Despite her vast experience in a variety of films and TV shows, Elizabeth Mitchell had not portrayed a vampire prior to landing the role of Margot Fairmont in Netflix's First Kill. Based on the short story of the same title by Victoria "V. E." Schwab, First Kill stars Sarah Catherine Hook as teenage vampire Juliette Fairmont and Imani Lewis as Calliope Burns, who belongs to a family of monster hunters. Juliette looks to claim Calliope as her first kill, though the two spark a romance, defying their contending clans.

As Juliette's mother, Mitchell's Margot sees her traditional family values challenged and her own secrets unearthed. Mitchell has appeared in a number of critically acclaimed shows such as Lost, ER, The Expanse, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Her film career has seen the actress take on prominent roles in The Purge: Election Year, Frequency, and The Santa Clause 2 and 3.

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Screen Rant participated in a press roundtable with Mitchell, who spoke about her fascination with vampires, the importance of First Kill's LGBTQ romance, the series' family dynamics, and much more.

 

Elizabeth Mitchell and Will Swenson in First Kill season 1

In First Kill, you play the matriarch of the vampire side. You were such a strong and fantastic character. What else drew you into this role?

Elizabeth Mitchell: What drew me to this particular role, to Margot, were several things. One was V. E. Schwab because I am a huge fan of her books. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue just did me in and then I read everything I could get my hands on. Then, Felicia [D. Henderson], our showrunner.

I'm so captivated by her as a person that I wanted to be in business with her and wanted to be working with her. Her passion, her grace, and the excitement that she brought to this was extraordinary. I also really loved who had been cast so far. I could see the cast shaping up and I thought, "Well, this is something that I want to be part of." The third part of that is I have always wanted to play a vampire. So, it kind of went into a big happy circle of "Yes, please!" 

I have to admit when I found out I was going to be interviewing you, my sister yelled at me very loudly because she is one of multiple people who have told me that Principal Newman from The Santa Clause 2 was part of their gay awakening. 

Elizabeth Mitchell: Fantastic! I'm so happy to hear that. That's awesome! I'm very honored. I might have to tell people today, don't worry.

What was it like being in such an explicitly gay love story?

Elizabeth Mitchell: So fun. The best part of it was that it was so explicit and it was such a non issue. It wasn't something that we had to explain. It wasn't something that we have to say, "This is this." It was a situation with very, very complex, beautiful characters who love each other. Seems pretty simple to me. It brought me nothing but joy and it feels so good to think that there are going to be so many amazing women and men watching and thinking, "OK, there I am. I see myself. OK, I understand that."

After I did Gia, I had so many young women come up and hug me, crying. It absolutely changed everything about the way that I see the world because it's so much about wanting people to be seen, and supported, and loved, and understanding how powerful this medium is. So how it made me feel was good, and proud, and excited, and hopeful. And, you know, it's super sexy. It's kind of fun.

Screen Rant: You’ve obviously taken on shows and movies with paranormal themes before, but this is your first vampire-centric project. What was the experience like getting to be part of this type of story?

Elizabeth Mitchell: Oh my goodness, I loved it so much. I love, love, love being a vampire. I love to think about what happens if you do not have mortality to contend with, what happens if by your very nature, you are a predator — which means you are othered from humans. What happens to the way you see the world? What happens to dynamics? Who intrigues you? Who bores you to tears? That whole thing, having lived for 500 years, what are you curious about? What are your passions?

All of those things came together to make me think, "Yeah, OK, I have an idea for how to play Margot and I want it to be built in curiosity and and also that restriction of having to keep my family safe. You can't just do anything. You have to keep the people that you love safe. I think that, I understand because I'm a mom and a big sister. I am someone who likes to keep my people safe, so that particular instinct comes pretty naturally for me.

We know this was a short story for Victoria that she got to expand upon with the series. Were you able to sit down and say "I want Margot to go in this direction" or "That direction?" How much say did you have in her overall character?

Elizabeth Mitchell: I didn't have a lot because I feel like Felicia and Victoria had a vision for this family. Me, I'm like, "Do I turn into this? Do I turn into that? What powers do I have? Can I do this?" I have all these ideas of what I want and I think that what's been fun about it is that Margot as a character is exactly the way they want her to be, and that ended up being really fun for me. I realized with some of these limitations, there's more room for fun work because we don't really get to play everything if we're just all this.

We have to figure out what the intricacies are, what our barriers are, what we want, or what gets in the way of what we want. Although Margot came pretty fully formed as a character, I was, on occasion, able to be like, "I want to do this." Obviously, it involved a little bit of action because you know I love doing action [laughs]. There were things here and there, but on the whole, I think that Margot was formed. So then it was up to me to figure out what all the different colors were inside that form, basically. 

I wouldn't be a good TV fan if I didn't bring up Lost. So, how does playing Juliet differ from playing Juliette's mom?

