Spartacus was a landmark television series for both Starz and fans of swords-and-sandals epics. The historical drama by Steven S. DeKnight premiered in 2010, and quickly earned a loyal fanbase which would follow the series through a prequel season, two sequel seasons concluding Spartacus’ journey. Now, 13 years later, an unexpected twist has occurred. Ashur, the traitorous henchman of Batiatus is back from the dead in an alternate reality that has him rise from slave to Dominus.
With the return of Ashur and the life of gladiators in Spartacus: House of Ashur we get a whole new set of devious, entitled, privileged Romans prancing around scheming to one up each other. Amongst the mix this time is Cossutia and Viridia, a mother-daughter duo that bring a new dynamic to the women of Spartacus.
I had the honour of speaking with Claudia Black and India Shaw-Smith about getting into the world of Spartacus, their characters, and their dynamics with Nick E. Tarabay’s Ashur.
Watch the full interview with Claudia Black and India Shaw-Smith below:
The series has given us a plethora of dynamic women, many of which used their brains and wit to cut down their enemies. The language of the series has always been a high point, but when it came to the women of the series, the words were even more sweet and deadly. I asked the duo what it was like to get into these roles, specifically adopting the language.
Claudia Black shared, “One of the things I found was a note that came consistently from Rick Jacobson was you can do less because the words will carry it. There’s so much written richness in the language. I remember meeting with the intimacy coordinators and them saying, “My God, this is so well written,” which is tragic in one sense, that it’s so rare for us to come upon such thoughtful language, and it’s a big responsibility. So finding ways to dial the instrument to the just right place to serve the poetry of the language. And then, thankfully, it’s really about, as it always is, really with acting, what’s happening with the other person in the scene with you, and how are you impacting each other, and how that sort of moves the story forward. So it’s, but it’s, it was a complex and intricate, and, you know, beautifully challenging environment and responsibility with this, with this archaic language.”
India Shaw-Smith added, “Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. It’s so kind of Shakespearean in tone and the, I mean, the chance to embody these rich characters who do use language in such a way, and they can use them as weapons or as bids for connection or as ways to connect. I mean, that’s really beautiful, as well tracking the change in language between, particularly between Viridia and Cossutia, and how their relationship develops, and so much of it, particularly for women in this era. So with all of the scheming and the political games that the elites play their language is about finding, finding each other and connecting, and I mean the chance to play someone so rich as Viridia and to mark what it meant to be a Roman woman of that time was just a real treat.”
Viridia and Cossutia have very different relationships with Ashur, a dynamic that will surely challenge the mother-daughter duo in later episodes. I asked the pair about working with Nick and creating those relationships.
Black told me, “It’s so important in this world that Ashur, oddly, surprisingly, the person that the audience loved to hate now becomes the victim of his circumstances, and everyone else in this world is far worse than he is. So it’s a really interesting premise, and it becomes fun to play. And Nick would come to me after a scene, they go like, ‘That was so great, that smile you did. It’s like, I can’t trust you, but it’s so good, but she’s so interesting.’ So it’s all that this room for this. You know, it’s a fast paced show, and there are so many characters to serve. It’s like, how can we extract meaning out of these moments so that the audience is like, ‘Do we like her? Do we not? Can we trust her? What’s going on?’ And there’s so much mystery in all of that. And I think, you know, I talked to Nick about it, I’m like, me thinks, when we hate someone this much, there is a very big story beneath. So I suspect that Cossutia has had experiences with Syrians in the past, and that she’s projecting a lot of that on to Ashur, making assumptions in her that things will play out in a predictable fashion with him, but he’s surprising, and she underestimates both he and her own daughter.”
Shaw-Smith followed with, “When we first meet Viridia, she’s in mourning for her husband, who was killed by Spartacus and his rebels. So she has a certain lens by which she views the men in this world, and particularly gladiators. But she has a different relationship, as we first see with Ashur, where she sees the good in people and the light, and she, I think, recognizes that he’s, he’s strong and skilled. But yet, he’s vulnerable in his own way, as being marked as an outsider. You know, he’s the Syrian. And even though he represents something of that world and the gladiators, I think we really see their relationship. Well, her introduction to him and to that world really sparked. a change in Viridia and marks a moment of evolution, and that was just so much fun to immerse myself in and really to work on with Nick.”
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