‘The Magicians’ Postmortem: Charles Mesure Talks Beast Mode, Breaking Into Song
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the “Hotel Spa Potions” episode of The Magicians.
Despite being the most powerful magician in not one but two worlds, the Beast was fated to die in the first season of The Magicians. His stay onscreen was only extended thanks to the hat trick pulled off by Charles Mesure, the man behind the moths (aka Martin Chatwin).
“Originally, we thought the Beast arc was one season long. He would wreak havoc on Brakebills, Fillory, and the young magicians, and then there would be a big battle in the finale, and we’d move on,” executive producer Sera Gamble told Yahoo TV last December. “But ultimately, we decided there was so much more to that character to explore, and he had become much more pertinent to Julia’s story, and that is in no small part due to how Charles plays him. To be honest, he was too much fun to let go so soon.”
That news was music to Mesure’s ears as he finds the Beast gig to be nothing less than fantastic. “Not many roles ask you to simultaneously be a sociopath and a gentleman,” says the Once Upon a Time and Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce alumnus — not to mention break into song, wear fake digits, or emote while sitting in a children’s playroom ball pit.
Below, he chats with Yahoo TV about being Julia’s new sidekick, the perils of working with prosthetics, and finding the last shard of heart in all that darkness.
You are terrific as the Beast, which made it hard to believe that was not the part you auditioned for. Sera said you came in initially to read for the role of your character’s tormentor, pedophile author Christopher Plover.
I did. I did. And they came back and said, “What about the Beast instead?” When I was first presented that character, I didn’t know a thing about him. I was presented with the first scene in the pilot where he walks into the lab at Brakebills and just commits these random atrocities, but he’s so gentlemanly and so quiet and still. So you just go, “Who is that guy? What makes him tick?” So in the beginning, I was fascinated, because he is extremely dark, extremely talented, and complicated.
Sounds like the things that drew you to accept the offer are the same things that make him one of our favorite Big Bads on TV right now. It is easy to write him off as pure evil when he first appears and plucks eyes out willy-nilly, and then as his story unfolds and we find out more about why he went down this terrible path, you find some compassion for him. Did you, as an actor, go on the same journey as the audience did?
I very much did. Very early on, Sera presented me with the idea that he had been through a horrific childhood. He evolved to escape from that. He found Fillory because Fillory was his safe place where he was psychologically and emotionally safe. So when he comes back to make his mayhem at Brakebills, it’s not because he’s a sadist and he likes killing people. Well, he may like killing people at that point. He’s actually acting as a terrorist. He’s just sending a message: “You and anyone like you, keep out of Fillory.” If Quentin hadn’t invited Fillory, the Beast would have no conflict with these kids. So to me, his violence is very rational through Season 1.
But, yeah, he had to evolve to escape this toxic childhood where he was profoundly damaged. Certainly, the way that Sera and John [McNamara] wrote the character in Season 2 made me think about disassociation, as in the way that some people, some kids, survive trauma by splitting almost into different personalities. He’s become a very complex guy. He has a side, which is very grownup and very avuncular in the way that he wants to look after Julia somehow. Yet, he’s got another side, which is the pure child who was broken when he was young. He’s whacked out on sugar and giggling and singing and dancing at the drop of a hat. He wants to be around kids. Plus, he had this other side that we’ve already seen that is this stone‑cold killer that will commit atrocities without batting an eyelid. He’s a very complicated fella. He’s not stock villain in any way.
You mentioned one way in which he is far from stock, and that is the singing. When you were told that you would have a musical number, were you hesitant or more “Bring it on”?
I was somewhere in the middle. I remember reading John’s script when he had me sing. And within five pages, I just go, “This is so daring. I mean, who expects Darth Vader to break into song in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back?” No one. It’s playing with expectations in a really interesting way. Personally, I loved it because it was so daring. And also, I loved it because I haven’t sung in 20 years, so it was fun to knock the dust off the pipes and see if they’re still any good.
Sera and I talked a lot about the fantasy genre and how she believes it was invented as a way to talk about the evils that men do in a safe way. That is certainly the case here.
