Posted in: Starz, TV | Tagged: Spartacus, Spartacus: House of Ashur

Spartacus: House of Ashur: Claudia Black on Embracing Being a Wildcard

Claudia Black discussed her latest role as Cossutia, joining the Spartacus franchise in House of Ashur, Showrunner Steven DeKnight, and more.

Claudia Black has embraced every opportunity presented to her in a way befitting of her versatile talents on screen and in voiceovers, as a lead or a supporting role, at the beginning of a new series, or to infuse new life and energy into an existing franchise. Since making her debut in the Australian drama Home and Away in 1992, Black has appeared in some of the biggest franchises/series like Hercules/Xena, Riddick, BeastMaster, Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Uncharted, NCIS, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Rick and Morty, Transformers, and Ahsoka. While promoting her latest Starz series Spartacus: House of Ashur, the actress spoke to Bleeding Cool about embracing her versatility, seeing the franchise's first female gladiator featured in Tenika Davis's Achillia, how she didn't want the previous entries of Spartacus to affect her playing the influential Cossutia, and working with creator/showrunner Steven DeKnight. House of Ashur is a revisionist version of the original Spartacus where Ashur (Nick E. Tarabay) survived the events of the series, clawing his way to power, owning the same ludus that once owned him. Allying with a fierce gladiatrix, Ashur ignites a new kind of spectacle that offends the elite.

Spartacus: House of Ashur Star Claudia Black on Davis, Embracing the "Wild Cat" in Cossutia

What intrigued you about Spartacus: House of Ashur, and how did you get involved?

It was on my radar, the first iteration [of Spartacus], and I knew it was garnering an ever-increasing audience, which is rare. That's fantastic when a show builds an audience over time, and the beauty of streaming now is that they can have a new life that they wouldn't have had otherwise. It was interesting to me that the brand was growing, and, according to some people at Starz I spoke with during filming, it ultimately attracted a larger female audience. I was particularly excited to hear that there was going to be a gladiatrix, which genuinely excited me, and I couldn't wait to find out who was going to embody that role. When I met Tenika (Davis), I was like, "Oh! We are going to have some fun! On camera and off."

It's beautiful to witness her doing what she does and to support her and champion her on and off-screen. Steven DeKnight and I had had a brief exchange on Twitter a few years ago, and I cheekily responded to him. He had admired something I'd written and retweeted it. I said, "Well, I'm free for a coffee anytime if you want to chat about work opportunities." We never spoke, never met, but then a year or so ago, word was out that Spartacus was "rebooting" as it were, or coming in with a new iteration, and there was an age-appropriate role for me.

I had this little thought of, "I wonder if Steven was thinking about me when he wrote it," and sure enough, he had been. He told me he had Graham McTavish in mind when he wrote the Korris role. He had me in mind for Cossutia, and it's unprecedented when you speak to showrunners, writers, and creators, when you dream of having a particular person play that role, and use them as your muse to have them all sign on to play the roles. That's rare, and that's what happened in this case.

Did you have to do any prep as far as getting that Ancient Roman mindset to play Cossutia, or did it come naturally for you?

It's a basic sort of Acting 101, we're taught to think about high-status characters versus low-status, how they carry themselves, how they move in the world. I tend to work energetically for the most part, thinking about what the energy of that person is in terms of what impact they have on a room. How does their attitude, point of view, and what they need affect the way they present and move through the world? I thought of Cossutia as a big wild cat. She has this slinkiness to her. She's referred to as a "serpent" sometimes by some of her adversaries, but for me, it was about embodying certain energetics of strength, wildness, and the time being when we first meet her, being higher up on the food chain, at least politically and in terms of social status.

I had studied some Latin at school begrudgingly, studied things like Shakespeare, what have you, in our English classes, and in theater. Yeah, the adjustment for me was learning to pronounce Latin the way Americans pronounce Latin, because all the Aussies and English actors when we came on the show were pronouncing everything differently, so in the interests of coherence, they wanted everyone to be announcing it the same way as Steven would.

Since you are following the show, was there an unlearning process in your mind, given that it's a revisionist approach to House of Ashur with its alternate history?

It's interesting. I'm often cast, and this has happened since I was about 20. I'm often cast to bring something new in. I am like the "lottery element" or "Well, we're not sure what we want, but let's mix things up. Let's throw her in and see what happens." It tends to be best for me personally, as a bit of a wild card, not to watch what has been done before. I've watched a little bit of it. It was on my radar. I had access to a couple of episodes, so I watched one and went, "Oh, that's interesting. Yes, I'll take that meeting."

I liked the aesthetic. They've moved away from the comic book filter that they had placed on the show originally, but I liked what they were doing. It was like 300 (2006). [Spartacus] is an interesting space, and then, I had to chat with them, and they've expanded their aesthetic visually. [House of Ashur is] more immersive the way that they're filming it now. It's very visceral still, but has that immersive quality of, you know, in terms of the attention to detail, the scope of it, the production values. They are trying to put everything up on screen and not, and you must get very creative sometimes about what you show in the frame, because you might've run out of budget.

They've been extremely ambitious in what they've wanted to bring to the screen, and so I liked all of those elements. I didn't watch all of the episodes that had been made 13 years ago. I don't know why, except to say that it does something to my mindset, and I don't want to be overly influenced by other people's work. I want to try and come in fresh with my own. Otherwise, I tend to get too influenced by other people's choices before me.

Spartacus: House of Ashur, which also stars Ivana Baquero, Jamaica Vaughan, Jordi Webber, India Shaw-Smith, Cameron Rhodes, Leigh Gill, and Lucy Lawless, will have its two-episode premiere on December 5th on Starz.

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