BWW Interview - Debut of the Month - LES LIAISONS DANGERUSES' Elena Kampouris

Straight off her starring role in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2, talented young actress Elena Kampouris is making her Broadway debut as wealthy yet naive teenager Cécile Volanges in the Donmar Warehouse production of Christopher Hampton's LES LIAISONS DANGERUSES. The romantic and intriguing drama tells the story of two ex-lovers who scheme to ruin the reputation of an innocent young aristocrat. As their game of seduction and manipulation becomes more intricate, they quickly discover that the stakes are higher than they bargained for... and their last encounter may be their most dangerous by far!

Today, the 19-year-old star speaks exclusively to BWW and explains why her Broadway debut has also marked her "theatrical awakening"!

Do you remember the moment that you decided you wanted to become an actress?

Well to say one clear moment is hard for me because I grew up in a very distinct, creative environment. Neither of my parents are involved in theater or acting but they are very artistic. My mom is a painter, she's an artist, she went to school for fashion illustration, my father is into collecting antiques and fine wine, so they're both really creative people. And growing up around that, they really helped foster and encourage me to explore creativity and bringing things to life. I've watched my mom take a plain piece of paper and create something beautiful out of it and I think that kind of manifested for me in taking a character from the page and bringing that to life. They also brought me up watching every genre of movies, so I was a movie buff at a very young age. So I credit my parents for introducing me to all those things because that's really what got me into the arts.

You mentioned you are a movie buff, had you seen the film 'Dangerous Liaisons' prior to your casting?

Way prior to my casting I had seen it and I always thought it was a really brilliant movie. And I never would have thought I'd be a part of the re-telling of it, especially in theater because I had

zero experience in stage. If you told me a year ago that I would be on Broadway, I wouldn't believe you! But yes, I was familiar with the movie and after I got the part I went straight to reading the book and that was another thrilling experience.

How did your casting come about?

Well I had gotten a call from my agent, this was just after I did "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" and I had just shot a film in Vancouver, because again, no experience with theater at all, so they asked, 'what do you think about going out for a play?' And I told them that I was a big fan of the movie and a huge Shakespearean buff, but aside from that, I really didn't know anything about theater or the protocol, or what the difference between theater and film was. But I felt that doing a play is a road that every actor has got to take at some point. And for the audition, I listened to a ton of Kiera Knightly interviews to try to get the accent down, so that was helpful, especially since our director is British, and that can be a little nerve-wracking. So I went in and I read for [director] Josie [Rourke] and they called me again, and by the third day they told me I had the part and I was over the moon. I immediately went out and bought the book and did a lot of research for the role. In fact I was visiting family in Greece over the summer and I was actually able to visit a convent, my character Cécile is fresh out of a convent, so I got to become one of the convent girls for a day and learn about their lifestyle and it was fascinating.

As you did your research, did you begin to see similarities between yourself and Cécile that you could draw upon for your portrayal?

Oh absolutely! She's a really fun character to play and there's so much to her, and that's why I love exploring her every single night. First of all, I was raised in New Jersey and right now I'm living in New York for five months to do the play, so I'm new to this city life and I'm absolutely loving it. But there is this feeling of being a fish out of water, which is how Cécile would have felt coming right out of the convent into this world full of intrigue and a society where people say something but it actually means something else, whereas in the convent, everything's very black and white. So she's very curious about the world and everything's all very new for her and I feel that way too. So there's a lot of parallels I'm drawing from in trying to understand her life.

Do you think that naiveté about the world is also one of her biggest flaws?

Yes, her naiveté is for sure her biggest flaw. She's just so easily duped and so open to being tricked because she doesn't know any better. And clearly the fact that she doesn't have a close relationship with her mother makes it understandable that she would look towards Merteuil as kind of a mother figure who she comes to trust and uses as her confidante. And Cécile is very inexperienced in a lot of things, particularly sexually, and she has a lot of unanswered questions. She's been raised in a society where she's not allowed to ask those kind of questions. She's told to be quiet and behave and all she is expected to do is learn embroidery, play the harp and sit and look pretty, and then of course get married to someone she's been arranged to wed. And for me, I'm not very experienced in the sense of boys, and it's funny because I have a lot of onstage smooches with the cast and I haven't even had my own off-stage kiss before, I've never had a boyfriend, so I also have that in common with Cécile. But I have no complaints. When you're working with Liev Schreiber and Janet McTeer, you can't get much better than that frankly.

