Greg Kennedy talks to the star and producer of the latest high-gloss drama to come out of the US
Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold — but it's all the more delicious when it's whipped up by Emily VanCamp, who stars in Revenge as a calculating femme fatale out to destroy the billionaires who shattered her family years before.
Her unladylike revenge is sweeter than summer ice cream, as she deftly scoops deeper into the lives of the greedy in an American playground for the super-rich, the Hamptons, where secrets hide beyond emerald, diamond-cut lawns and fester behind the massive doors of sprawling oceanfront mansions.
The 25-year-old Canadian actress's star first twinkled in Everwood (as Amy Abbott, from 2002 to 2006) and grew brighter in Brothers & Sisters (as Rebecca Harper from 2007 to 2010). She also starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Beyond the Blackboard earlier this year.
If you're just joining the series, here's a little back-story: first of all, her real name is Amanda Clarke. Her father David Clarke, framed for terrorism charges when she was a little girl, died in prison. Her life destroyed, she ended up in a juvenile detention centre, believing the lies that her dad was a murderer who blew up an airliner. At 18, she inherited her father's millions, learnt the truth and changed her name to Emily Thorne. Now, she returns to infiltrate Hamptons' high society, hellbent on revenge on those she blames for her family's downfall.
It's no easy thespian trick to fashion a sympathetic character who's rich, coolly detached and ruthless, as the cherubic VanCamp does with her Emily Thorne, yet also infuse her with emotional warmth and vulnerability. It's a tall order to tweak a moral compass with such exactitude, so viewers fully engage and root for her. In the hands of lesser talent, a sociopath would result — yet with VanCamp, Emily's almost demure.
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