When Dame Jane Campion started writing the second series of Top of the Lake, she had a rather unusual idea for who would play the lifeless body of a deceased sex worker in the very first episode – her own daughter Alice Englert. That is, until Alice asked her, “You’re not going to start with a dead prostitute, are you?”
Indeed, the season does begin with a deceased prostitute, but Alice’s role has morphed into something even more unsettling. In Top of the Lake: China Girl, she plays a schoolgirl from a broken family who gets lured into the seedy underworld of Sydney’s brothels.
In fact, there are scenes that are so disturbing, her Oscar-winning mother – who created and co-wrote the show – had to rope in another film-maker for four of the six episodes because she couldn’t face directing her in such a dark scenario.
The mother and daughter discuss the show below.
Jane has on her daughter’s choice of career:
“It’s her life. She’s very good at it. She’s my daughter, what can I say? If she gets good reviews, that’s great, but she is always going to get good reviews from me.”
Jane on her life in New Zealand:
“I love it because it’s a genuine wilderness. In the wilderness and nature, I feel incredible happy. I feel relaxed. I feel I can sit down on a lump of moss and just smile.”
Top of the Lake co-stars (from left) Elisabeth Moss, Gwendoline Christie, Nicole Kidman, and Alice Englert.
Alice on her mother, Jane:
“She’s moved to TV because she found doing the press for films so difficult and she really wanted to have an opportunity to tell a story like a novel.”
Alice on working with acting greats:
“Lizzy (Elizabeth Moss) I found to be someone I watched and Gwendoline (Christie) as well – even though I don’t work with her so much in the series, I was very aware of their storyline.
Lizzy is extremely professional. She’s a very sweet, very funny person, but she’s so aware of everybody and the process. She knows how to look after herself and thus she knows how much she can give, and that was great to see that – she’s inspiring as a leading lady.
And Gwendoline is such a beautiful, emotional, adorable human being and it’s good to have someone like that in your life.”
Jane on Gwendoline:
“I got this great email from Gwendoline out of the blue and I was struggling to write the character and to feel somehow it was igniting my imagination. Then Gwen wrote to me and she said, “Look, I’m an unusual actress. I’m 6ft 3 or 4. This is what I look like. I’m in Game of Thrones.”
She’s very pale with whitish hair and I said, “This is what I was looking for!” I like to play with the stereotypes of what a woman should or shouldn’t be, and I met Gwen and she’s so humane – she’s got so much humanity in her.
It’s like a little baby elephant coming in the room and dancing. I don’t mean that badly – she’s just so adorable. I love her humanity.”
Jane on the series
“My attraction for doing it is it’s an opportunity to tell a kind of melodrama way with a more serious analysis of modern life, but using the motor of a detective mystery story.
I want to make it entertaining and enjoyable. It’s the way that we [her and writer Gerard] see the world and the things we’re preoccupied with. We want to work with undercurrents in life – it’s about our lives, parenting, kids … It’s a lot about women having trouble with having babies.”
Alice on the series:
“I view the first series as a fan. Top of the Lake is interested in the human condition – in a loving but not a sentimental way, so that meant a lot to me to feel so emotional but not manipulated by a drama.”
