Victoria Smurfit as Lady Jayne Wetherby in Dracula. Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
Dracula’s Lady Jayne Wetherby is definitely part of the in-crowd when it comes to late 19th century England. This blonde, beautiful and confident woman of means is well-acquainted with all the right people in London society as well as the movers and shakers in politics and other professions. However, behind all her refined demeanor beats the heart of a vampire slayer. When the city was being overrun with these creatures of the night, Jayne was called in to deal with them. London is now once again under attack, only this time the threat is being led by the most (in)famous of all bloodsuckers, Alexander Grayson a.k.a. Vlad Tepes or Dracula. Armed, dangerous and very determined, Lady Jayne is on the hunt for her prey, and not a moment too soon, as actress Victoria Smurfit, who plays the sexy slayer, explains.
“Lady Jayne is a glamorous, feisty and brutal woman who is on the one hand very satisfied with her lot,” says Smurfit. “She’s at the top of society and a woman who has her secrets, one of which is she works in The Order of the Dragon, which nobody in the world knows about except her butler. Lady Jayne has a husband squirreled away somewhere in the countryside, and I’m sure even he doesn’t know that his wife works in The Order.
“So her male and female sides are being vaguely catered to, but there’s something missing. My character hasn’t been able to slay a vampire in a while. She did such a good job eight years ago that London is empty again of the undead, so the minute that there’s a sniff they’re back, I personally feel that Lady Jayne is delighted. She can take herself off the bench and get back into the ring. She’s a very passionate woman and I think she has been bored out of her mind when our story begins. Lady Jayne has heard about this Alexander Grayson [Jonathan Rhys Meyers], who’s this great American with all this money and blah, blah, blah, and yet he’s intriguing to her. The moment she meets him, something kind of goes off within her, because I believe she is the opposite side of the coin to Dracula.
The Order of the Dragon's Mr. Browning (Ben Miles) and Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) in "Come to Die." Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
“We don’t know anything about her motives for vengeance or what keeps her going,” continues the actress. “I mean, I just worked on the premise that Lady Jayne’s family had always been part of The Order of the Dragon. If you recall, Vlad Tepes was originally a member as well before he screwed up and was subsequently condemned to be one of the undead. For me, though, I decided that the key to Jayne’s brutality and her need to be so physical is that her father always wanted a son. I have a friend whose father always wanted a son, and it makes for a very special kind of woman – one who is happy to embrace her femininity, but at the same time has to deny it. That’s kind of what I base my character’s conflict between her two sides on. Lady Jayne is strong and tough, and yet embraces all her feminine wiles. She very much enjoys the brinksmanship with Alexander Grayson, and I think for the first time in a while she has found a man who could be worthy of all that she feels that she is, because I think Jayne is quite arrogant and cold.”
In Dracula’s pilot The Blood is the Life, the mysterious and charismatic Alexander Grayson comes to London posing as an American entrepreneur. He claims to want to bring modern science to Victorian London, but, in fact, his true mission is to exact revenge on those individuals who centuries ago destroyed his life and condemned him to eternal damnation. Shortly after his arrival, Grayson hosts a lavish gathering to introduce himself to the locals as well as demonstrate one of the inventions he is financing. Among his guests is the equally captivating Lady Jayne Wetherby, whose presence does not go unnoticed by Grayson. Like her onscreen alter ego, Smurfit could not wait to come to the party that was and is Dracula and hoped for the opportunity to get to do so.
“I don’t know if you saw the scene in the second episode [A Whiff of Sulfur] where Lady Jayne invites Alexander Grayson to dinner at her house and where he spins and loses the penny, or wherever he spins and loses the penny,” says the actress with a laugh, “but that was the scene I was sent, amongst one or two others, to read and audition with. I just thought it was one of the sexiest, naughtiest and most fun scenes I’d read in a long time. Funnily enough, at the time I didn’t realize it was Dracula. I just read this scene with these two characters and went from there. I put my audition on tape, sent it off, and then forgot about it, as you do. A week or so later I got a phone call from my English agent asking me, ‘Can you make it to the other side of town in 25 minutes to meet with [the show’s] executive producer?’ So I met with him and he told me about a vampire, a dojo and this amazing adventure they were planning to tell and I was sold right there. The idea of playing a character like Lady Jayne, who is sexy but also tough and sort of a modern woman in an old time was a gift.
