In July 2013, Tatiana Maslany walked the red carpet at The Critics Choice Awards in Hollywood and hardly anybody knew who she was. The little-known Canadian actress, star of “Orphan Black,” the BBC America sci-fi series about genetic cloning, was just another newcomer on the celebrity circuit.
“I’m really awe-struck to be at such a glittering event,” she told me at the ensuing cocktail party.
So later that night, no one was more surprised than Maslany when she beat out Claire Danes, Vera Farmiga, Julianna Margulies, Elisabeth Moss and Keri Russell to nab the award as best actress in a drama series.
Six months later, the 28-year-old actress was back in Hollywood to attend the Golden Globe Awards, where she was nominated for best actress in a drama series, and to attend a garden party in Pasadena, hosted by BBC America.
This time the press mobbed Maslany. At least 30 TV critics surrounded her, firing off questions, iPhones and tape recorders thrust in her face.
The questions came fast and furious: “What is your dream job?” “What are you doing during hiatus?” “What is it like playing seven different characters on the show?” “How will Season 2 of ‘Orphan Black’ be different than Season 1?”
This show has completely changed Maslany’s life. She’s on a path where there is no turning back.
“It’s insane,” Maslany says of the past year. “People interviewing and recognizing me. I mean, it is crazy to think about the short amount of time that has passed since last July. It happened in the blink of an eye.”
To talk about all of this, Maslany called from London last month. She fled there at the end of the Season 2 shoot in Toronto to spend time with the man in her life, actor Tom Cullen.
The couple met on the set of “World Without End,” a 2012 TV miniseries set in the 1300s, and interestingly, Maslany played a nun. “I even played the Virgin Mary a couple of years back,” she laughs. “I guess I like religious women.”
Cullen had his own taste of fame this year when he was introduced as Lord Tony Gillingham, a heartthrob vying to be Lady Mary Crawley’s second husband on “Downton Abbey.”
Those who don’t know Maslany, or “Orphan Black,” soon will.
She gives a tour de force performance as a troubled woman who discovers that she is one of a group of clones who are part of a mysterious and nefarious scientific experiment.
Maslany plays all of the clones, sometimes three in a single scene.
If you haven’t seen the show, here’s a description of the clones: Sarah is a grifter, Beth, a police detective, Alison, a soccer mom, Cosima, a dread-headed lesbian scientist, Katja, a dying German, Helena, a crazy Ukrainian clone killer and Rachel — the newest addition — is an executive.
In Season 2 Rachel’s boss will be played by Michelle Forbes (“The Killing”).
“I won’t say exactly what she’s doing [on the show], but working with Michelle is incredible — hilarious and terrifying,” says Maslany. “She has such a badass in her; she’s a lot of fun to play off of. Her part is quite powerful.”
When Maslany auditioned for the series, she was one of hundreds of actresses who tried out for part. At the time, neither the series nor the role had been fully formed.
“We knew this series would live or die depending on finding the right actress.”
“We didn’t set out to write a show about clones,” says co-creator Graeme Manson. “John Fawcett pitched me the opening scene: Girl gets off a train, looks across the track, sees someone who looks exactly like her, their eyes meet and, in that moment, she kills herself. And I was like, ‘Great. What’s next?’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know.’”
That scene ended up in the pilot, and Season 1 dealt with the clones discovering each other. “This season we see them as individuals,” says Maslany. “They are more fractured.”
Season 2 also picks up with Sarah’s frantic search for her kidnapped child, Kira (Skyler Wexler). Spoiler alert: In the first episode of Season 2, we also learn that Rachel and Sarah have ratcheted up their bitter feud, that Cosima starts to get sick and Helena may not be dead. Meanwhile, Alison joins a theater group and becomes the star of a musical.
“I sing and dance,” says Maslany, who listens to different music for each character as preparation. “That’s how I started; I cut my teeth in musical theater. But to do it on ‘Orphan Black’ was scary. I had to go back and take lessons.”
It is midmorning in LA, where I live, and evening in London. Dishes are clanging in the background. Maslany is making dinner for Cullen and starts to talk about what it’s like to have a high-profile romance where you have to commute between continents to see each other.
Suddenly, a publicist cuts into the interview. She announces that Maslany won’t answer that question.
That’s when I realize that the ingénue from last year’s Critics Choice Awards has morphed into another creature. Like the folks at the NSA, her publicists are now listening to her every conversation. And like the puppets of old Hollywood, Maslany is being coached about what to say.
We may never know the real Tatiana Maslany.
To explain what has happened to his media darling, Perry Simon, a former NBC programming executive and General Manager, Channels, BBC Worldwide America gives a veteran’s analysis.
“I have never seen a performance like this and never seen people in the industry write such glowing things about an actress,” he says.
Simon makes clear that even if Maslany’s flaks are demanding special treatment, BBC America demands just the opposite.
“We knew this series would live or die depending on finding the right actress,” he says. “Tatiana has worked for BBC before, so we knew she was professional. That she was the one cast, was reassuring to us.”
This season, Maslany has to work even harder as another new clone — Jennifer, who suffers from respiratory problems — is added to the mix.
In the meantime, she’s trying to keep a low profile, even taking the tube through London without being recognized.
“It’s just easier here,” she says. “It’s not like being in the States.”