Victoria Actress Lily Travers Talks About the Duchess of Monmouth's Passionate New Romance
If you haven't watched the sixth episode of Victoria's third season, proceed with caution. Major spoilers ahead!
Several new faces joined the cast of Victoria in season three, but one of the most intriguing newcomers is Sophie, the Duchess of Monmouth, played by Lily Travers.
Over the past few episodes, Sophie caught the attention of Joseph, a royal footman played by David Burnett, and in "A Coburg Quartet," their forbidden flirtation comes to fruition, just out of sight of her cruel husband, the Duke.
T&C spoke with Travers about Sophie's clandestine romance with Joseph, what it was like on-set of the show, and the historical woman who inspired her fictional character.
What was it like joining the cast of Victoria?
Amazing. It was a real surprise because I auditioned sort of a while back for it, and I hadn’t heard anything about it. Then suddenly, everything moved really quickly. They offered me the part, and two days later I was on set. No preparation time-I was kind of thrown straight in. Suddenly, I went from from seeing something on TV with my housemate to being on the set.
In the episode "A Coburg Quartet," we see the Duchess finally standing up to her husband. Tell me about the costume she wears to the Georgian ball.
That was a real act of rebellion. They have this huge beautiful ball-actually to film I was quite lucky because everyone else had these massive white powdery wigs. I didn’t have that; I just had an extra long hairpiece, which was still quite heavy, but not as precarious as a huge powdered wig. Sophie's husband wants her to go dressed as one of his relatives, and the story behind that is quite a dark one, and very symbolic for him. It would be embarrassing for her, and make her even more under his thumb.
So she finds out about his plan, and she decides to really rebel against him. And in those days, the woman was really owned by her husband. When a woman got married, she became part of her husband’s property, as did all her money as did their children. So women really had no rights or any power once they were in a marital relationship. For her to defy her husband and wear what she decides to wear is really symbolic of her taking her own power back.
The Duke of Monmouth is almost cartoonish-ly evil. Is there a backstory to their relationship?
We talked about that quite a lot actually because I think it’s always nice to have nuance to the part, and to whitewash someone with one kind of label doesn't give it all the depth that makes the journey really interesting. So when Nick [Audsley] and I were talking about our onscreen relationship, I said, “I’m finding it very hard to like you” and he was like "Yeah, it’s really difficult isn’t it?"
We thought that they would have been married for about at least six years. And we thought that it would have been a marriage of convenience, which is where the relationship started off on the wrong foot. He married her for her money, and for her, it was the title, which her mother wanted her to get. That’s the backstory we filled in.
I think it probably would have been at least fairly amiable to start off with, but then, I think when that power discrepancy became more and more, he resented her being the wealthy one.
Perhaps, the final straw was her taking this position at court where she even had any more independence away from him and was working for the queen, which was obviously a huge honor.
For the past few episodes, we’ve been building up to Sophie’s relationship with Joseph but she was also been interested in Lord Palmerston. What is she looking for in a romance?
I think because her marriage is so fundamentally lacking in anything romantic, and anything that feeds her soul, she’s ultimately looking for a true human connection. I think she’s obviously looking for physical satisfaction as well, but really, it boils down to someone who sees her and respects her for who she is. Because she’s been stuck in this really loveless marriage, I think with Lord Palmerston, she’s slightly misguided in where she’s looking for that. It’s slightly misplaced, which perhaps comes from a naïveté of not being in society and able to make her own choices. She gets misled by his charisma and charm.
But ultimately, I think his chivalry wins out, and he doesn't take her for granted or abuse her trust. Him stepping away, that gives Sophie the opportunity to find someone who actually does care about her, and sees her beyond the Duchess title, beyond the clothes, beyond everything, and just sees her as a person, which is what I think she really wants.
What was it like working with David Burnett on some of the more intimate scenes?
It was really nice because our relationship builds, so we had time when we were shooting the first block [of episodes] to really talk about the characters' relationship.
And when we went into the second block, which was shot by the director Chloe Thomas, we had a really good chat with her about how we were going to come about the more intimate scenes and what that meant to them.
And David’s great; he has this really cool little book that he put lots of pictures in and words and poems from the time, and we really worked quite visually. We really wanted to make their scenes have a heart, not just be lustful. Obviously, there is a very strong physical connection between the two of them, but there’s something deeper. And it’s funny, when you do an intimate scene like that, it’s quite choreographed. There’s a lot of movement involved, to avoid like the candle in the corner or the camera. It’s almost like a dance, which is lovely because I think it makes it quite poetic.
I’ve read that you love research but your character, the Duchess of Monmouth, is fictional. Were there specific people you researched to serve as inspiration?
Generally, I did research and reading about the time, the Victorian Era, and women’s place in society. But, Daisy also said that Sophie is partly based on a historical person called Caroline Norton.
She did quite a lot to help women and change marital laws regarding women’s rights in a marriage and divorce. She actually wrote to Queen Victoria explaining her circumstances, her abusive husband, and was quite a figurehead at the time. So it’s quite nice that even though Sophie is fictional, what happens to her is partly inspired by a real historical figure, and it was important for me to make her credible.
Do you have a favorite scene from this season?
The scene between Sophie and Joseph on the beach in episode five really marks a change for both of their characters. Up until then, a lot of what we had shot was either in the amazing set in York that they built for the palace, but this scene was obviously shot on the beach. It was a very different atmosphere, and it was only us the two in the scene, so there was a very small crew on a beach in the sunshine. And I think it was just really symbolic of the freedom and the change in heart and direction for both of the characters.
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