Feud: Capote vs. the Swans: Calista Flockhart on Lee, Gore Vidal
If there’s one thing that is clear about Feud: Capote vs. the Swans at this point, it is simply this: We are looking at a complicated world! Not only that, but it is one filled with complicated characters. They all existed in real life but in some cases, there was not a lot of material out there about them.
With all of this in mind, the challenges for a lot of the actors on the show were pretty clear — you want to base what you are doing in a certain amount of reality and yet, you also have to find your own reality within the role. For Calista Flockhart, that was absolutely a challenge in channeling Lee Radziwill on this past episode, especially when it comes to her sentiment towards Truman Capote, who was having his own fair share of trouble in regards to Gore Vidal. She was harsher towards Truman that some other Swans, and some of that is due to everything that transpired with the author. However, some of that may also be due to her history with Jackie Kennedy.
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In speaking on all of this further to The Hollywood Reporter, here is some of what Flockhart had to say about what motivated Lee in episode 6:
I found this episode to be particularly sad. To me, Lee is a person who is hurt when she feels rejected, and she’s in attack mode in this episode. I don’t know if I will ever know what the truth of the Gore Vidal situation was, but in my own head — for the actress part of me — I decided that it had to do with Jackie and Lee was maybe not allowed to get involved. Lee is also a person who — again, this is in my mind, this is the actress in me making this up because I don’t really know for sure — when she leaves the front door of her house, the mask goes on and the performance starts. When she’s sitting in La Côte Basque with Slim Keith (Diane Lane) and Truman is there with Kerry O’Shea (Ella Beatty), they’re both attacking Truman. And then Slim asks Lee about Peter Beard [the photographer whom Lee was seeing], and Lee immediately smiles. I just remember the scene very well: She’s painting a very dreamy picture of the situation, and I think it’s all bulls–t. I think anything that comes out of Lee’s mouth is to paint a very pretty picture of a life that wasn’t so pretty. There’s a lot of emotional pain in her, but she covers it. She wants to fit in. She is in a clique, and she wants the clique to accept her. She wants to impress them. She’s a little bit of an outsider, even within that group.
We had been wanting to see more of Lee on this show and with that, we’re happy this past episode delivered! Now, we just have to see where things go from here on out…
Related – Get some more news when it comes to Feud: Capote vs. the Swans episode 7, the last before the finale
What do you think about Calista Flockhart so far on Feud: Capote vs. the Swans?
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This article was written by Jessica BunBun.