Interview: Mary Kate Wiles, actress

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ary Kate Wiles starred as Lydia in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD) (2012), a web-based remake of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on YouTube that won an Emmy for its innovative storytelling across different social media platforms. A novel, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, was released this July, and there are still panels and events about the show at YouTube conventions such as VidCon. There are also plans for a book focusing on Lydia, Lizzie’s wild younger sister. Wiles’ interpretation of Lydia brought a whole new side to the character: Lydia is usually depicted as boy-crazy and wild, but Wiles shows her vulnerability to her character. Lydia’s videos show how she feels excluded by her sisters, and how Wickham manipulates her. Wiles states, “It would have been easy to let Lydia just be this over the top character that’s there just to be crazy and make people laugh.” The web series format of the show allowed a deeper exploration of Lydia’s character than is possible in a two-hour movie adaptation. “I try to bring a healthy dose of humanity to all of the characters that I play, and in this format we were really able to explore Lydia and what motivated her and what she presented to the world […] That was a great strength of LBD with all of its characters, I think, that it allowed us to really explore each of them in new ways because we followed them for a year.”

Since working on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Wiles has been involved in a number of other web-based projects. She has teamed up with Rachel Kiley, of the LBD writing team, to create Loosely Bolted, the aim of which she explains is “to continue to make stuff that was fun and different and inspiring for us”. Another project, Squaresville, was a two-season web series focussing on two teenagers growing up in a small town. Both funny and moving, it deals with balancing romantic relationships and friendships, fights between friends, sibling drama and, most notably, coming out. The storyline is quite random, jumping through the protagonists Zelda and Esther’s friendship in a way that is authentic and relatable, as can be seen in “Telemarathon”, which Wiles chose as her favourite episode. “I love that one and I feel like everybody knows what it’s like to just talk to your best friend on the phone for hours about nothing.” It is one of many episodes in the show focusing on the small moments that make a friendship.

Unlike Squaresville which focused on everyday life, Kissing in the Rain deals with the extraordinary — iconic kissing scenes. In this web series, we see actors recreate the kisses, but also all the awkward moments between takes. When asked about her own experiences of filming romantic scenes Wiles admits, “I’ve both liked and disliked people I had to play romantic opposites with. So I can see it from both sides.” The episode below shows a scene between Edgar Allan Poe and Annabel Lee, which Wiles confesses was one of her favourites to shoot “What girl doesn’t want to have gorgeous poetry (that’s about her) read to her?” The series was created by Yulin Kuang, and functioned as a trans-media project, with fans invited to create fanfiction and fan art about the characters, some of which was made part of the official story. The project got a huge online response, the extent of which surprised Wiles: “People came up with great stuff and it really fleshed out the story and the characters. I had a lot of fun reading everyone’s fanfics.”

Speaking of the web series format, Wiles feels the most important factor it brings to storytelling is audience engagement: “The reactions are immediate, and the audiences of webshows can congregate right there on YouTube, or Twitter, or Tumblr, and it also allows for creator/fan interaction as well. I think it’s really cool, and new, and important, and one of the most fun aspects about being a part of webseries.” She says YouTube has made an audience more accessible to creators, ”I think it’s a great thing for actors, because people are spending more and more time on the internet, and anybody can hop on YouTube and see my work.” Also, Wiles feels this format has given her a “vibrant fanbase and audience”, unlike that which has resulted from her film or TV work.

Wiles’ most recent project is I Ship It!, a short film which was released on YouTube in October. When her boyfriend and band partner breaks up with her, Zoe (Wiles) decides to set up her own wizard rock band. Wizard rock is a genre of music in which fans write Harry Potter themed songs, sometimes in the persona of characters from the series. Wiles has seen famous wrock band Harry and the Potters perform, but was not into the wrock scene herself. While her character in I Ship it! is a Hufflepuff, Wiles feels she would be a Gryffindor. Would Wiles describe herself as a shipper? “The concept was pretty foreign to me when I first heard it, which is weird I guess because I love stories passionately and care very much about them, but I was never one to ardently get behind two characters getting together. I usually just liked to see where the story went.” Speaking of fandoms she is part of, she says, “I am a giant Lord of the Rings fan, which I think is no secret. I also love Sherlock, and Misfits, and Parks and Rec […] and Orphan Black.”

Her next project will be Muzzled the Musical. Made by the same team who created School of Thrones, it was funded via a Kickstarter campaign and is described as “An epic saga of mean girl princesses and bloody musical warfare”. Additionally, Shipwrecked (the group behind Kissing in the Rain) have upcoming projects in which she will be involved. Wiles has starred in a number of feature films, which will be debuting at US film festivals. Wiles’s work thus far has been varied, and she is working in an area in which storytelling is engaging with new media and becoming more interactive. “Transmedia-oriented stories are one of the coolest things that is happening in storytelling right now and I’d love to continue to be involved in projects that do new and different things with it.”

Photo courtesy of Tory Stolper.

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