Anyone paying attention to genre films that’ve been released since 2020 will surely have heard of or seen at least one of the movies Charlotte Kirk has starred in: The Reckoning (2020), The Lair (2022), and now Duchess, which is out this week from Saban. The common denominator other than Kirk herself as the star is that all of them were either written or co-written and directed by genre maestro Neil Marshall, whose films Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday firmly established him as one of the best genre filmmakers alive. Their latest collaboration Duchess – which I consider to be “My Fair Lady with a gun” – casts Kirk as an ordinary girl who upgrades to an upscale criminal life when she embarks on a romance with a charming diamond trader, played by Philip Winchester. What Kirk’s character goes through to get revenge when her life takes a wrong turn is part of the movie’s many surprises, as audiences are with her every step of the way. It’s an action movie, to be sure, but it’s also a gangster picture, a globetrotting adventure, and a revenge odyssey, as filtered through filmmaker Marshall’s distinct and inimitable style. Here, Kirk discusses her time making the film, and her working relationship with Marshall over the course of their work together, including their upcoming, yet-to-be-released erotic thriller Compulsion.
Duchess, in comparison with the two previous movies you’ve done with Neil Marshall – The Reckoning and The Lair – gives audiences a very clear vision of who you are, Charlotte, in terms of being an actress and a performer. I feel like your character has much more definition here. For example, in The Lair you play a female soldier: You’re a type. Duchess has a beginning, a middle, and an end with your character – you have a complete arc here. Say something about Duchess and what you’ve done with Neil so far.
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with what you just said. My character in The Reckoning was very specific. It was set in 1665. Duchess is very different because she’s just a regular girl, but her story is so extraordinary the way it starts. I think she’s just got so many layers, so much depth to her. What I like about her is that she’s just a normal girl. I love normal characters in extraordinary situations. That’s exactly what Scarlett in Duchess is. She’s relatable. She’s a normal girl, meets this guy, falls in love, and without spoiling anything, something extraordinary happens and there’s lots of moments that help define who and what she is. Her choices, the choices she makes after that are what makes this such an interesting character. She steps up to the mark and she does things that most people wouldn’t think she would do. It’s not just an action movie. There are so many layers to it. It’s about betrayal, love, power, and that’s what makes her interesting. It was hard to play. That’s what makes this movie interesting. It’s not a run of the mill action movie. Hopefully, the audience will be rooting for her.
You’ve had this working relationship with Neil for a few years now, and when you two sit down to brainstorm how do you decide what the next project will be? It seems like the sky’s the limit: Do you just pick a genre? So far, the three that have been released – and the fourth one Compulsion – are each very different from the last one. I mean, Neil could take you to space for the next one or he can make you lady James Bond after that. It feels like you two pick something specific and you run with that. Does it start with a nucleus of an idea and do you just build around your character? Obviously, you’re the muse with these films.
It’s interesting. It’s not really about the genre or this is where we’ve gone and now this is where we’re going to go. The Reckoning just came to us. Someone approached us about making a movie about witches. It became a story about this girl who everyone thought was a witch, but she wasn’t. During COVID, The Lair came to us, but it was going to be a one-location COVID lockdown movie, but it became something else. Neil doesn’t write low budget one-location movies. He writes things to be very big. Then, with Duchess we were talking about what we wanted to do next. We talked about gangster movies. Scarface, Goodfellas, The Departed, Layer Cake, and I said, “Wouldn’t it be cool to make a movie like that, and wouldn’t it be even cooler if we made a movie like that with a woman?” We hadn’t seen that before. This was before these shows like Queen of the South and some others came out. We shot this in 2022, but we were talking about, I think, in 2018. We thought it would be cool to make a British gangster movie but with a woman calling the shots. That’s how it came about. We’d done horror, we’d done sci-fi / action, so let’s do a gangster movie. Neil told me he had the most fun writing this out of all his scripts. The whole thing is a lot of fun. We shot an erotic thriller after this called Compulsion. That just started with us talking. You have to be inspired by something.
In that regard, I’d consider Duchess is the prequel to the one where your character would be calling the shots. This is the story before what you’re describing.