Yes. It’s all metaphor, definitely, and that gives you freedom to really go into some dark areas and ask some really dark questions.
Clearly, sexual abuse qualifies as one of those evils that happens all the time in real life, yet it is still not talked about openly, and there is so much shame, especially when it happens to men.
That is never talked about. And it may be that we can [on our show] because the Beast has become this disassociated, sociopathic character. He’s now free to talk about it with no cost to himself. Guys would never want to talk about something like that happening to them, which is awful and unacceptable. It would be so hard to come forward.
Do you feel a personal responsibility as you’re representing it on TV?
No. To be honest, I felt that Sera was doing that in the writing. She’d taken on that job. It’s just my job then to enact that intention and to play the character as respectfully as I can. But Sera was doing that. I didn’t need to embellish that in any way.
The relationship of Julia and the Beast is a highlight of this season so far. They have become unlikely allies in a way because of this shared trauma. Sometimes he seems like he wants to kill her, and at other times help her.
I think he was interested in two things: He could see that Stella [Maeve]’s character, Julia, had a great talent, something that was exciting, that deserved to be protected. But the other thing is that even though you might say he’s a pure sociopath, there was some glimmer of humanity. There was enough [for him] to go, “I want to look after this person. I can help her.” It was really important that it wasn’t sentimental. It was really important to me that it was purely avuncular. It was not a sexual attraction of any kind, that at some level, with some tiny glimmer of humanity, there was pure concern. He still wanted to look after this person despite all the atrocious things he had done elsewhere. That was interesting to me. But you still had to integrate that into the character. He still has to be the Beast, too. He still has to be the same guy who’s committing all the reprehensible things in Season 1, and ultimately, in Season 2. It was challenging, but I loved that Sera went there.
By the nature of how these stories and TV work, where you have heroes and a Big Bad, this can’t keep going forever. You had to know your days were numbered.
They brought so many dimensions to the Beast that I thought, “Well, I could play this guy for as long as they will let me. I could play this guy for three seasons.” The material was so rich and just filled with so many interesting contradictions. I thought I could play this guy for a long time. But from the first episode, you know, the Beast owes them a death. I mean, he killed those kids 39 times, so at some point, he owes them at least one death. It’s only fair. And we could go on and explore who he is and what else he might get up to, but at the end of the day, he has to go.
No matter when you take your last bow on the series, tell me you kept at least one of your extra fingers?
No, I did not. I didn’t think to do that. They had them pinned up in the makeup trailer, so there was this plethora of disgusting fingers hanging on the wall there. Every episode I get a different finger, so there was like 20 fingers in this bizarre cluster like cow udders. It looked like a prop out of a David Cronenberg film or something. It was terrifying.
Was it difficult to work with extra appendages?
The only thing about it was the other kids were free to do these wonderfully dexterous tricks, these magic spells, but because I had basically a hunk of rubber and wire attached to my hand, I couldn’t do so much. Mine had to be much simpler, which was a shame because the Beast was the most powerful magician on the show. I would have loved to have done these complex spells with flying fingers. But it ended up being quite simple and static in many ways. Other than that, it was fun to do.
Related: The Magicians Season 2 Premiere Postmortem: The Cast Talks Their Crowning Moment
Being on a show about magic, do you wish magic was real? And what do you wish you could do with it if it was?
I don’t know. I just think it’s fun that magic is assumed real in the show. It is interesting to me that the show doesn’t say it’s a very fun thing. Hale [Appleman]’s character, [Eliot], spells out that magic comes out of pain. That’s an interesting metaphor. So many of the actors, singers, composers, artists, and writers that I know, somewhere, deep down, there’s a kernel of pain in them.
It can explain a lot of great art over the centuries, for sure.
It [can also be] a way to escape it. They turn it into something positive.
I’d like to be able to transport myself anywhere like Penny (Arjun Gupta).
I’ll tell you what, the Beast can kill people with a snap of his fingers. I mean, obviously, you would never want to do that in your life, really, but that’s an appealing fantasy to have, especially in these strange times we are living in. Might be best that we don’t have that option.
The Magicians airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Syfy.