Alexander Greyson (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) in "A Whiff of Sulfur." Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
“We shot the pilot and episode two together because we went straight to series. The very first day on-set was one of those moments where things suddenly got terribly real. We were all arriving from the four corners of the world to Budapest and were driven out to Stern Studios. As we walked in the door of the studios, to your left was Dracula’s crypt and to your right was Lady Jane’s boudoir. It took our breath away. That was the moment where all us girls, Katie McGrath [Lucy Westerna], Jessica De Gouw [Mina Murray/Ilona] and I, literally grabbed hands and stood there looking around at these extraordinary sets and thinking, ‘OK, well, this just got real, people.’ It was deeply exhilarating because we knew we were working with the best in the business.”
Alexander Grayson’s demonstration of conjuring up of electricity seemingly out of thin air is an impressive feat to many of his guests, while a few see it as just a clever party trick. Lady Jayne is among those who are impressed, but it is more about Grayson’s good looks and enigmatic nature. The two soon become lovers, although his heart belongs elsewhere. After making some inquiries, Grayson discovers Lady Jayne’s connection with The Order of the Dragon. For him it then becomes a matter of keeping one’s enemies close, and their relationship takes some curious twists and turns.
“We get so excited every time we’re given a new script,” notes Smurfit. “You think, ‘What are they doing? Where are they going to take each of these characters next?’ Because Lady Jayne is not part of [Dracula author] Bram Stoker’s original story, the show’s writers have a great deal of creative freedom with her. So she has kind of gone from this society woman to this woman who is tapping back into her vampire hunter roots and all the things she didn’t realize she was missing, with the lust, the passion and the combative relationship that she has with Grayson.
(L-R): Jessica De Gouw (as Mina Murray), Victoria Smurfit (as Lady Jayne Wetherby) and Katie McGrath (as Lucy Westenra) in Dracula's pilot episode "The Blood is the Life." Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
“By episode four [From Darkness to Light], which has aired up to this point, she has allowed herself to believe that he could be her future. She’s created this narrow vulnerability that hadn’t been there previously, and that will be chipped away at and picked at over the coming weeks. And let’s just put it this way, you don’t mess with a vicious woman scorned. Lady Jayne has her moods, and there is a touch of vengeance, serious vengeance, coming up, and the power that is a woman, including female manipulation and brutality. We’ve seen quite a bit of her physical brutality, and now her manipulative nature is coming to the fore. She will then be as physically challenged as any female vampire slayer has been to date."
As steamy as the love scenes are between Lady Jayne and Grayson, the subtle glances they exchange with one another and the flirty game of cat and mouse that they are now engaged in with each other are equally fun to watch. While chemistry between characters is always desirable in storytelling, it is not always a given. Fortunately, Lady Jayne and Grayson produce a more than adequate spark when they are onscreen together.
“Chemistry is one of those sorts of magical things, and we’re really lucky because Jonathan Rhys Meyers is an absolute joy and a pleasure to work with,” says Smurfit. “He’s such a honey, and when we were first introduced, we were these two Irish people meeting and we just got on straightaway. When it comes to working with him, it felt very natural. Jonathan is a charismatic man who’s full of buckets of energy and you kind of just have to step up and match that. You need to be on your A-game in order not to disappear into the beauty of the sets, the costumes, the characters or the story, particularly in front of someone like Johnny, who’s very powerful. I’m incredibly lucky to have worked with all sorts of powerful types and it’s definitely something I enjoy very much.”
