[Editor’s note: The following contains mild spoilers for The English.]
The new Prime Video series English An unconventional Western for a number of reasons, but romance at its center may be the most central. “It was the most tender and surprising love story,” says star Emily Blunt. consequence. “I loved their chemistry.”
Set in the late nineteenth century, largely on the wild plains of Kansas and Wyoming, English It focuses on a vengeful Englishwoman (Blunt) and an ex-Pawnee soldier (Chask Spencer) who becomes an essential part of her quest for revenge. As they work together to fight and survive, a bond that was largely by design develops, according to writer/director Hugo Blick (The honest woman).
“The picture of a cowboy, at least the one I answered, is vindictive thoughts about something done wrong to our central character, and they go out and come up with a solution because no one else can,” Blake says. And then there’s this other side that’s less familiar with Westerns — the romantically epic thing you might see in me Doctor Zhivago. So you have the huge, wide-open case of revenge, and then that intimacy of the love story. It develops at its own story, its own pace and its own overtones, and has been just as important from the start. So these two disparate elements give the story its tension, and perhaps its weirdness. “
Cordelia and Ellie first meet in dire straits, both in danger thanks to the outlaw elements in the West, and despite their very different backgrounds, they become very closely bonded. As I read the script, Spencer says, “I wanted to know more and more, as I was constantly turning the page, where their relationship was going. When I saw how they came from two different sides and two different cultures, I found it really cool that they had found common ground and built into tragedy and healing.” “.
Blunt agrees, saying the bond between Cordelia and Ellie “is so beautiful. I thought she was just this kind of upbeat cheery, and he was quite veiled and restrained and a man of few words. And so it made for these lovely sparkling scenes between them as they reveal more and more of themselves to each other.” And they need each other to survive, and they need each other badly.”
The ebbs and flows of the relationship over these six episodes came quite naturally for the cast, even though they put in a bit of a twist upfront. “We were rehearsing on Zoom before we got to Spain,” says Plant. “Then we spent two weeks in Spain talking about it. But I don’t think we exhausted any of the scenes. We basically talked about it and realized how we treated them and felt the same for them.”
English (Prime Video)
