Sex! Now we've got your attention — and so has Netflix's steamy new thriller series Obsession. Following a surgeon who has an affair with his son's partner, the limited series is an intriguing cross-examination of family connections and the limitations of control. FILMHOUNDS sat down with star Sonera Angel to find out more about their involvement in the show.
I feel like there has surely never been a better time to land a mini-series on Netflix. An amazing cast, and a really interesting story. You must be so excited. How did you get involved? What was the process like for you?
I was sent an audition tape for it and I got three scenes — which is actually quite a lot of scenes for an initial first tape. Then they asked about doing an in-person recall and querying COVID testing and everything. I ended up doing a Zoom a month or more later. The filming kept being pushed back because it was meant to start at the end of February that year. The team were set on filming most of it on location, so they had all of these very specific places in mind. Trying to juggle all of that was a bit of a tricky thing. So I was kind of in suspense for like a month and a half, and then right at the end of February, my agent called me and said: “You're in. You can do a costume fitting tomorrow, right?”
Tell us about your character. You're part of this family — when you're supporting somebody else's main narrative, how important is it to you to develop or ground their backstory?
I think it's important to still think of all of the things that you don't see on screen, especially because it's a family unit. We have these relationships that you never necessarily see through the dialogue, but they are there in the body language when we're around each other. The family needed to be close-knit in order for it to be a real tragedy, and William would jeopardise that family, that he would destroy something that worked so well. We had a whole week of rehearsals before we started actually filming, and we were brought in as a family unit to discuss this sort of stuff. We did all these improvisations and got to chat and we developed so much of Jay's character (Rish Shah) as well as Sally's. It created that fondness for each other. There are so many scenes where we are just all chatting in the background, even when there's music playing over the top, or the main characters are taking centre stage. We had something to talk about that if it did come through in the sound would work for the characters. Indira (Varma) would come over and start asking me questions about Sally's girlfriend Kelly and we always had something to improvise with.
One of the things I love about Sally in particular is the fact that there's no awkward family chat. Having watched queer women on screen, it's like: “Mom, Dad, I want to sit you down. I want to have this discussion.” Everybody is just very immediately themselves. How do you feel about being a part of that? People are going to be able to look to you and say: “You know, that's what I've wanted to see.”
I didn't think about it that way. What I loved was that it's just a normal family. At some point, clearly, Anna, and Sally have talked about Kelly because Sally says that Kelly dumped her. Anna knows who that is. There's all of this background but you never have to deal with the impact. I was recently rewatching The Haunting of Hill House and it's so well written. I remember thinking that Theo was this wonderful queer representation because she's just having relationships with women in the background but it's not like a driving force of her character. But even then they have a whole moment where the rest of the family finds out. I remember that was so revolutionary for that time, even just those few years ago. I think it's that's the thing for all of us as queer people — we experience such different things in different ways, whether that's coming out or living as queer people. Sometimes we have all of those ranges of experiences with various friend groups and family. I think it's important to help queer people that don't have to come out as well as queer people who do. I want to feel seen and I think everyone should feel seen.
Do you think where the industry is is sort of on the right lines with that? Where would you like to see that being taken next?
I definitely think that things are progressing in the right direction. I think a lot of queer stories are getting adaptations, like Heartstopper. In the book Obsession is based on (Damage by Josephine Hart), Sally is heterosexual and has a boyfriend that William assumes she will eventually marry. Just that thing of taking this adaptation and being like, why does she have to be straight? It's not necessary.
Aside from that, the other thing is the thriller element. It's the psychosexual mystery that creeps in a takes us in a different direction further along in the series. I feel like as Brits, we're particularly good at this. we're particularly good at mystery. Would you agree? And what makes Obsession so different?
I think maybe it's that uptightness that we have in British society that makes the suspense and mystery work so well. There is that whole stiff upper lip, best foot forward veneer of respectability, so there's a wonderful tension to watching it crumble away. I think you don't have that in a lot of other cultures. That very particular British sensibility leads to that kind of shock. I think in terms of what's different about Obsession, I think the BDSM and sex scenes are crafted so well. I made really good friends with the intimacy coordinator, Adelaide (Waldrop), which was funny because we have no scenes together. She's just such a wonderful person and I think she manages to make BDSM look very normal while also being sexy. The scene where William has a rope around Anna's thigh was probably the first time I've seen someone being tied up and it hasn't looked grotesquely artistic and voyeuristic. It wasn't uncomfortable at all — it looked like it could be quite pleasing. I feel like so much rope work can go to the extreme where the characters are doing all these fancy knots. Whereas this considers what someone could teach in BDSM to someone who's completely new.
Is there anything else in the pipeline? Is there anything you'd like to achieve this year? What's next?
I'm doing two plays at the Birmingham Rep Theatre. I'm playing a lesbian again! She's trying to come out to her mom but it's a comedy of errors where her mom's trying to arrange a marriage with a guy. The other one is this really cute story of two disabled friends who have stopped to question if they've been pushed together because they're disabled. Is that friendship genuine? So that's really exciting. I'd love to work on more films this year, as always. I've had a couple of very exciting auditions and my fingers are crossed for some of those to pan out. I think it would be great to work on another thing where I had like a family unit or a close group of friends. I'd love to work on something a bit more long-form. Indira always that she wants to go in, do a show and get out again, and then get to play with new characters. But for me, I kind of want to stay with a family. I think I really enjoy that.
Obsession is now streaming on Netflix.
