Ever wondered what would happen if the patriarchy was flipped on its head?
Brand new TV series The Power – adapted from Naomi Alderman's bestselling novel of the same name – looks at just this concept.
Both the book and TV show tell the story through the eyes of women around the world who have developed the ability to emit electrical currents from their hands, disrupting and reversing the power dynamics between men and women.
She stars as feminist icon Karen in TV series Daisy Jones and The Six
Starring Toni Collette as a politician who becomes entrenched in the dystopian matriarchy that follows, The Power may be a slight departure from reality, but it draws on some all-too-real issues when it comes to misogyny and the policing of women’s bodies.
Ria Dmitrowicz plays Roxy, a tough-but-tortured woman who discovers her "power" in a time of intense rage and grief. The star is no stranger to telling complex stories from a female perspective, having starred in ITV’s Three Girls back in 2017 – a TV series based on true events. She played a young woman, Amber, who has been sex trafficked and has to relive her ordeal in a courtroom.
According to Ria, the central message of The Power is that “power itself corrupts, regardless of gender”. She sat down with GLAMOUR to talk working alongside some of the best female directors in the business, the empathy and “shorthand” that was created on set and the catharsis she felt playing such a powerful, complicated character.
What do you think sets The Power apart from other TV series about women, what attracted you to it?
I think the show is very humanising for women, because it's showing them as just as complicated and complex as men. Anything else is infantilising to women. We've got really complex female characters – Roxy does do questionable things, but you can't help but root for her.
Your character Roxy is an absolute force, but at her centre there’s so much grief and anger to contend with. What was that like to play? Was it easy to access those kinds of emotions?
It was amazing to jump into those emotional depths – and I didn't do it alone. We we had an all-female directing team, and I think that brought a level of authenticity and detail to the work.
We filmed during Covid, so we worked with one director in the morning and one in the afternoon. So it was like an acting bootcamp – you had to go really quickly from the rhythms of one director to the rhythms of another. Working with Shannon Murphy [an Emmy award-winning director who worked on Killing Eve] was amazing, she really helped me to find this feral energy that Roxy has.
I also worked a lot on the inner kind of psychological stuff that she's going through with a different director – hopefully it makes for a more like nuanced kind of performance because we're jumping in with very different styles from directors.
How do you think the female writing room, and working with a team of all-female directors on set, impacted your experience?
It made me very at ease, because we’d all lived through similar experiences. We all knew what it was like to be afraid, and to experience misogyny. I think that it created a shorthand and a sense of authenticity and real detail.
There was a huge amount of empathy from the directors for my character. [Handmaid’s Tale director] Reed Murano would be laughing along with you, she would be crying along with you, holding your hand. It was definitely a collaboration – as an actor, I couldn't have done it without the directors.
It’s so amazing to see women telling these stories – have you seen the industry shift or progress in the wake of Me Too?
I like to think that things are changing, but they're probably not changing fast enough. There’s still a long way to go. I think that I've been lucky with the female teams that I've worked with, on both Three Girls and The Power.
Roxy has this great role reversal moment where she catcalls a bouncer (asking him to “smile for me”), how important was it to show these power reversals, and was it weird to play?
It was fun, it was quite cathartic playing a role where you have bodily autonomy. You're holding up a mirror to society and saying 'this is what we go through on the regular’. I think that role reversal really highlights what women go through.
She has such an interesting and infuriating relationship with her dad [played by Eddie Marsan]. He’s a real piece of work – calling her “little girl” and “too emotional”, it was hard to watch at times.
You're right. There is so much casual misogyny from what he says to her, but she is also really drawn to his world. She really wants to be part of that ‘man's world’, and I think that she's just desperate to prove herself to him.
It's a real example of internalised misogyny. These stories that you tell are so crucial but must be heavy to carry. How do you take care of yourself and your mental health?
I go to the gym, I see a therapist and I take lots of baths. I needed my baths to be so hot that it's almost scolding my skin, and I use lots of magnesium salts and essential oils.
I think the gym has been great for me. You can go in really anxious and then you leave, knowing you haven't been in your mind. You've been in your body for that hour. And that's been really useful for me.
What’s empowering to you?
I think just being treated with respect and as an equal.
Are you excited for the possibility of a second season of The Power?
I'm definitely excited for the possibility. Yeah, it would be amazing to get to play Roxy again, I think there's huge potential for the next series. And I didn't get to work with loads of the cast, because our storylines are quite separate in the first series. So yeah, that would be a joy, getting to work with someone like Toni Collette.
In the show we see the government try to interfere with women's bodies to try and control their power – do you feel this aligns with issues we’re seeing in real life right now, with Roe vs Wade and similar debates?
I think sadly, the show's becoming more relevant. I actually started filming before the Covid lockdown, so there's always a risk that it could lose its relevance. But I think the show has just become more and more relevant.
The undertones of the show really do come from real life. The world in which The Power was set is really similar to our world, with just just one twist with nature. So it should be recognisable – and cathartic, hopefully, as well.
The Power is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
