Having risen to fame in the '90s and early '00s with The Matrix, Memento and Chocolat, Carrie-Anne Moss has amassed countless acting credits over a three-decade-long career.
However, her latest role in the genre-bending thriller Yaga provides the veteran actress with a unique challenge that pushed her out of her comfort zone.
Moss plays the role of Katherine, a charismatic university professor with an eye for younger men in the modern retelling of the Slavic folklore Baba Yaga, starring alongside the likes of Hudson Williams, Noah Reid and Clark Backo.
Based on the play by Kat Sandler, Yaga gave Moss a new perspective on the importance of intimacy coordinators in the film industry, as she revealed in an exclusive interview with Radio Times. Calling herself "old school" and admitting that she didn’t fully understand the necessity of the intimacy coordinator role, she added that Yaga gave her an entirely new perspective that allowed her to appreciate their value.
"I had a real judgment about intimacy coordinators coming up to this show, because in my day we didn't have those," she exclaimed, adding, "I didn't understand it, but I did understand it after we'd shot this.
View Green Video on the source website"I’m not someone who is comfortable shooting scenes like that. I don’t do them. If you look at my career, I’ve barely ever done them. It’s just not my thing, I’m a little bit of a prude maybe and a little bit private. My heart is very open. I’m open to jumping off a building or riding a motorcycle for a part and bearing my heart and soul. The sexual part, Hudson [Williams] is super comfortable with that and that’s great but it’s just not my thing," said Moss.
"I know that it was really important for Kat [Sandler], that I had a scene like that, because like I had - That there were sexual scenes with older women and it's myself and also another character, but it's always weird... It's a private part of my life. It's vulnerable. And so, you now it's always good to face those vulnerabilities."
While the trailers received viral attention for teasing X-rated scenes, for Moss these moments provided something more than shock value and accurately translated the feminist text.
Moss's co-star, Clark Backo, who plays local detective Carson, agreed, stating: "It’s important to have women choosing our depiction when it comes to our sexuality and how we perform in that arena. Oftentimes, we are led by the male gaze and here we have a showrunner and writer and one of the directors and a lot of producers are women.
"It’s nice to have the conversation and gaze is being led by the very people who know what a woman might be feeling or experiencing."
Canadian-American actor Noah Reid plays the role of the womanising Charlie Rapp, a private detective who "ingratiates himself with every woman that he meets because that’s part of his value set and how he views himself as important or desirable," according the star.
Throughout the series, Reid has his fair share of intimate scenes, which was unlike anything he had done in his career up to this point.
"Acting is like embarrassment practice and performing intimate scenes is that but on steroids. We laughed a lot and learned a lot. What I think I can take away from this [experience] is that I’ve done that so now nobody can embarrass me. You just burn off another layer," said Reid.
But while the intimate scenes are an important part of Yaga, they are just one element of a genre-bending series that takes the audience on an unexpected journey.
The series follows Rapp, a private detective, who is tasked with investigating the disappearance of Henry Park, the heir to a commercial fishery. The investigation is complicated by enigmatic suspects and ancient magic.
Reid believes that Yaga puts a new spin on the mystery thriller genre by giving audiences something they’ve never seen before.
"I don’t think I’ve seen a witch mystery thriller that’s spiralled into a detective pulp rom-com situation," said Reid. "But also, I haven’t really encountered the character of Baba Yaga before and I think folding that folklore interpretation into the real world is a cool way to bring new interpretations of the folklore into the present day."
Yaga releases on Sky and NOW on 31 October.
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