Elizabeth Mitchell: [Laughs] It's so funny. When Sarah Catherine came up to me, she's like, "I feel so wrong being Juliette after Juliet." I was like, "No, this is perfect!" I think that Juliet always wanted to have a daughter or a child. It's on the forefront of her longing, so it certainly doesn't seem out of context to know that in some way it's a bit of wish fulfillment. I love playing a mom. I am a mom. So, for me, a lot of that comes really naturally.

But I do that that it's interesting in a career for the longest times, you have Juliet who was yearning, but she's yearning in the way that a younger woman yearns. The things that she yearns for are different than what I would yearn for at 52. I do think it's fascinating to get to play two different, yet in a way, kind of similar characters in their vulnerabilities, and their wanting what they want, and their being afraid they're not going to get it, and their enormous amount of passion and strength to protect the people that they love. They definitely share that. I think the answer is, it feels about right. 

Screen Rant: This show explores the concept of blood family ties versus more found family relationships. How did you approach playing the angle of where your character stands on that?

Elizabeth Mitchell: I think that for Margot, blood is so very important because it's how her world is, how the hierarchy goes in their world. But, I think we found out somewhere in there that Margot hasn't always played by the rules. As to the specifics of that, we can't really say, but I do think that Margot is different on that subject than how she appears in the beginning.

It seems in the beginning that she's always just about the straight and narrow and wanting everything to be just so, but as we discover more about her, we see that there is something entirely different at play underneath that is not just about blood. But I do think that Margot has an incredible loyalty to her family. Incredible, like very fierce and scary, and I wouldn't want to mess with her. 

Elizabeth Mitchell as Margot Fairmont in First Kill season 1

There's a lot of family in the show between your side, and then the hunters. What I find with film and TV shows is that showcasing family ties sometimes doesn't come across really well. It does here, where you can almost tell that you've spent every minute of the last 200 years together in this case. What was it like on set, building those ties so that way they could show on screen for us?

Elizabeth Mitchell: You mentioned the two families, so I quickly have to say that I was absolutely in love with the Burns family. Watching them, I was like "They're so funny and so warm, and they're so kind and they love each other so much, and we're vampires." But, I think that for me, it was easy. I loved those girls the minute I met them. Sarah Catherine and Gracie [Dzienny] are so absolutely lovely. Dylan [McNamara] was such a joy to come at together. It was easy to love them and it was easy to have that maternal bond with them.

With Will [Swenson], I can't begin to tell you, it just felt like I had worked with him forever. He is so kind and so talented and absolutely up for anything. He's like, "Yeah, let's do it. Alright, let's try that. OK, let's do that." He's one of my favorite male co-stars ever. I absolutely felt that connection with him immediately. Because I felt so safe, we were able to create a very intense relationship really quickly.

A lot of it was about watching the behavior of all of my people. Seeing what they did with their hands, how they moved, all of those things because when people live in a family together, they start taking on each other's characteristics. I was watching it with Gracie and Gracie turned to me and was like, "You totally stole that from me!" and I was like "No, my scene was before yours You stole it from me." [laughs] But, it was great. It was really fun to find those ties and to do it really fast.

I watched the entire show in a haze yesterday, consuming it. I wanted to know, you have so many good costumes in this series. Which one was your favorite?

Elizabeth Mitchell: Probably the most uncomfortable one. I did really love the dress. By the way, that whole thing was like a nightgown. It was really fun and it made my mom so happy. She's like, "Finally, we get to see you your figure, darling!" [laughs] I felt like I really liked that white thing, which was really uncomfortable. It had all those bangles on the side, which totally cut. I guess you do have to suffer for fashion because in watching it, I was like, "It does look good." Everybody was like, "Oh, this is it." I was like, "It's so uncomfortable, you guys." They're like, "No, this is the one" and I was like, "OK, my pleasure." I put it on and was like, "No, they're right. It looks really good." 

Screen Rant: Which of Margot's traits from the book did you look to emulate in the show or what did you look to change?

Elizabeth Mitchell: I wanted to make sure that we understood that she is an entitled white lady in a lot of ways. I wanted to make sure that that was really there. That was important to me because I think that when you're dealing with vampires or people of this echelon, there is just a lot that's already built into the way she sees the world. She's already a predator. So many people, she thinks, "They're not in my world. They're not my people," and I liked that. I liked the bad guy quality of that because it comes across as "I don't know if I'd want to cross her."

That part was really interesting to me and I liked the idea of playing around with that and seeing how that all comes together. As far as Margot goes, I love how loyal, smart, and interested she is. I like who makes her curious. I really did feel like Aubin [Wise]'s character, Talia, made her very curious. She's like, "Who is this? What's she doing? She's interesting to me, I'll talk to her more" — those kinds of fun things. You know, there's a little bit of Margot in all of us, sadly [laughs], and I think It was curious as to what parts we could use to make an interesting story.

Check out our other interview with First Kill stars Sarah Catherine Hook & Imani Lewis.

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First Kill season 1 premieres June 10 on Netflix.