Yes, 100%. It’s her rise to power. I always wanted to call it Duchess Part 1, but Neil said no, don’t assume, but I wanted to, I really did. This is absolutely her rise to power and we take it in that direction. For me, it’s just the beginning.
Your character really runs the gamut in this film. You, as a performer, you do boxing in the gym, you’re putting on gorgeous dresses and gowns, and in some instances you don’t have anything on at all! Which is great! We’re seeing this whole transformation of Charlotte / Scarlett here. You’re Pygmalion. It’s My Fair Lady with a gun. Say something about this character and taking on the mantle that this role required of you.
100% My Fair Lady. I think that’s a great example. She starts off just being a regular girl. She starts out as a petty thief with some skills, but she doesn’t know what to do with them. She meets this guy who just opens her eyes, for better or worse. You see her journey where she starts out as this girl with lots of missed opportunities, but meeting this guy throws her into this other world. It was really fun playing her, to be this nitty gritty character who puts on all these beautiful dresses and runs in this new world of mob bosses and you get a little taste of everything in this movie. You go from nitty gritty England to these gorgeous locations around the world. Neil really wanted to capture that. He said, “I want to go to these locations, I want it to be epic, I want all these beaches.” This simple girl falls in love, and the story is bittersweet. She has this whole journey, she can have everything but the old life; her previous life is gone now.
I can safely say that after watching the three movies you’ve done with Neil that have so far been released that you completely and entirely throw yourself body and soul into that environment, into that world. The audience is really with you on these movies, thanks partly to the way Neil writes and directs you in these films, but you’re the tangible element that comes across. Say something about the physicality these movies require of you and how you plunge into these roles.
All of the movies I’ve done with Neil have been very physically challenging. On The Reckoning, I had to learn how to ride a horse and how to sword fight. I thought, Oh no, no, I can’t learn this. I ended up doing it and I absolutely loved it. Before The Liar I’d never fired a gun before. I was told I would have to learn this and that, and then I learned how to handle and fire guns. On Duchess I needed to learn how to box. She’s not a professional boxer, but I had to learn how to move. Her character had been doing it for many years, that was her thing because it comes into play later on, so I definitely had to make it come across that I knew what I was doing. Actually, one of the toughest days on set for me was in the boxing ring. It was like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. I had to remember how to move and say all the lines at the same time. I’d never done that before and it was very, very difficult for me. I wanted to make sure she’s not a superhero, she’s not a spy or a martial artist. It had to be good enough when it comes to boxing. That was one of the most challenging aspects of the film was learning how to box.
Going forward into the future, what is it you’d like to do? What do you see yourself doing in terms of roles or what’s on your wish list, whether it’s with Neil or another filmmaker?
I want to do more character pieces. I absolutely love doing action and horror and these genres. I’d love to work with someone like Ty West. That kind of film. More dramas. If I could choose, I’d like to do more dramas. Action isn’t really my specialty, but I’m happy to do more of those because they’re so much fun to shoot. The genre doesn’t matter to me as long as the character and the script are really great. I have a movie called Fight or Flight coming out with Dolph Lundgren and Michael Jai White. That was a full on action movie. Dropping into an action piece like that with those action legends after doing Duchess was great. Having come from Duchess and The Lair and going into that made me feel comfortable. That was all action from start to finish. Compulsion, which is my fourth movie with Neil and should be coming out soon, came about very naturally. We were watching a movie on Netflix called 365 Days that was an erotic thriller, and we said out loud, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do an erotic thriller?’ All the good ones like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct … when was the last time there was a really good one? Neil put his stamp on it with lots of blood and murder and all that fun stuff. It’s very inspired by the Italian giallo movies, so it’s got that vibe. It’s a serial killer on an island. I play the antagonist, so that was fun and very far from what we did with Duchess. Someone asked me the other day, “What’s your dream role?” I answered, “To be honest, I just played it with Duchess.” Duchess was my dream role. I think you can tell why.
Duchess is available on Digital and On Demand on August 9th through Saban.