Although Grayson knows of Lady Jayne’s association with The Order of the Dragon, our heroine remains unaware that he is the ancient vampire she is hunting. In order to keep his secret, he, somewhat reluctantly, sacrifices an old but loyal acquaintance, Josef Cervenka (Alec Newman), in the aforementioned From Darkness to Light. Prior to Josef’s untimely demise, he and two fellow vampires confront Lady Jayne on the London Underground. Using her well-honed fighting skills, she manages to kill Josef’s compatriots, but he ends up escaping. As much as she relishes Lady Jayne’s vocal sparring with Grayson and other characters, Smurfit also delights in taking on the more physical challenges of her role.
Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) and Alexander Grayson (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in "Of Monsters and Men." Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
“I keep myself fairly fit, and when I arrived in Budapest I got straight into learning choreographed fight scenes and the different fight elements, including how to use the Gurkha knives and broadswords as well as unarmed combat, the falling, banging, crashing, etc.,” says the actress. “Most of the time the vampires are played by stuntmen and stunt women, but there are also a couple of actors who play vampires. It was very interesting doing fight scenes with them in episodes because I felt so used to being part of the stunt team. I really got into the groove of ‘beating’ people up in front of the camera,” she jokes.
“Along with the fighting, there were other physicals aspects that I had to get comfortable with, like how to handle corsets as well as the long leather coat and heeled boots. Later on I get a harness with sawed-off shotguns. There was a lot of prop action stuff to work out, and I didn’t want to look like an actress doing a fight scene. I wanted to look like someone who could hold her own and make sure viewers knew that if they were iwith her and in trouble, that she would have your back. That was really important to me because I did most of the stunts myself. Johnny is a very good onscreen fighter, so he helped me a great deal as well.
“With regard to the fight scene I did at the beginning of episode four, it was fantastic. I was crazy excited about it. They had a train carriage in one of the studios and we shot it at the backend of the day using a technocrane. We rehearsed the scene in the stunt room, and then when we put it together on-set with the Gurkha knives, the lighting and the moving train, it became so magical. It was fun to film and brutal, too. I kind of feel you haven’t done a stunt correctly if you’re not slightly sore when you’re done, and I took great pride in my bruises. It was a day of eating an awful lot of Snickers bars for energy and saying to people, ‘Ooh, I’m sorry, did I hit you?’ So it was exciting, exhausting, exhilarating, sweaty and fabulous all rolled into one.”
Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) in action mode! Photo by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC.
Fighting vampires inside a Budapest film studio was probably not at the forefront of Smurfit’s mind while growing up in Dublin, Ireland. She did, however, consider several other potential professions before deciding on pursuing an acting career.
“Once I got over the fact that I wanted to be a fire engine driver, a taxi driver, a gymnast, an ice skater and a cheerleader, I realized, oh, I guess that means I want to be an actor,” she recalls. “I always wanted to live everyone else’s life, and that’s kind of what the job description of an actor is to a degree. It’s putting yourself in other peoples’ shoes and working out in whatever given situation you’re in how this person would react and deal with it. I didn’t really know, though, that acting was a profession, which probably sounds a bit daft, but at school it was all boobs, teeth and fru fru dresses, and that’s something that didn’t appeal to me. It was quite the opposite, in fact.
“It was only when I was doing theatre studies in A-levels, which is sort of your exam process for 17 or 18 year olds in the UK, that I thought, ‘Hey, I could do this [acting] for a living,’ and I was hooked. I then went on to drama school, and during my second year there I booked my first job, which was a movie with Albert Finney [1995’s The Run of the Country]. Working in front of a camera was scary, exciting and in a weird sort of way felt perfectly comfortable. Albert made everything seem so natural. I would overthink and overthink things, and he would tell me, ‘Darling, it’s just a movie. Don’t worry. You’ve got it; just do it.’ I kept this lovely notebook of all the gems [of advice] that he gave us throughout filming. About eight years later it was stolen from me, and I remember being so heartbroken. Albert told us tricks like how to hit your mark without looking down and finding it, all of which I still use to this day. He was an incredible first leading man to have, and such a giving man, too, and still is, I have no doubt.”
