Alice Eve – How Belgravia is Like Silicon Valley and the Surreal Moment She Got a Call from Paul McCartney
From She's Out of My League and Black Mirror, Alice Eve is back in the EPIX original Belgravia, a six-part series from the people behind Downton Abbey. She took some time to chat with Mike McKelly and Stefani Bishop on the Rocker Morning Show to talk about filming a period piece, a Black Mirror prophecy come true, and being in a music video with Sir Paul McCartney.
"That was a show we made in South Africa. It was a beautiful thing to make," Eve stated, regarding the filming of Nosedive, the episode of Black Mirror in which she played opposite Bryce Dallas Howard. "It was sunny, and we were in these beautiful locations. So the experience making that show was really pleasant, but the story, which when we made it in 2016, was kind of true... It's become even truer than it was then. And so that is a little disturbing, how that prophecy has come to bear."
Eve goes from dystopian future in Black Mirror to the Victorian era in her new project, Belgravia, which she described as, "the rise of the industrial class. Queen Victoria wanted to move in to her London home, Buckingham House, which became Buckingham Palace, and then all the rich aristocrats wanted to live near her, so they built this town called Belgravia out of marshland. And it's about what happens when you have new money in town. So it's not super dissimilar to, like, Silicon Valley, or the rise of a kind of new system of money and how that upsets the old order."
Acting in a period piece presented a particular set of challenges, from wearing of seven petticoats in order to get the look just right, to limiting movements to stay true to the character and the era. "As an actor I wasn't allowed to use my hands in any way because any kind of touching my face or touching my hair was a signal that meant something to the person I'm talking to, so, it was definitely hyper vigilant in that way."