'Reign' Star Adelaide Kane Previews the Show's Big Move to Scotland
On Reign, Mary Queen of Scots has spent all of her time not in her own country, but in France, as the wife of the king. But now, he’s dead, and she has to get on with the business of living… and ruling.
Things are about to change drastically on the CW drama, which returns for the second half of Season 3 Monday. Mary (Adelaide Kane) might still be grieving Francis, but she’ll need to set those feelings aside to return to her country, find a husband to help her lead, and bear an heir to carry on her legacy.
Kane chatted with Yahoo TV about the big changes, the tumultuous events of the real Queen Mary’s life, and saying goodbye to beloved characters (and their actors).
It feels like forever since Reign was on the air. When we last saw Mary, she was going through a transition time, after losing Francis. Is she still in limbo?
Yeah, a little bit. She’s going to start making some more decisions and getting some traction in moving forward with her life over the next couple of episodes, and eventually make her way to Scotland, which will be a very exciting development for the show.
She wanted to find a new husband to make a good political connection, to help Scotland, so is she still looking for suitors?
Absolutely! I mean, I don’t think she’s been looking at all that hard, but that is definitely something on her mind and there’s a lot of pressure for her to wed again, especially with Scotland still in a precarious position. But I think actually knuckling down and getting married is going to have to wait until she’s back in Scotland. There are definitely potential suitors, who are both appropriate and inappropriate, coming into her life. I’m excited to see her get down to courting when she’s back in Scotland, because then we’ll meet her next husband — eventually.
With the move to Scotland, it sounds like this will be like a new show.
It is! It is going to be a completely new situation — we’ve got new sets, a new court, new intrigues, new romances, all of it. It is pretty much going to be like a whole new show. It’s exciting. It’s still got the same vibe, but we have brand-new sets that are amazing. We have some really incredible new locations when we were at Ireland shooting exterior stuff for the next couple of episodes. We’ve also completely revamped Mary’s wardrobe, too, to keep more with Scotland’s climate. The wardrobe will be more reflective of that court, which is super cool. I’m curious to see how the fans react to that and enjoy the new setting.
You mentioned that the show will have the same vibe, but what about the tone — will it get darker?
Now that she’s in Scotland — I don’t know if you know her history, but her life doesn’t really start until she gets back to Scotland. So, it’s almost like this time in France, as drama-filled as it has been, is holiday compared to what she goes through once she gets back to Scotland. I think the show is definitely going to take a darker turn. I’d like to think that we’ll still maintain our sense of humor, though [laughs]. But she gets remarried, and her husband goes kind of crazy, she loses twins — historically speaking, I don’t know how much they’ll put in the storyline, because nobody tells me anything! And then she has her son [the future King James].
But we have another marriage to look forward to, with a potentially abusive husband, if they stick to the history books on that one. There’s her first child, which I’m personally very excited about, because I love children. Babies! And then her second husband dies, and she remarries, and then she’s overthrown. There’s a lot of crazy stuff coming up for her, a lot of very dark and politically driven drama.
This season introduced Queen Elizabeth. Will we see even more of her now that Mary is going to Scotland?
For sure. England and that court is going to play a big part in the show as we continue to move forward. Their tensions with each other and their competition and politics was a driving force in history and will be a driving force in the show, as well. I think we’ll spend more time in that court, as well, to start getting a look at what Elizabeth went through in her struggles, and I think it’ll provide an interesting juxtaposition between the queens in what they went through — where they went through similar problems and dissimilar problems as female rulers in a very misogynistic, sexist, patriarchal time.
All of these changes also mean changes in the cast. Torrance Coombs, who plays Bash, has already announced he’s leaving. That must be sad.
It is! It’s bittersweet. People are leaving the show to do other things, whether it be other work or settling down and getting married and buying homes and building lives. That’s incredibly exciting. We’ve all grown up together in the last couple of years. I personally feel like quite a different person from when I started the show and far more of an adult when we shot the pilot and I was 22 years old.
Related: ‘Reign's’ Torrance Coombs Joins ABC’s Still Star-Crossed, Will Exit CW Drama
I can only feel so sad because I’m friends with these people, and I’m going to see them in my real life. But it’s hard to go from seeing somebody almost every day to knowing that I won’t see them unless I Facetime them. I’m so pleased for Torrance and so proud of him, he just shot a pilot for a Shonda Rhimes show. He and his beautiful wife, Alyssa [Campanella], who’s a good friend of mine, just got married.
It’s crazy, me and Megan [Follows, aka Catherine de Medici] and Anna [Popplewell, aka Lola] are the last ones left from the pilot, still hanging out, holding on for dear life. We’ll all lose our heads eventually!
Reign airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
