Actor Sepideh Moafi joins Cheddar News to discuss her role in the Apple TV+ series 'Black Bird.'

Between Bells

Actor Sepideh Moafi Talks Role in Apple TV+ Series 'Black Bird'

and welcome back Friends Between Bells starring alongside Taron Edgerton, paul, walter hauser and Greg Kinnear. Our next guest stars in the Apple Tv plus series Blackbird, inspired by a true story. The six episode psychological thriller follows a convicted drug dealer who was placed in a maximum security prison in order to get a confession out of a suspected serial killer. Now in exchange an FBI agent has promised to commute his entire 10 year sentence. Take a look at this. If you end up in with ho I want you to remember who you were at eight tap into it, feel it wear it like skin. I don't like that skin whole doesn't like his either. Well joining us now to discuss the FBI agent is actor CPD Mafi, your character Lauren plays a key role in the series. She's are linked back in time to the earlier days of the case. She's here in Edmonton's characters connection to the outside world and she's the only female perspective in the series. Girl you got a lot of work going on. How did you prepare dominated FBI role in this show? Yeah, I mean the preparation in many ways was rigorous and and difficult, challenging ways but then it was also easy because it's a fascinating subject line um you know being the only female character in the show really the only female lead um surrounded by men, I think a lot of women in different work fields can can relate to that experience but in the FBI it feels a little bit more harsh. So the preparation involved you know learning a lot about different cases what the FBI you know, different agents would do day to day watching documentaries, podcasts, books, reading a lot of books, um talking to different special retired Special Agents and really when it came down to it it was the script that that you know, pulled everything off the page. Dennis's script is written with such mastery and it's a pleasure to work on and it was a pleasure to collaborate with these actors. Yeah, and on top of that, I mean an interview actually said the series creator told you that it's important for you guys to get this character right and they needed your help, basically this character needs to represent all of womanhood and I can't do that. Did you feel pressure almost in a way because of the impact and how they approached you about this role, you know, if anything that gave me a sense of relief because of course going into the situation, I did feel a bit intimidated, you know, I knew that they were thinking of going out two names, but because of Alexa Fogel, a casting director who I know very well who cast me in The Deuce HBO's the reduce um she had the idea to bring me in and so I met with Dennis, I did my audition and he basically told me on the spot that it was mine and and as you mentioned, he said, you know, I want your help, I'd like for us to work together on this because I want to get her right. I want her to represent all of womanhood and honestly that that made me feel empowered. That gave me um sort of freedom and creative rain and um yeah, from then on, he never really um got in the way, if anything he, he'd asked me how he could help, how he could serve. So, so I think that's what you always want as an artist is to have your collab trust and a sense of freedom to be able to follow your instincts of course led and driven and supported by the research in the script. When an era dominated by true crime, Dennis Lehane is one of the most accomplished crime writers in the world. I'm talking books like Gone baby gone Mystic River, what was it like working with the genius? I mean since I got involved, which was about three months before we we started filming the project in april, the script barely changed. And so that's just a testament. If you're familiar with the film and television world, things change up until the very day, you know, so you'll get to set and sometimes you'll have entire scenes or monologues that have been rewritten. Dennis has never changed. The entire thing was structured, sculpted like a novel. And so as an actor that gives you again a sense of freedom, a feeling of support and trust because it's just so beautifully sculpted. It's I feel strange about using that word beautiful because of the subject matter. But the thing that I love most about our story is that it's more riveting in my opinion, and more compelling and sort of addictive than any any show I've ever seen, where you actually see these acts on film, on screen and they just talk about these things and it's more horrifying than anything you could ever see because your imagination goes wild. