Elsbeth’s Carrie Preston Talks Hilarious Love Interest Twist and Elsbeth’s Future With Angus
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Thursday’s Elsbeth. Proceed at your own risk!
This week’s Valentine’s Day-themed episode of Elsbeth brought a potential love connection for the titular lawyer, with a fiery surprise twist.
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Elsbeth was charmed by Angus (guest star Ioan Gruffudd), a musician in Scotland who was witness to a crime via a video installation connecting his tiny town with Manhattan. As Angus offered up his help to Elsbeth over phone conversations while staring at each other through the art piece, the chemistry between the long-distance pair was obvious. So strong was the pull that Angus even got on a plane and came to New York City to serenade Elsbeth and end the hour with a kiss.
Below, star Carrie Preston talks about Elsbeth and Angus’ relationship future, and his hilarious reveal that he actually makes his living not as a musician, but as a… fireman!
TVLINE | We’ve seen some other men express interest in Elsbeth, like the fire marshal, Jake, but she kind of closed herself off and rejected him. What is it about Angus that draws her in?
I think it’s the fascination with the way they meet, which is through this portal, which is an art installation. The fact that she can see this guy who’s in Scotland, and she’s in New York, and still have a spark with him is something that she’s never experienced before. And Elsbeth always likes to dig into things that are new and interesting and curious to her. Also, his accent is very enticing. Elsbeth likes shiny things, she likes things that are curious to her, unusual. That is not an accent she hears all the time. So I think she is charmed by that, and he has a disarming quality to her. And so, I think she responds to that, as well.
TVLINE | They’re not actually physically in-person with each other in most of their scenes. So what was it like filming those? Were you both there, or were you speaking to a blank wall?
It was very unusual in the way that it was shot, because we had to shoot all of his side of things, the Scotland side of things, on a location that we dressed to make look like Scotland. It’s a street called Stone Street in New York, and we shot down there, and there was, basically, a big, empty frame, but he was there in-person, and I was off-camera whenever we did his side of the stuff. And so, I would be off-camera and feeding him the lines. But the way we had to shoot it, the cameras were basically standing right where I was, so he couldn’t really see me. What we did was we rehearsed together so that we could get a real rapport without the cameras there, and to make sure that we really got a feeling of what the other person was going to do. And then when we did our scene work, we had to, in some ways, just remember that, because we were basically talking to a camera, and the same happened with my side of it, which we did, like, a week later. … We got, in some ways, to really dig into the scenes in a way that you wouldn’t in the normal way of shooting. So it was interesting and fun and challenging. There were green screens we had to act in front of at times, depending on what the shot was.
TVLINE | It’s amazing that you have as much chemistry as you do through all that technical stuff, plus the fact that this is just someone who’s come in as a guest star.
Yeah, that is a credit to the writing, which was so good on the page. Zoe Marshall, who’s the writer of that episode, really knocked it out of the park. And Ioan is a brilliant actor, and he was very game, very kind, very willing to just dive right in. He came fully prepared and ready to play, which was great. He’s Welsh, but he’s having to do a Scottish accent, which he hadn’t really done before. So he had done all the work on that. And then we have Robert King, who is the creator of our show, who directed. So I think all of those things combined helped ease us into those scenes and really helped us to connect. When you have a good actor that you’re playing with, who’s prepared and facile and ready to try different things, that, to me, is chemistry, more than there’s some kind of attraction that’s unnamed between two actors. We put a lot of energy and we put a lot of pressure on the word chemistry, as actors, and there’s way more that goes into it than just two people connecting, because we’re actors. We’re not actually having a romance, but we’re pretending that we are. And so, we had some high-level pretending going on.
TVLINE | Did Ioan actually sing on set? Did he serenade you, or was that added later in post?
He did sing on set. I think they also had him do it again later, just because we had so many sound issues in our locations. We had to do some looping and stuff to help with the sound, just because there were jackhammers, and New York City all around us, and he’s supposed to be in Scotland. But the singing, actually, was in the New York side of it. He did sing in-person, and it was really great to have that live. I’m not sure what they used in the final mix.
TVLINE | I imagine when you hear him singing in his Scottish accent when you’re filming, it’s a little bit swoony.
Yeah. Ioan was worried, “I don’t know if my accent is perfect,” and I said, “In America, people love any accent from the British Isles, so you’re going to be fine. Nobody’s going to be critiquing you too harshly over here,” even though, to all ears, it sounded pretty flawless the way he was doing it.
TVLINE | They end this episode with a kiss, but Elsbeth says it herself, they live 3,000 miles apart. So what is their future? Will we see Angus again this season?
Let’s just say that Elsbeth hasn’t forgotten about him, and she’s got a lot on her plate, and she really enjoys being single in New York — not that she’s looking to date anyone. [It’s] more that she’s looking to reinvent herself, and she’s enjoying having this time to herself with her dog, and her son coming to visit more than he has in many recent years. That said, he definitely charmed her, and she’s hanging onto that memory in an enticing way.
TVLINE | Even though there was tons of physical comedy for you in this episode, which was delightful, no moment made me laugh more than when Angus revealed that he’s a fireman.
[Laughs] I know.
TVLINE | What was your reaction when you first saw that in the script?
It was the most perfect way to end the episode, because here we are, thinking that this guy is so different from any of these other guys that keep coming onto her, and it turns out, that’s really how he makes his living, on top of being a musician. [Laughs] So, yeah, I just thought it was perfect, and in a way, it was surprise, but no surprise for Elsbeth.
TVLINE | Is she going to give firemen a second chance now? Because it seemed like she was really writing them all off.
I think she’s just used to guys like that coming after her for maybe superficial reasons, and then this was definitely not superficial. This was a real connection with somebody who flew all the way across the world to meet her in-person. So I don’t think she’s going to suddenly take firemen seriously now any more than she did before.
Elsbeth fans, what did you think of the Valentine’s Day episode and the chemistry with Angus? Hit the comments!
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