How ‘The Serpent Queen’ Crafts a Modern Take on a Historical Drama

Series star Samantha Morton and executive producer Justin Haythe tell TheWrap about telling Catherine de Medici’s story through a unique lens

"The Serpent Queen" (Starz)
"The Serpent Queen" (Starz)

Historical figure Catherine de Medici gets the period-drama-with-a-twist treatment in Starz’s “The Serpent Queen,” as the show finds a unique way to tell the story of the Italian-born French queen, who influenced the politics of her adopted nation for decades. 

Starring Samantha Morton as the grown-up queen, Catherine tells her story to a young woman employed in the kitchen at her court – Rahima (Sennia Nanua) – explaining to her (and the audience) how she’s survived, found agency and even thrived in a court initially unfriendly to a young Catherine (played by Liv Hill), and always dangerous. But while breaking the fourth wall, or at least turning and talking to camera, which often stands in for Rahima, may feel fresh for a television series, it is inspired by classic theater works.

“Direct address, it’s been around since the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare, but it makes something incredibly urgent,” executive producer Justin Haythe told TheWrap. “But you’re right about the contemporary style of the show. Because when I first read the book, I hadn’t been looking to do a period show, I hadn’t been looking to do a royal show. But I wanted to do an antihero and in Catherine, I felt, I read and found a very modern antihero who happened to live in the 16th century, and happened to be a woman, and I couldn’t think of a female antihero that I’d seen before. And what made it so relatable to me is that she’s an outsider. And that’s why she’s telling the story to Rahima, specifically … somebody else who thinks they’re an outsider.”

When viewers meet the one-day queen, she’s hiding out in a nunnery, trying to – as an unpopular Medici, whose family power is waning – keep a low profile. But her uncle the pope (“Game of Thrones” alum Charles Dance) has managed to find her a match, to the second son of the King of France. Before she can go to French court, however, she selects a team of advisers, including a dressmaker and someone who is involved in the dark arts, all human weapons she wields to her advantage.

"The Serpent Queen" (Starz)
“The Serpent Queen” (Starz)

“Catherine was a unique character because she wasn’t born royal, she wasn’t considered attractive, she wasn’t considered rich,” Haythe said. “And she got dumped into this royal court, and against all odds played the game better than anybody else. And the word is ‘game.’ And I think that that just made it contemporary, it made it modern, while at the same time trying to respect what really mattered to the people of the day because otherwise, it’s hard to understand that.”

Morton said she found the take on Catherine unique.

“I think what Justin’s done so brilliantly … is have a different angle on how we’re going to see her and it says that in the poster: ‘Tell me what you would have done differently,’ you know, look at my story and tell me if you’d have done it any differently,” Morton said. “This season is only a snippet of her story because you listen to the audiobook or you do any research it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It’s really powerful stuff and quite extraordinary that she did what she did.”

Among those things, some quite dastardly, all of which will become more clear in the weeks ahead, is using her confidantes to give herself an advantage (it is to their advantage too, to help her as they are foreigners in the French court), and move up in the world. But Catherine must learn to believe in herself to get things to happen.

“She can’t trust anyone in that court because they’re going to kill her. So she has to create this world whereby she’s really empowering herself through understanding nature, and understanding herself and the power of manifestation, and the power of her power,” Morton said. “So many women, so many people don’t understand how powerful they are in life. … We talk about positive thinking or affirmations – she was just doing that back in the 1530s. She was somebody that was looking at herself as intelligent, knowing she was intelligent, that she could speak many languages, that her mathematical skills were incredible, that she could design gardens, that she was an astronomer and astrologer, she was all of these things.

“The Serpent Queen” premieres Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

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