Elle Fanning teased the upcoming third season of The Great during her appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television awards-season event.
In the Hulu series, Fanning plays Catherine the Great while Nicholas Hoult plays Peter III of Russia. The third season, which is set to premiere May 12, will revolve around Catherine and Peter working on their marriage.
“There is marriage counseling… we play a lot of games, there’s a lot of talking, there’s a marriage witch involved that helps us — or doesn’t help us that much,” Fanning teased.
The star of the show described Catherine and Peter’s marriage as “complex” and believes that the couple “really want to make it work” despite their trying to take each other down season after season.
“They do love each other,” she added. “There’s such an intense chemistry between them and they have their son Paul and I think they want to be really good parents, especially Peter, he’s a really good father and I think Catherine sees that in him. I don’t know if she loves being a mother so much. I think sometimes she looks at Paul as a little bit of a burden but she’s working on that herself.”
Later on, Fanning said that a “big part” of the third season is “destiny” and if Catherine “is truly destined to be the ruler.”
“In the first season, I think she felt that destiny in a beautiful way where she was so hopeful and romantic about her life and felt that the love of her life was a country. And she learned it was a country and not a man at the end of the day,” she said. “But I think in this [third] season, she’s questioning that. Maybe it was a man and it’s not the country and I’m not fit to do this.”
Fanning continued, “There’s so many surprises and I’m tiptoeing around so many things right now. This is my favorite season yet — by far. I think we all felt that way filming it.”
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Fanning believes that the chemistry she has with Hoult is part of the reason why the show works so well.
“We are all so close to each other and we’re not afraid to embarrass ourselves in front of each other and especially with comedy, I think that’s really important. Nick and I have that in abundance and we will try anything, we’re so comfortable and that’s for sure grown over the seasons,” she noted.
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Fanning, who is also an EP on the show, said that playing Catherine is “the most rewarding character” she’s ever played. “I feel like I’ve grown playing Catherine. I can feel it in my bones. It’s such a special project. I will be devastated when it’s the final season — I will sob my eyes out, I’ll never give her up.”
Check back Tuesday for the panel video.
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