Victoria Smurfit (as DCI Roisin Connor) and David Hayman (Detective Superintendent Michael Walker) in the foreground in Trial and Retribution.
The actress’ other big screen credits include The Leading Man, The Beach, The Wedding Tackle, Bulletproof Monk and the upcoming An Unkindness of Ravens. On TV, Smurfit has appeared in the made-for-TV movies Honeymoon for One, Marple: The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side and The Shell Seekers. She also worked on the miniseries Ivanhoe and Berkeley Square and had regular or recurring roles in the TV shows North Square, Cold Feet and The Clinic as well as Trial & Retribution and Ballykissangel.
“Trial was an incredible experience,” says Smurfit. “It was seven years of playing this very tough, emotionally decrepit cop [DCI Roisin Connor] who I loved. She was part of the school of thought where some women believed you had to give up your femininity as well as your right to get married and have children if you wanted to be at the top of your professional game. It was sort of delving into that kind of woman at the time, which I thought was quite fascinating.
“I played opposite another very strong man, a Scottish actor named David Hayman, which was an amazing apprenticeship. He’s a director as well, and the first time we met, actually, was when he hired me for a TV show he was directing in Bristol, where I trained at The Old Vic. On Trial, we had a very combative but understanding and strangely caring onscreen relationship. David’s character [Detective Superintendent Michael Walker] was this chain smoking, break the rules, dinosaur-type, whereas I played this by the book, all above board, feisty woman who basically reneged on any idea of a boyfriend, husband or a life in order to be the best cop she could be.
Actress Victoria Smurfit.
“As for BallyK, that was a joy. That show had a life of its own. It was legendary, and I feel like I’m part of Irish folklore now. My character of Orla O’Connell and Father Aiden O’Connell [Don Whycherley] were brought in to replace the characters played by Stephen Tompkinson [Father Peter Clifford] and Dervla Kirwan [Assumpta Fitzgerald], both of whom had left the series. At one point when I was at drama school, my teacher asked me, ‘My dear, are you Irish?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and he told me, ‘My dear, you will play busty barmaids forever.’ I then ended up playing the busty barmaid on BallyK and now I’m the busty vampire slayer on Dracula, so my drama teacher wasn’t wrong, bless him.
“I’ve been very fortunate that with all the shows I’ve worked on, everyone has been a good strong family group of actors. That’s especially true with Dracula, and it was the same on BallyK. If you were an Irish actor anytime in the 90s or the 2000s, you more than likely worked on BallyK. It was a rite of passage, really, and I loved it.”
While there may not be many society women/vampire slayers in the real world, playing Lady Jayne Wetherby on Dracula gives Smurfit a great feeling of satisfaction, especially when her performance resonates with those watching. “I know I watch TV in order to feel the things that that day I may not have had the opportunity to feel,” muses the actress. “I do believe that as actors we’re paid to do and feel the things that many of us don’t do or feel in our everyday lives. However, by watching someone else go through a situation that you might recognize, you get to process that yourself.
“I find it so wonderful when someone comes up to me and says, ‘Gosh, I went through that very thing, and I was so happy to sit at home on my sofa with a glass of wine and watch you and sob my heart out.’ You think to yourself, ‘Wow,’ because sometimes you forget that not only are you making entertainment, but you’re also trying to make projects that are recognizable on a human level to whoever’s watching them. Sometimes all you need is a bloody good laugh or to be scared or be reminded – like with some of the big scenes we’re doing in Dracula – of eternal love and revenge. Certainly Lady Jayne is going to go through some stuff in the next episode or two that I’d say will really ring a bell with grown women, She has to deal with mortality, not that she’s going to die, but the fact that she’s not 20 anymore and might be fallible, which will ring a few bells for people,” enthuses Smurfit.
Steve Eramo
As noted above, all Dracula photos by Jonathan Hession and copyright of NBC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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