The Hunters Of Shadow Convention 3 – Nicola Correia-Damude Meet & Greet
Let us first say that Nicola is incredibly well spoken, thoughtful, kind and down to earth. She also has the most stunning smile you will ever see.
Now, on to the quotes….
Nicola, as soon as she sat down and spotted the person who had made her fanbook: First of all.. My fanbook?!? This lady here is the most incredible woman. Me and my husband were going through it yesterday and just going ‘OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!’ It’s like a work of art, it should be in a museum. It’s phenomenal. Thank you again!!
Fan: I loved that Maryse walked Magnus down the aisle and the emotion you showed in the scene. Did you talk about this beforehand? Walking Harry down the aisle? And how did you feel with where Magnus and Maryse ended up?
Nicola: (blows out a long breath…) I remember getting the script. It was in the script that she was going to walk Magnus down the aisle. But it all happened so fast, the show getting cancelled. We were all told ‘Yay we’re definitely getting a season 4! See you all in August!’ and we’re all ‘Yay great!’ and then that happened so we had no idea what they would do… we all had some ideas what was going to happen in season 4 and we just had no idea how they were going to do it in two episodes. So the scripts came and we’re all like ‘oh my god what’s it going to be??’ and when I got to that point in the script and it said “Magnus comes around the corner” – I got goosebumps reading it then, and I have goosebumps now – so I read “Magnus comes around the corner, escorted down the aisle by Maryse” and literally my husband was in the other room and I went ‘OH MY GOD BABE!!’ I was so thrilled. (Nicola rubs goosebumps on her arm). So I knew. It was in the script.
What was so beautiful about shooting that scene, was that normally we don’t get the music that you hear when you’re watching it, because having music in the background means you can’t hear the sounds in the room or people talking. But what the director did that was so beautiful, was that all of the walking down the aisle stuff, all of us, Matt and Paulino who plays… erm… he plays… I forgot my husbands name…
Fan: Robert
Nicola: Yes! Hah! I’ve got Luke now, so I’ve forgotten Robert’s name. But all of it, me and Harry, the flower girl, everything with her.. we hadn’t heard the song yet and the director said I’ve got the song, and I’m just going to play it and you’re going to walk down the aisle and we all just started bawling right away. There was literally no acting in any of the scenes walking down the aisle, that’s just Harry and Nicola crying. Cause the song is so beautiful as well, right?
And in terms of the character development… what’s so beautiful, is that there’s been all this stuff that I’m sure some of you have done as well as other fans, who juxtaposed Maryse and Magnus facing off at the first wedding and then walking him down the aisle at the second wedding and this just makes my heart explode. What’s so beautiful about that relationship is that Maryse was fairly closed and had made a lot of choices about putting business before family, in a way that was detrimental for her and her family and seeing her open up to her family and realise that this was important was one thing, but to have Magnus be the person she relates to the most… After rejecting him, he’s the only one who understood what she was going through when she was de-runed. Luke did too, with what happened to him later, but at the time, the two of them ending up being friends and such important allies is a great symbol for what needs to happen in the world right now. If we could start seeing what we could gain by connecting with people around us, the world would be a different more beautiful place. So for me it was a symbol of everything. It was so important.
And also it was so fun, because Harry and I finally, after having one scene together going ‘I hate you!’ ‘I hate you!!’ and then all of season 3 it was me and Harry hanging out and it was really lovely.
At this point Nicola stops, and realises that her translator has been taking notes, and is frantically scribbling
Nicola: Oh god you have to translate all of this! I’m so sorry!!
After the translation is done, Nicola says (in French) that she speaks French a little bit, but not enough to do that! But she does understand, so when she’s nodding along, it is because she does understand
Michelle: Sort of on a similar vein in regards to Maryse’s journey. We’ve got a SH podcast where we did breakdowns of each episode, and since the show got cancelled we’ve been doing character episodes for the 8 main characters and we asked people to let us know if they wanted us to talk about any of the other characters and the most requested character was Maryse Lightwood
Nicola: Awww, great!!
Michelle: So what do you think it is about her journey that makes people connect to her so much?
Nicola: I think Maryse is representative of what can happen if people do what we need to be doing in the world. We’re living in a really scary time, right? It felt like progress was happening and now… especially with what’s happening in the United States and I know there’s stuff happening in this country, too… You feel like we are moving away from progress. Especially with LGBTQ rights, womens rights, acceptance of people, just human rights in general, and that’s without even starting to talk about the climate and everything else…
I think the thing with Maryse is that she starts out in a place that represented pain for a lot of us. She caused her children a lot of pain. She caused herself a lot of pain. And over the course of the three seasons she changes in the way that I think we all wish that people in our lives could do. And they can, but not everyone chooses to. And I think what’s specially about Maryse is that she made a choice. She didn’t wake up one day and was different, because that’s not real. That’s not real life. She chose to work on herself and become a better person.
What I love is for example in season 2, at Max’ rune ceremony, the party at Magnus’ house, you see her trying with Magnus. She’s like ‘oh god, I’m in a warlock’s house. But that’s okay.. I’m going to try…’ and the thing where she goes “I hear you like to drink…” and gives him the bottle and it’s like oh god, Maryse, what are you doing? But she’s trying! She knew she made a horrible mistake trying to get Jace killed. She acknowledges that and she reaches out to him to changes. Her journey is very realistic, to what people need to do. It’s hard work. People don’t just forgive you, you have to earn that. I think that’s why she’s so special. And to me the thing that is really key about Maryse, you see it in my first episode in season 3, when we find out she’s going to get de-runed and Alec says ‘Let’s fight to keep your runes! I’m going to fight for you!’ and Maryse says ‘Don’t fight. Because I did these things. I hurt people. I deserve this punishment so I will take the punishment and then I will make up for what I have done.’
