Christine Chatelain as Riese in Riese: Kingdom Falling. Photo copyright of The Syfy Channel.
When it comes to stories about princesses, most involve a good-looking prince, a fairy tale castle and a happily ever after ending. Sadly, Princess Riese of Eleysia has experienced none of those things. Her life changed overnight when her entire family was slaughtered by members of an extremist religious group called The Sect. With the murdered queen’s cousin (and Sect leader) Amara installed as the kingdom’s new leader, the group has its own agenda as far as Eleysia’s future and that of its people are concerned. Only one thing stands in their way - Riese. She has no intention of letting The Sect succeed with its plan, and actress Christine Chatelain, who plays the title role in the web-based series Riese: Kingdom Falling, was eager to take on her royal alter ego’s cause.
“Riese is quite a complex character,” says Chatelain. “Basically she’s an exiled princess who escaped the murder of her entire family and is now being pursed by an evil religious group, the Sect. My character is a lone wanderer, except for her late father’s wolf, Fenrir, who is bound to Riese and protects her.
“I remember talking with the creators of the series when I was first offered the role, and they told me that they didn’t want her to be like a video game character that just goes around kicking the bad guys’ asses. They didn’t want her to lose her sense of a vulnerable, lost girl. Inherently Riese is a natural leader, but that’s not really her. She comes from a royal family and is very strong as well as confident, but I had to walk a fine line in order to also show a little bit of vulnerability. That was a challenge and one of the things I loved about playing her. Riese’s greatest strength, though, is her will to survive and see justice done.”
Created by Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff, Riese debuted on the Internet in eight-to-nine-minute installments and is currently being shown on Syfy.com. When casting began for the series, Chatelain was sent the script and could not wait to try out for the role of Riese. “When I read the script I immediately fell in love with the character,” she recalls. “It was unlike any other show I had ever auditioned for, and believe it or not I nearly missed my chance. I’d gone out beforehand to walk my dog and he chipped his tooth, so I had to take him to the vet. I wound up getting to the audition at the end of the day and in the nick of time, which I was really thankful for. I read once for the part, we all clicked and I was very fortunate to get the job.”
Having been cast in their respective roles, the Riese cast then got together for a photo shoot prior to the actual start of production on the series. “I remember walking into the studio and the first person I saw was Ben Cotton dressed as Herrick,” says the actress. “Ben is a very tall man and I was absolutely terrified of him in that mask. When I saw everyone in their costumes, and then when I finally got to put on mine, is when I truly connected with my character as well as the show. I also got to meet Tundra, who plays Fenrir, so that turned out to be a big day for me and I thought, ‘Wow, this something very cool and special,’ and I was excited to be a part of it.”
Riese (Chatelain) and Fenrir (Tundra). Photo copyright of The Syfy Channel.
In Riese’s first episode, Hunt, audiences are introduced to the show’s heroine, who is traveling through a decidedly gloomy forest with Fenrir close by her side. Back in Eleysia, Empress Amara (Sharon Taylor) orders her chief minion, Trennan (Patrick Gilmore), to dispatch Herrick to find and kill Riese. It is not long before the princess is surrounded by a group of armed masked men. With Fenrir’s help, she succeeds in fighting off her attackers, but is severely wounded in the process. Bleeding, Riese continues on with Fenrir in search of help, while Herrick tracks her blood trail. Working on the series opener is memorable to Chatelain for a variety of reasons.
“Although this is a web show, it still has quite high production values, so it felt like we were shooting any other TV series,” she explains. “People worked very hard in every aspect of the program, and the family atmosphere on-set as well as collaborative feeling to the entire [creative] process made it all the more fun to work on. You felt like a kid playing because there were so many interesting elements to explore.
“I was so thrilled to find out that I’d be doing my own stunts and fighting, neither of which I’d ever had the opportunity to do before. I had never done any martial arts training either, but at least I was in shape and able to handle most of the work, which there was a lot of. They [the show’s producers] quickly set me up with a trainer and we worked hard at choreographing these types of scenes. It’s almost like learning a dance, and I then worked on the choreography with the show’s stunt coordinator and the other actors involved. I loved it, and since we started filming, I’ve been studying with Sharon Taylor, who plays Amara. She’s a black belt in kick boxing, so twice a week over the past year I’ve been continuing that training with her.
“When it comes to shooting the fights and stunts, your adrenaline is flowing so much on those days that you’re quite exhausted by the time you get home,” continues the actress. “One of the toughest fights we shot was the first one, which you see in Hunt. We had choreographed it in the studio, but it’s not until you get to set do you realize that you’re wearing your costume, you’re in a forest and, oh, we’re on a hill. There are all these elements that come into play and that you don’t really think about when you’re training in the studio. So you sort of have to trust what you’ve learnt, go with the flow and just fight.
“It took us an entire day to shoot that first fight, and I’ll never forget it because, again, it was a huge adrenaline rush. And I vividly remember my cape, too. In rehearsals I wore a light cape, but the actual cape I wore on the show is very heavy, and when we were filming, it kept falling back and ‘strangling’ me whenever I moved,” jokes Chatelain. “So we ended up sewing the cape into the shirt part of my costume, and you’ll notice in the second chapter that I manage to get the cape off before I start fighting. It adds a nice element of flow to those shots, so it’s very much a love/hate type of relationship.”
L-R - Riese (Chatelain), Fenrir (Tundra), Amara (Sharon Taylor) and Trennan (Patrick Gilmore). Photo copyright of The Syfy Channel.
