Wunmi Mosaku and Abbey Lee on this week’s “metamorphic” Lovecraft Country
Watch where you step, fans of Lovecraft Country: There just might be a pile of discarded skin in your way.
This week’s episode of Lovecraft Country, “Strange Case,” focuses on Wunmi Mosaku’s Ruby, who wakes up after being wooed by William (Jordan Patrick Smith) and isn’t feeling or looking entirely herself. The change, William later explains, is due to a serum he’s developed that can give people the ability to change into who they’d rather be, offering them the fluidity to move between lives and appearances—albeit with some degree of body horror-infused bone cracking and skin shedding. William offers it to Ruby in exchange for a favor later, and Ruby hesitantly takes him up on it, becoming a white woman named Hillary Davenport. She uses the whiteness to what she thinks is her advantage, getting a managerial role at Marshall Field’s and diving into a world of loafing and privilege she’s only ever viewed from afar. Ultimately, though, the privilege wears on Ruby, and she ends up lashing out at her Marshall Field’s manager in a gruesome, goopy fashion. Upon returning home, she comes face-to-face with William, who reveals a big shape-shifting secret of his own—namely that he’s been Abbey Lee’s Christina the whole time.
The A.V. Club sat down with Mosaku and Lee to talk through the twists, turns, and bone breaks of “Strange Case,” including how Mosaku worked side by side with Jamie Neumann, the actor who plays Hillary, to really put all that pain on screen. Portions of that interview are in the video above, but a full transcript is below.
The A.V. Club: There’s a lot going on in “Strange Case.” Wunmi, how did you get into Ruby’s mindset, and how did you work with the actor playing Hillary Davenport?
Wunmi Mosaku: To access Ruby’s psyche and the mental space that she’s occupying in that episode, I really had to dig deep into my feelings of rage and injustice. There are a lot of things that I kind of pushed to the side. You bury them deep in order to just survive and step outside of your front door, so this role required a lot of exploration and questioning and answering very difficult questions about myself and society and how I respond to the world. Ruby chooses to do things differently once magic is in her grasp.
There was a lot of talking with Misha about rage. The rage one feels when one can’t walk around freely and be honest. I have truly never been honest outside of the home in regards to racism and inequality and what I’ve been subject to. Talking about that and bringing up these things that have happened to me in the past, I was able to access Ruby’s rage again.
I was surprised to know that it was all still very much there, even though I have a big old smile on my face most of the time. A lot of things started to come back up that I had completely forgotten about. We have to create a safe space on set so that I could explore those feelings freely and honestly.