I think if we had that attitude of ‘I admit what I did and I’m sorry and I’m going to do something about it’. That to me is the only way to really apologise and move forward. I think that’s what people have connected with. That it’s possible. Let’s do what she did. And it was written very realistically and we saw the struggle of it. She takes responsibility and it’s something we’re really lacking in all of our culture right now.
Nicola pauses, looks at translator: Can I just add one more thing before you translate? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!!
What I think a lot of us are dealing with, with sexism and homophobia etc I think is a lot of people say ‘I’m not sexist! I’m not racist! I’m not homophobic!’ and they get defensive. When what we need is for people to say ‘You know what? I think I am a little bit. Or at least I was. And I don’t want to be… so help me fix that.’ And then we could help people fix that. But if we don’t admit it, then we end up with what’s happening in the United States right now, with people going ‘I’m not racist, I just don’t want these people in my country’ and I’m sure it’s happening here too with immigration. Just admit ‘I’m scared’.
Or if a parent, rather than disowning their gay child, could say ‘I just don’t understand… But I want to…’ so if we could just be honest about that and if we could take responsibility, then things could get better really quickly you know?
Fan: What did you put into Maryse, from yourself and what did you take from her, for your personal life?
Nicola: It’s funny. Maryse and I had very little in common in season 1. I’m a very empathetic person. I hate conflict. That first episode when I come in and I’m like ‘ARGH! You’re all terrible! I hate you!’ and they’re all crying… It’s horrible! It’s fun to play, but so horrible. So we had very little in common, so what I tried to bring to Maryse from the beginning was the element of myself that somewhere in the back of her head was that this wasn’t how she wanted to be.
Maryse season 1 was very hard, but I was trying to have a little bit of Nicola in the back going ‘It could be better’, and I think that’s in the writing as well. That scene with Isabelle where she says ‘you remind me so much of me’ and then the next minute she’s all ARGH again. But there’s those little moments where she’s trying. Maryse and I became much more similar as time went on.
What I also related to with Maryse is the career element. I am a working mum. I have a busy career. I question… I think all working mums… well, women in general. We’re always forced to question whether what we’re doing is right. Am I too focused on my career? Am I not focused enough? So I related to that struggle a lot.
What I got from Maryse was a couple of things. One of the reminder that you can change at any time. Maryse is significantly older than me. When I started the show I was 32 and Matt was like 28. (lots of eyerolling and laughter) Maryse is meant to be about 20 years older than me, in angelic time. So what I’ve taken from Maryse is that as you get older your life changes and sometimes you wonder if you are who you want to be. What I got from Maryse is that you can change your life at any point. It’s never too late to change your life and to reinvent yourself. That has been huge for me and I think about that a lot. The scene with Luke in the bar where Maryse says ‘I’m lost’, and he says ‘We’ll get through it, we just have to figure out what’s next’ – so that was very inspiring to me and I’m trying to take that forward in my life.
Fan: What did you think when they told you Luke was going to be your love interest?
Nicola: Well we’ve all seen Isaiah… there is NOTHING wrong with that!
There was a rumour that this was going to happen in season 2, when we shot that scene where I apologise to Luke and everyone was like ‘Huh! That’s interesting…’ and the writers wouldn’t tell me anything, and we’re all like ‘oh my god is this going to happen??’
I thought it was amazing, because I think Luke is the best possible person to bring her back to family and that she was the best person for Luke, to have a strong adult in the world that he hadn’t had since Jocelyn died. And I know it doesn’t follow the book, but I think for the story we were telling for Luke and Maryse, it was perfect. I also think it was really nice for the kids, like Clary and my kids, it was nice for everyone. We ended with a real family. Which I thought was lovely.
Fan: In all of your career, which character that you’ve played is closest to you? And on your website it says you sing, but I’ve not been able to find any songs..
Nicola: I’m on a TV show that you guys can get in Europe now, called Burden of Truth, and that character is most like me. I read for this character and my husband was helping me with the lines and he was like ‘oh, it’s you. Right. They should give you this, because this IS you’. Loving kids, loving people, she’s very much like me. Sometimes you get to play a part where you’re basically playing yourself and other than the smalltown element, she’s basically me, and that’s nice occassionally!
And with the singing. I was a professional singer until I was about 24. I did a lot of musicals. I recorded a self produced album, but I never distributed it. So it’s out there, with my family, on CD. I have been talking to some friends of mine who are singers about just doing some fun stuff together, but I decided that singing was very personal to me, and I decided that trying to make it a job was too stressful, so I decided to focus on acting as a job and singing as something that I did for myself. But I will see if I can put something online for you!
We are told that that had been the last question, but someone asked if she could just very very quickly ask something related to this, very very quick.
Fan: What’s your favourite musical role?
Nicola: I did a bunch, but I played Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar which was definitely my favourite!
Nicola thanked us all for coming, we took the group picture and she wished us a great rest of the convention.
<3
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