Chloe Star Erin Doherty on the Dangerous Appeal of Influencers and Outcasts
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As far as Erin Doherty’s concerned, the more complicated a character is, the better. “I love people who are really messy,” the actress says, and her resume backs that up.
Doherty, of course, got her big break playing the not-entirely-uncomplex Princess Anne in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown—“I feel like she taught me so much about just being honest,” she told T&C of the role in 2020—and has appeared on stage as characters including the late activist Rachel Corrie and, as of this fall, Abigail Williams in The Crucible, never shying away from a part that could feel tricky. “Because I've felt a lot of pressure as a human being to be good 100% all the time,” she says, “there's something magnetic about people who aren't.”
There’s perhaps no better example than Becky Green, the character Doherty plays in the new series Chloe, streaming now on Prime Video. The real Becky works temp gigs, endlessly refreshes Instagram, and struggles to take care of her ailing mother, but when she adopts the posher persona of Sasha Miles—an international art aficionado—she’s able to experience a different kind of life. It’s one that brings her into the circles that Chloe Fairbourne, the late, glamorous wife of a local politician, moved in, and raises questions about how and why Chloe died, and just what Becky—or is it Sasha?—knows about her fateful last hours.
Doherty spoke to T&C from London about the perils of social media, the charms of grifters, and what she did to leave the royal family behind.
Becky’s a liar, but she’s also trying to understand a greater truth. It’s hard to know whether to be for or against her. Was that part of what made you want to take the role?
I love that she’s deeply flawed. I'm so drawn to that because we're all messy. That's the beauty of the show for me, it’s multilayered and she's constantly being pulled back and forth reality and what she wants her situation to be.
Like when she cons her way into glamorous events but then freezes when it comes to making conversation. She wants to be part of this world but doesn’t have all the skills.
I loved that. I very much am anxious, and whenever I'm in a social setting, it’s that cliche of “fake it till you make it.” I have to pretend that I'm completely confident. That was something that I was excited about portraying. People need to know that we're not all social butterflies, and it's a completely legitimate thing to be dealing with.
The character’s named Becky, and with her sort of social climbing, Becky Sharp comes to mind. In stories like Vanity Fair or The Talented Mr. Ripley, there's this idea of willing yourself into a world you perceive to be better. Was that something that interested you?
People fascinate me, but my lens wasn't set on that. I'm drawn to being surprised by human beings because we aren't linear. Like you're saying, she does all this work, she gets into these situations, and then she has no idea what the hell she's doing. I just love that. Part of the arc is Becky's coming of age or starting to learn that things you see online aren't what they seem. Even these people who we think have the most glamorous lives ever are deeply flawed.
What research do you start doing when you play a character like this?
I'll always get a fresh notebook and I'll fill it with drawings, reflections, anything. But it always starts with a timeline of everything that's happened to this person from the time they're born through to the time that we meet them. I also knew that I had to get online, because I'm not social media tech-savvy and I just don't quite engage with it that way. I basically had to download the [Instagram] app on my phone and every morning the first thing I would do is scroll, and every night it would be the last thing I did. It really affected my happiness.
Once the show wrapped, did you take it off your phone?
I needed to, but it took me some time. That was the terrifying thing, there was no choice in it, I was just going for my phone before I knew it. It took me three weeks to not have the thought anymore.
From a character like Princess Anne to someone like Becky, is there a common quality you look for in the people you play?
I tend to finish a job and then I'm like, "I want to play the complete opposite." It spins off in that direction, and from there I'll find my way to something I just need to be part of. What I love about the job is always the element of surprise and being like, “I have no idea what I'm going to do, but I know it's going to be very different.”
Is it easy to leave these characters behind?
They do stick with you. The way I like to work is to become completely submerged, and that takes its toll. With Becky, it took a long time to get out of her frame of mind. She has such a low sense of self-worth, and existing in the world, in that dark place, took a long time to come out of. I feel like that was a lesson for me: You have to choose wisely what you can give to a part, then on the flip side of that, what you can give to yourself in order to recover.
Do you find yourself thinking of Becky when you do use social media?
She's become linked with Instagram to me. Whenever I go on it, I see things through her lens. That's where I'm like, “Erin, you need to get off it now.”
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