Emily VanCamp On ‘Revenge’, Dream Guest Stars, And Season Two Spoilers

With the Revenge: The Complete First Season DVD hitting shelves and Season 2 set to premiere in a month, we’ve had Revenge on our minds! We had the chance to chat with the series’ leading lady, Emily VanCamp. She even gave us some hints about what’s coming Season 2…

Check out our full interview with Revenge‘s Emily VanCamp below!

How did you get involved with Revenge?

Emily VanCamp: I read the script for Revenge and I loved it, so I went and met with [Revenge executive producers] Marty Bowen and Mike Kelley to hear their thoughts on the project. We talked and talked about it, and then I went through a whole audition process to win the role. When I tested for the part, Marty called my agent and said, “I just don’t know if she can go dark. I didn’t see that in our meeting. She really doesn’t give that off.” When I heard that, I thought to myself, ‘OK, great. Let’s go in and I’ll try to prove it to them.’

How did your audition go?

Emily VanCamp: [The director of the pilot episode] Phillip Noyce was there for that session and I was incredibly nervous. The whole situation was terrifying, but I just went in and I worked hard at showing off the darkness of the role. It was great. A couple of weeks later, I had signed up and was getting ready to film the pilot. It’s been amazing ever since.

Did you get to take anything from your Brothers & Sisters experience to Revenge?

Emily VanCamp: I let Brothers & Sisters go completely from my head and I moved on to the next chapter. What I really wanted was to feel creatively fulfilled and excited about something again, and this really brought that to my life. Mostly, I just wanted to stop pulling from personal experience in my acting and create a character from scratch. I was really intrigued about creating a new character, a new being, and that’s what I was able to do with Emily.

Has it been an enjoyable experience working on Revenge?

Emily VanCamp: I’m very lucky. I’m working with an incredibly supportive, amazing cast, as well as producers and brilliant creators who are writing great scripts. I have been doing this for a very long time, even though I’m still quite young – but it’s been an incredible experience and I’m enjoying every moment. In fact, I have a lot of ‘pinch me’ moments on the set, which is great.

Can you describe any of your ‘pinch me’ moments?

Emily VanCamp: I’ll have ‘pinch me’ moments in my trailer when I get really excited about the new scripts. Ashley Madekwe [who plays Ashley Davenport in the show] thinks I’m the biggest dork in the world! She’s seen most of these moments, but I can’t help getting excited about the storylines and the plot. I feel like Mike Kelley has put together this group of really great people, and I love that I get to go to work and have so much fun with them. It’s an amazing feeling. At the beginning, it felt explosive because we all wanted to make a great project and make the audience happy, but also have fun while we were doing it. I have an incredible sense of gratitude all the time.

Will Emily feel any guilt as she exacts her revenge in the show?

Emily VanCamp: Emily has spent eight years building up a wall so that she can do this and she has nothing to lose. I feel like this revenge is a way for her to stay connected to her father, and the moment that she forgives is the moment that she has to let him go. If you look at it that way, that’s a massive motivation for her.

Will anything stop Emily?

Emily VanCamp: She’s constantly being challenged. This is a moment in her life that she thought was going to be quite easy and fulfilling; that’s where it’s going to get interesting. Feelings are going to arise and she’s going to be challenged in that way. This is also the first time that she’s ever been around a group of people for that amount of time. I think she’s always been traveling and avoiding human interaction.

How long can she continue before people start to get suspicious?

Emily VanCamp: She’s had eight years to really, really plan this out. Even though it’s suspicious, she’s really covered her bases in terms of being able to know anything on paper.

How difficult was it to get the audience on Emily’s side, especially considering she’s so full of vengeance?

Emily VanCamp: I’ve talked a lot about finding the balance for this and, at the end of the day; it’s a moral discussion in terms of how people feel about revenge. Emily is quite justified in what she’s doing. These people stole everything from her. They are horrible people. They do really bad things. I think, on some level, everybody can connect with that theme of revenge, whether they act on it or not. That’s where the balance with the audience comes in.

Do you see Emily as a sociopath?

Emily VanCamp: Well, what happened to Emily was so incredibly traumatic. She had such a happy childhood, but then she was torn away from her father and she had to grow up in the foster care system. Her teenage years were really rough. She didn’t really have, beyond her father, anybody who truly cared about her. It was all taken away from her and so she’s lived with that guilt and pain for years.

Does she care for anyone apart from her father?

Emily VanCamp: This is not somebody who has family or friends. She’s protected herself and she’s deliberately chosen not to make any kind of real human connections with people because, like I said before, her only true connection to love is this relationship with revenge and her father. I think that’s what keeps her on track.

What stunts have you done for the show?

Emily VanCamp: They’ve let me do some of the fightscenes, which was really fun. I hope they allow her to dabble a little more with that dark aspect of herself because that is so much fun for me to play. It’s something I haven’t done very much of and that’s what drew me to the character in the first place.

Why do you think Revenge has proved so popular?

Emily VanCamp: I think revenge is a universal theme. It’s fun to delve into the lives of the rich and beautiful people of the Hamptons. The economy is in such a bad shape that people are looking for an escape – and Revenge can provide that escape. It all came together with perfect timing for us. The show has really caught on.

Can you give us any clues about Season Two?

Emily VanCamp: The Season One finale is filled with about five cliffhangers, so we deal with those and the repercussions in Season Two. There is also a new villain who is amazing; he gives the show new life and broadens the definition of revenge in that he takes it beyond the Graysons and moves it into a whole other realm for Emily.

Who would be your dream guest star on Revenge?

Emily VanCamp: Michael C. Hall should come on to the show as Dexter and help Emily out a little bit. Come on, what a crossover! Maybe he should be one of her revenge gurus? That would be awesome.

Revenge: The Complete First Season is now available on DVD!