Riese struggles to make it to the town of Helmkin before passing out in episode two, Fragments. She receives medical treatment from Dr. Bauman (Bart Anderson), and while at the hospital discovers that it is involved with human trafficking – specifically newborn babies – on behalf of The Sect. Herrick arrives unexpectedly in town and Bauman alerts him to Riese’s presence, but before Herrick can find her, the princess escapes Helmkin with information on The Sect’s plans. This, however, leads her down an increasingly dangerous path. As the story continues to unfold, it provided Chatelain with a variety of new scenes to further stretch her acting muscles.
“A lot of the time I’m on my own in the series and my costar is a wolf, so the scenes between Riese and the young mother and child or the doctor where I get to interact with other human beings were especially enjoyable,” she says. “Funnily enough, one of these first scenes was with the doctor, and the actor who played him was my acting teacher years and years ago.
“So there are several little moments like that that stick out in my mind, including a number of scenes with me and Tundra in the second chapter [episodes six through ten] where our two characters kind of connected. I had actually worked quite a bit with animals prior to Riese, but never a wolf. They’re not like dogs in that they can’t be trained in the same way, but Tundra is a really wonderful animal. I thought he was big when we shot the first chapter, but by the second, he probably weighed over 200 pounds. Tundra likes to greet you by putting his paws, which are like the size of some dogs’ heads, on your shoulders and then licking your face,” notes the actress with a laugh. “It can be rather scary having a big wolf’s mouth staring down at you. However, Tundra is really sweet and I love working with animals anyway, so that was fun for me.”
Riese is the latest of numerous projects that have chosen to tell its story via the Internet. While its audiences may not yet be as large as those of some TV programs, the show still has an impressive following. “I’ve been blown away by the fan response,” enthuses Chatelain. “I mean, right from the start it’s been overwhelmingly great. The fans have been incredibly supportive and they’ve gone above and beyond in helping us promote the show. I had the pleasure of going to the Toronto Fan Expo and then the New York Comic Con and met a lot of the fans, which I’m really glad I got to do. They’re quite wonderful and I really hope they know how much we appreciate them.”
Since she was a child, Chatelain has been enamored of theatre and acting, but while growing up she never imagined one day pursing a career in the latter. “I loved art history, too,” she says. “That’s what I studied in college and I thought I’d eventually open a gallery. So I was definitely leaning in the direction of the arts, but then I started auditioning for commercials and little by little I began working in the industry. One day I woke up and thought, ‘Well, I guess this [acting] is what I’m going to be doing as a career.’ So it wasn’t really a calculated decision on my part. It just kind of slowly happened.
Actress Christine Chatelain. Photo courtesy/copyright of Lauren Levitt & Associates.
“One of my first jobs was in [the 2000 feature film] Final Destination. I only had a small role [as Blake Dreyer], but it involved weeks and weeks of shooting and it gave me my first real taste of what it was like to work in this business. I got to talk with the other actors as well as the director and the producers, and had time to really absorb how the entire [filming] process worked. It was almost like going to a mini-movie school, and I think it was when I first opened my eyes and realized, OK, this is something that I could do for a living.”
3000 Miles to Graceland, 40 Days and 40 Nights and Chaos Theory are among the actress’ other big screen credits. On TV she has appeared in a handful of made-for-TV movies as well as guest-starred or had regular roles on a variety of popular series including The Collector, Sanctuary and Fringe.
“I was in The Collector for a couple of seasons, and one of the great things about that show is that it provided a lot of work for local actors and showcased the acting talent in Vancouver,” says Chatelain. “The character I played [Taylor Slate] was not unlike Riese in that she spent a lot of time talking to herself because the little boy she was taking care of [Gabriel Slate, played by Aiden Drummond] was autistic and didn’t talk or interact with her at all. It was similar to acting opposite a wolf, and when I was doing Riese I was having flashbacks to The Collector. So that was a challenge with this show, but a good one.
“With Sanctuary, I’d worked with Robin Dunne [Dr. Will Zimmerman] a couple of years ago on a TV pilot in Toronto, so I was excited to be in front of the camera with him again along with my friend Ryan Robbins [Henry Foss] and, of course, Amanda Tapping [Dr. Helen Magnus], who I had never worked with before. On top of that, playing Clara Griffin, who was an invisible woman, was cool and something that doesn’t happen every day. It was a great set to be on. They’re all wonderful people there and I learned a ton about green screen because there aren’t really many actual sets. It’s mostly green screen, which was another fun challenge.
“I did Fringe earlier this year and that was another great series to work on. I got to do some prosthetics work, and I always enjoy things like that, especially here as I got to walk around with half my brain falling out. My biggest memory from this show is that the episode I did was shot during the [2010] Olympics, and Josh Jackson [Peter Bishop] brought in a big TV so all the Canadians could watch the hockey game, which was so nice because everyone was dying to know what was happening.”
Having filmed two chapters of the Riese saga, Chatelain hopes for more installments in the not-too-distant future. “Just listening to Ryan and Kaleena talk about where they want to take this series is so exciting,” says the actress. “They’ve thought out every scenario possible and each one is brilliant. Everyone is working hard and hoping to bring Riese to TV, which would be terrific, but even if we continue on the web, it doesn’t matter to me. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, all photos copyright of The Syfy Channel or Lauren Levitt and Associates, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
SteamPunk novels are interesting. Woman and Wolf ?
Sounds like 'FireKeeper' and 'Blind Seer' from Jane Lindskold's series.
I'm going to check this series out. Hope it DOES make it to TV. Sanctuary was a great favorite of mine.
Posted by: Richard Johns | 12/14/2010 at 08:11 PM