Sheryl Lee Ralph on her return as The President In Motherland: Fort Salem
Tonight is the finale of the second season of “MOTHERLAND: FORT SALEM,” starring Taylor Hickson, Jessica Sutton, Ashley Nicole Williams, Amalia Holm, Demetria McKinney and Lyne Renée.
The series is written and created by Eliot Laurence. With Laurence, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick are executive producers. Amanda Tapping, Erin Maher, Kay Reindl and Bryan Q. Miller will also serve as executive producers on the series.
Tuesday’s finale picks up where last week’s cliffhanger left us, as “the Camarilla brings the fight to Fort Salem,” per the official logline. “Raelle, Abigail, Tally, and their allies are forced to make impossible, world-changing choices. This season has followed our witches as they confronted a new threat from an ancient group of witch hunters, the Camarilla. Reluctantly working with the Spree, our trio’s training intensified when their magic, relationships, and beliefs were pushed to the limits.”
During a roundtable discussion with other journalists, actress Sheryl Lee Ralph spoke about the return of her character President Kelly Wade.
This season, we see a lot of our reality and political climate reflected. There are testing centers, the plague, and children and pirates. Maybe canceled culture? Yes. So I wanted to talk a little bit about episode nine. We see the president holding all accountable. Can you talk about how that reflects in the way that we revere our own leadership and our political landscape, and being on the kind of right side of history?
Sheryl Lee Ralph: It's so interesting, because when we first started the show, all of this that we're in now, what's not happening, right? We start and then we get into this next season, this next season, and then it's, we're just at the beginning of what's going on. And then I think, how does Elliott Lawrence, get all of this in his head, and bring this out this way? It's been absolutely amazing to me. I spoke about this earlier General Alder should be revered for one, being a woman who has lasted as long as she has in her position of power. But then you pull back the screen and realize she's lasted that long. by sucking the life and beauty out of other young women. She literally changed their life, their beauty, and has them become her biddies so that she can remain powerful, and beautiful. And I don't like that.
I don't like the fact that this woman has such great power. We're going to find something out about her that one we saw last season. She doesn't mind puppeting people. She knows it's against the law. It's against the hate court. She knows it's one of the worst things that you could do. But if nobody finds out, who knows that she really did it. So when I arrived, she is shocked to see me in my right mind. speaking truth to my own personal power, as she doesn't know what I'm going to do next. We also learned throughout this second season, that when you get into somebody's head, parts of them are also left with that person. So we don't know what I know about her. We don't know what's to come. But for me, it's been an interesting journey. But I don't want to take that character with me when this is over. Because she's all there is a bad woman. The President has the possibility of being equally bad. And I want to stay on the right side of history.
You're comfortable playing the president? What goes into it? Is it the hairstyle, the voice, the clothing? Anyone who plays a president, whether it be on TV or for film, they have to have a certain stature. You've now played the role on several episodes. Are you comfortable as the President?
Sheryl Lee Ralph: You know what, I felt myself as president that very first episode, Eliot Lawrence wrote an incredible character for me. And the moment I read her, she resonated with me. I am amazed at how taking on this character, I change. And it's so strange to me, because it's real. And it's when I see it on screen, I'm like, “oh, whoa, Do I look like that?” This woman president weighed. She has a dark persona. She's a happy person. She's not that happy. My voice is higher pitch, but voices lower pitched. I talk faster. She talks slower. She's very measured in her speaking, and she doesn't smile a lot. And when she does smile, it's almost like a dance.
There's just something at work with you in terms of like, when you were doing your science, or this is something that like, maybe if you saw, you know, your dailies was like, oh, maybe I could do this and so forth. We don't see that. We don't see that there. We're working. It's working very, very fast because we go to work, we shoot it, they start editing right away. So we're not seeing dailies or anything like that. I come in, recurring so I'm not rehearsing with the latest. I come in, I land, I go to work. So it's either it's there, or it's not there. And I guess Eliot trusted me to just bring it because it's really me interpreting what's on the paper, and I can see it in my face. When I saw me get out of that car. I was like, “Whoa. Oh, no.” It took me back and I'm acting it. But I did not see it. So I'm really fascinated about this. I'm fascinated about this character. And I believe there's some sort of witchery in there, because it's just like, wow, I can really feel that. And she's not your normal type of politician. That's a deadly politician. We see politicians. We've seen them play. She's a cross in between two of them. And that to me is very scary.