‘Dangerous Liaisons’ Is A Period Piece Full Of Complicated Costumes That Play A Key Role In The Storytelling

The series may feature elaborate costumes and wigs but it’s really about moral dilemmas, say its creatives and stars.

The new show is a prelude to the 18^th century novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” that focuses on an epic romance that oscillates between love and war.

While a feature film starring Glenn Close in 1988, and then modernized by Sara Michelle Gellar in 1999, this new narrative focuses on how a young girl named Camille as she navigates her path in a world of men, using the power of secrets to take back control and right the wrongs of her past.

Camille is a woman, who, to quote the novel, “was born to avenge my sex and to dominate yours.” She finds her Casanova in Pascale Valmont as the Parisian lovers rise from the slums to the heights of French aristocracy, using seduction, deception and manipulation along the way.

The series stars Alice Englert as Camille, Nicolas Denton as Valmont, with Colin Callender as executive producer and Helen Warner as executive producer/showrunner.

Speaking about adapting the source material, Warner says, “To bring it to TV, a completely different medium, we can tell stories in different ways. The DNA of the novel you’ll find in this show, but, also you’ll find a world that will sustain itself. This is very much of the world of Dangerous Liaisons but it’s a prelude to the novel.”

She says that her desire is to take the characters, ‘to the edge.’

Callender jumps in to add, “What was glorious about working with Harriet was that she created a whole backstory for all the characters that was very detailed. So, by the time you meet these characters, you have a sense that there’s a history to them, that in some cases haunts them, and in other cases drives them to do difficult and complicated and messy things.”

Those period costumes are a bit of a challenge, says Englert, especially the wigs. “They’re big. They’re really big, and they’re incredibly heavy. Sometimes, it’s like there’s a football on your head, covered in hair and jewels.”

Denton says that the garments played a uniquely unexpected role in the storytelling, explaining, “For me, because I interact with a lot of people in a sexual way throughout the piece, it was actually the process of undressing and dressing and undressing and dressing.”

He says that, it was inhibiting at times — “getting off three to four layers, and then getting them back on, and then being in the nude.”

Given this, Denton felt it was important to give credit to the on-set intimacy coordinator who he says facilitated, “working with costumes of such a time whilst making it sexy, whilst making it safe, and also just making it incredibly beautiful to be a part of.”

Englert adds that the wardrobe served as a metaphor for the role of women at that time, explaining, “The costumes were, for women, a kind of bondage and that was really interesting to experience — what that feels like, how it’s genuinely just so much harder to do anything that could help you literally escape or feel comfortable in the world.”

This adaptation is also unique in that it ‘blows apart constraints and conforming to sort of gender stereotypes,’ says Warner, proclaiming, “I think it’s a really bold reimagining of the world of Dangerous Liaisons, [with] a fluidity to our world and characters.”

Summing up the series, Callender says, “We wanted it to feel fresh and of the moment. The combination of Harriet’s writing, which is extremely witty and smart, and alludes to period without actually being period, and in the casting [in which] we went for actors who were very much of the moment now, who felt fresh. So, that this wasn’t going to be some staid costume drama.”

‘Dangerous Liaisons’ airs Sunday nights on STARZ, and is available for streaming on the STARZ app.