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I think a lot of people, it's easy for them to say, oh, well, this is just an acting role, but this is really heavy subject matter here. I mean, what was sort of the process to prepare yourself for filming each day here? Yeah, I mean, I had, as I mentioned, a pretty rigorous progress, like a prep process um up until we started filming, just to, you know, give me confidence and made me feel like I could I could feel like an FBI special agent because, you know, there's a there's a whole uh you know, several months of Quantico training and then you're you're kind of under supervision for a couple of years and it's just a long rigorous process to become an FBI special agent. But with the support and help of many retired agents and and as I mentioned the books and research that I did, I felt like I believed myself as an agent and so I could show up to set and let go of all that work and then really just lean into the script and and the other actors. Well, Stephanie, How long did this role though? Stay with you after Because when you are immersing yourself and leaning in, I can only imagine it's not easy to shed that wrapped. No, but again, that, that having that prep process for me because any special agent is going to be juggling anywhere from 5 to 30 cases at once and you can be blindsided with you know, a new development, new evidence that serve on one case and you can be thrown off at any time. But I was lucky because I only had a couple of cases to deal with the ones in this show and the other ones that I fleshed out from my own inner library just so that I could have a better feeling of what she, what she does, what she walks, like how she talks. Um but really I had to focus on the set of facts that were fixed and so it's so disturbing. I've said before, I could never be an FBI special agent, especially an agent that works on homicide cases or you know crimes against Children. It's impossible for me to actually imagine the reality of that position. But because I had a set of facts and a sets story that wasn't really changing, it was easier for me to decompress. I had two leading up to the filming process though, really sort of train myself, that was the biggest thing is like emotionally train myself to not act as Cepeda and access Lauren who is, you know, sort of not numb to these things, but she's used to dealing with this, this kind of evidence, these kinds of cases. Let's talk about some of your co stars here because most audiences have never seen Taron Edgerton in a role like this. We know him from the Kingsman films, he won a golden globe because he played Elton john in Rocketman, which was amazing. But this is almost completely new and your scenes with him are some of the most important in the entire series in the early days of rehearsal. How do you sort of build this bond that we see between you guys and the show here? Well, we were lucky because we had a natural, I felt very lucky because I felt this with all of my co stars from the very beginning, we had a zoom table read and we were all messaging each other and we're all fans of each other's work and you know, a lot of actors that I hadn't met before, some of them who had hadn't met me or was familiar with my work and so from the very beginning it felt like we were all colleagues and and we all were in pursuit the same thing, which was, you know, bringing this beautiful, perfect script to life. So early days with Karen the first day we did that plane scene in episode two. Um that was the first thing I shot and it felt so easy because he's alive, he's in the moment, he's collaborative, he likes to rehearse. We both came from theater um and he likes to talk about the script, he likes to talk about the relationship, but ultimately what it comes down to is someone willing to open themselves up to the chemistry that exists already. And Taryn and I and Greg and I had a very natural rapport like friendship, we're still like texting all the time. We were all very good friends. Love to hear that. And switching gears though, you're gonna be returning to the third season of the L World generation. Q. Your character gigi has such an intense fan base from the get go, what's it like just growing with G. G. During the series, it's amazing, it's amazing. She gives me, I mean, she's taught me so much, she is so unapologetic about about who she is and how she lives. And I think for that reason she's an inspiration not just to the queer community but to all all people, because it's just so refreshing to see people who are fully human, they're they're real, they're flawed, they're adventurous and and risk taking and um and yeah, I just feel better about myself when I played G Yeah, let's end on a light note here because you get to show off a couple of very nineties hairstyles in Blackbird. You've also started the Deuce, which took place in the seventies and eighties. So we got to know once your go to style decade right now, when it comes to your hair, I mean my go to style is whatever my hair decides on the day. You know what I mean? Like today it is humid in new york, so she's expanding and that's like seventies eighties. But but yeah, it's so much that's such a huge thing too. And like making you feel like your characters, how does your, how does your character show up in the world every day when she where they, you know, step out into the world. Um and that was a huge thing with Lauren. You'll see in the early days of Lauren, it's kind of more of this natural texture and then later on she's learned how to, you know, blend in a bit more by straightening her hair and wearing more presentable suits and you know, not too sexy, but you know, presentable and beautiful enough to be taken seriously in this man's world. Look, you pull it off, it looks amazing regardless of the decade. Looks good to me. Of course, it's a pleasure we want to thank you stepping coffee and the finale of Blackbeard drops on Apple tv plus this friday