An Interview with Rya Kihlstedt from ‘Orphan Black: Echoes’

Rya Kihlstedt as Eleanor Miller in Episode 105 of ‘Orphan Black: Echoes’ – ‘Do I Know You?’ (Photo Courtesy of Sophie Giraud/AMC.)

Caution: This interview contains spoilers for Episode 105 of ‘Orphan Black: Echoes’.
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After weeks of speculation and theorizing, regarding why Lucy was printed to life in Orphan Black: Echoes we came to learn during last night’s episode that it all related to grief. In that, Dr. Kira Manning lost the original Eleanor Miller, the love of her life, to dementia, and that prompted her to try and resurrect her love and fix the problem. Giving rise to a very intimate twist to this series that we will fawn over for days and to further explore the gravity of this twist… we sat down with Rya Kihlstedt, who played the next iteration of Eleanor Miller on the show… to discuss all things Orphan Black: Echoes.
 
John Betancourt I am very curious to learn how you came to play the role of Eleanor.
 
Rya Kihlstedt: I did a number of self-tapes that I sent in, to Anna (Fishko) and John (Fawcett), and I think… trying to remember if I had a script, I don't think, at least not the first time. I don't think I had a script. I think I just had scenes. And, you know, some idea of, this is really fascinating, and made something up in my head, and then I ended up, I was traveling and in Brazil, and got a note from my manager saying that they wanted to meet and test me and just do a meeting on Zoom. So, I was in Brazil with terrible internet in a room, trying to balance my computer and see them. And we had a really fascinating, interesting meeting. And then I ended up flying to Toronto, they had already started filming and I did a hair makeup test, and the most complicated and trickiest part is that I had to look like Krysten (Ritter), and Krysten and Amanda (Fix), and I had to look enough alike in three different generations to make it work. And Krysten is beautiful, but with very specific, unusual features. So, I think that was kind of the trickiest part. And I ended up wearing a prosthetic nose for the whole show, which is so spectacular that you don't notice. But interestingly enough, I look more like Amanda and Krysten looks more like Amanda than Krysten, and I look alike. So, we just had to find a way to string the three together.
 
John Betancourt: That’s just incredible, and we are going to talk about how you strung that together in a moment. But I do want to talk about how you mentioned, fascinating ideas, fascinating concepts. I'm very curious what fascinating aspects about the character of Eleanor just ignited something in you as an actor.
 
Rya Kihlstedt: It was a lot, I think Anna has created a show full of women that really, for me, the interesting part is it addresses and sorts out marriage, relationships, career women who are, I feel like Eleanor is a woman who is, who is ruled by her head, by her intellect, far more than her emotions in her heart. And to play that and look at marriage, relationships, before we even get into the clone world and dementia, and aging, and parents and I mean, I feel like it's such a multi-layered -- there's so many ideas and themes that circle through this, but that all circles back to kind of… women… and what it is being a woman of different generations, and it all fascinated me. And the more that we -- that Keeley (Hawes) and Amanda, and Anna, and we talked about it, the more complicated it got, which I love.
 
John Betancourt: So, this episode was so wonderfully layered, so beautiful. But it also, I think, from an acting standpoint, I couldn't help but also notice that the everything about this show, when it comes to the structure of Elanor’s life, everything is seamless. You know, Amanda and Krysten sync up so well, and you are a perfect extension of Krysten as well. How did you as an actor pull that off.
 
Rya Kihlstedt: You know, it's… I feel like I would have loved to have a little more time at the start of filming to really spend time with Krysten working on that. But I came in at Episode Five. They had already been filming four. Everybody was already deep in, you know, it was like being late to school, right? You get invited to the party. The party's already started. You're playing catch up. And in some ways, I mean, I would, but I think this is me, and probably most actors, always, you would love to go back and make different changes and have the opportunity to do things again. I would have loved more time to kind of develop and play with that, but I ended up, really just as much as I could, watching Krysten, just kind of taking what I thought would work without being too much, different generation, different print out.
 
How much can I thread in so it's subtle and doesn't feel like it's making a point or like it's, you know, like I am I'm pointing to something. And I tried to do the same thing with Amanda, like Amanda, and I had a number of meals together and talks, and I felt like, if we can string it through the three of us, even subtly, that will be perfect, but that was tricky. I would have loved to have come in at the beginning, before everybody started all together, and find that, I think, in a little more consistent but buried way, if that makes sense, but I'm glad you saw it and that it works enough.
 
John Betancourt: Now we have talked about the layers in brief, and there's so much in this episode, and it's so pivotal and so powerful. I'm curious what you hope the audience takes away from this particular episode, kind of from a lesson standpoint, if you will.
 
Rya Kihlstedt: Oh, my God. From a lesson standpoint, I don't know about a lesson standpoint, but I guess I feel like, for me, it's the episode where the show starts to open up, right? It starts to kind of get into where I think the show really starts to light fire, right? I feel like it really starts to kind of engage everybody, in all levels. And I don't know this, this episode is, you know, it's their… it's their love, right?
 
John Betancourt Now what's obvious to me, is how much you wanted to make sure you got the material right. Like I can hear the passion in your voice about it. I'm curious, on a more personal level, what it means to be a part of such a pivotal episode. Because, like you said yourself, this is, this is the one. What does that mean to you as a as a person and as an actor?
 
Rya Kihlstedt: I mean, I… I guess I felt like this project. I mean, to be part of something with such smart women everywhere I turned. I mean, you know, from Keeley to Anna to, you know, all of our writers on set, Amanda… like we had extraordinarily bright, smart, engaged, curious, thoughtful conversations every day. And you don't get to do that all the time, you know. And we really, I felt like got to dive in and explore marriage, what that means, what that looks like, the thought of dementia, the thought of losing your mind. What that means in a relationship, what that means if a relationship is suddenly built and started, built on, on a lie, how do you repair that? What is it, you know, how does your relationship survive? And then, for me personally, it brought up a lot of… a lot of thinking about what, you know, what moving ahead in my life looks like? What are the important things for me, right? I turned 55 this year, and you kind of go, “Alright, where do I draw the lines like, what happens if dementia…” you know, I've got two kids, what do I want them to be responsible for, not be responsible for, you know, watching my parents age, it really made me think of all of that in my life and in the imaginary a lot.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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