, her own world, if you like. She would like to get, not back, but forward to a position of having autonomy and power and do something with that power. Do something decent.
Quinn was a worthy adversary for two seasons, but now that he’s gone, Pilgrim will try to fill those shoes. How do you think he stacks up?
Oh my God, he’s fabulous. I mean, we were all kind of scratching our heads and were a bit worried. Marton [Csokas] was amazing. He really can do that sort of threatening, scary evil so well. And before we knew about Babou, we thought, “Goodness, I wonder how they could ever match that. I can’t imagine who would do that.” And then I remember when he was cast, I remember seeing a picture of him and he just looks so lovely. When you meet him, he’s so lovely. He’s this beautiful, gentle man. He has a really lovely smile, and a very gentle way about him, and you think, “How is that going to work that he’s evil?” But of course it’s very clever casting because it was not trying to recreate the powerful baddie in the sense that Quinn was. I would put it more akin to the kind of person who persuades people to do evil in the name of faith, essentially one of these religious shysters. There are many of them — we all know who we’re speaking about — or there are warlords around the world who say we’re fighting the good fight and we’re doing it for God, whatever that God may be, and right is on our side. They persuade people that it’s God’s work and they do great violence, but they do it with persuasiveness. So, ultimately, that is a very dangerous thing. It’s more low-key in its expression, but it’s very dangerous, very powerful. And, of course, Babou is a stunning actor, so you do get enormously creeped out by it. It’s a very successful performance.
I’m particularly interested in seeing how Lydia reacts to Pilgrim because he is a bit of a zealot, and of course her father is also a respected religious man, so what does she see when she looks at Pilgrim?
Two things here. One is that in the piece you won’t see her engaging with Pilgrim very much because that’s just not how it goes in the story, but who Lydia engages with more is Pilgrim’s mother. Pilgrim’s mum is played by Lorraine Toussaint, and if anything, they go head to head. But essentially, she thinks the same thing of the both of them, which is that she sees through them. Lydia sees right through them. They’re talking about faith and belief and Azra and how he’s a messiah and they’re coming to save people. Lydia has been around the houses. She sees right through it. It’s a power grab. They’re using the name of religion and God and faith in order to justify it, but it’s exactly the same as a power grab by anybody else. It’s just done to more vulnerable people to justify the violence and the power grabs. So she knows that these are shysters.
As a final teaser, overall, what can we expect to see from Lydia this season?
We can expect to see a little smattering of killing — not that she goes after it, but when she’s cornered, she’s a bit like the animal. They’re fine, they won’t come near you, they want to stay away from you, but if you corner them, they’ll come at you. And she does that. And you will also see the fact that at the beginning of the year, Quinn is dead and she very much wants to understand who she is as a person, not in relation to a husband, a father, a son. She’s not living her life vicariously anymore. She is becoming her own woman, and she wants to do that very much. She assumes she would be on her own, and then one day in tottles a former lover, and they loved each other very much when they were young, and they couldn’t be together, so you can expect an unexpected relationship for Lydia.