Speaking of this talented cast, what has it been like to work with them and what have you learned from the experience?

I mean it's literally every single night I'm watching masters at work, and I feel so incredibly lucky. There's a monitor backstage that we get to watch, so we see what the audience sees in a pixelated way, it's for our cues, so we don't miss anything, and every single night, no matter how many times we've watched them through the rehearsal process, every night we hear something new, or a line gets delivered in a different way, and watching Liev and Janet go at it together, I mean that is something to behold. It's really a masterclass. And everyone is so marvelous, and everyone has done theater and Broadway before and they are just so nice to me. I'm a total newbie, total rookie, but they make me feel like we've already become a family, and to be working with such a powerfully experienced cast, I'm still letting it sink in right now.

I'm also so fortunate to be working with [playwright] Christopher Hampton, his writing is so beautiful. This is a play that is taken from a book written back in I think 1782. It consisted of correspondence between the characters and each letter was a different perspective of the character, and he literally just took them and brought a physicality to them and brought an intimacy and a tension to this play. In the book, some of these characters never actually meet. Valmont and Merteuil never even come into contact with one another, so it's a really interesting way that he brought this story together. And for us to be able to bring it to life everyday, I just feel so honored.

Do you consider Valmont and Merteuil to be villains, or are they just doing what they must do to survive?

Well to me, no human is pure evil or pure good, everybody is flawed and I think what's so cool about this play is that it's very psychological, it really looks at humanity and why we do the things we do. And I think that the way that Liev and Janet have approached their roles and what they do with their characters is just so fascinating to watch because you see moments of vulnerability in them, and you can understand why Merteuil has become who she is, because it's become a means of survival, it's her only weapon, and the only choice she has, and its hardened her. So they've become this way through trauma and through the life they've lived, and in no way am I glorifying what they do, but we see the different factors of what makes them a human being. And the way that Janet and Liev show that every night and bring that gusto is incredible.

In what ways do you think your character grows and evolves throughout the course of the play?

Well she has her awakening, and it's an insidious awakening from Valmont physically, but it's an awakening in that she becomes a woman. And I'm sure that it changed her in the way that it happened, but she does have a kind of rebirth. And she also gets an awakening from Merteuil, although it's more of a spiritual awakening, she awakens her spirit, her soul, she opens her eyes to the world and the reality of what their living through and it makes her realize that she too has to survive. And Merteuil sees her as a potential protégé, she wants to make her a mini-me and tries to teach her all these things, so that is really an exciting dynamic to play with. So Cécile definitely has a really big transformation in the play, and that's a lot of fun, especially an arc like that where she goes from this innocent girl to someone who is just completely awakened. And it's really cool because I'm also having my own awakening, which is a theatrical one, having never done theater before. I'm falling in love with the stage, and even though we're doing the same thing every night, it never gets old. It's such a rush, it's quite magical.

What was it like to make your Broadway debut in LES LIAISONS DANGERUSES?

It was incredible. Words can't describe. It was our first preview, and we had just gone through tech and one month of rehearsal, and we were all in it together, it was like, 'here we go guys, we're doing it!' And during rehearsals, again, I'm not used to intense rehearsing, and I thought that with film you had to be disciplined, but theater is a whole other ballgame. The rehearsal process was very intense and exhilarating, but it was a short process, so to be thrown right into our first preview it was kind of like diving head first. And we had our official opening night a few days ago and that was a total rush again, it was like our first preview all over again. So it's been a roller coaster. And I now understand why people respect theater so much and love it so much. It's so live and instant with the audience. Film can get a little static at times, it's a wonderful process but it's very different than theater, the dimensions are totally different, and learning that difference through this experience has really been eye-opening. And I don't know how I'm going to let theater go because it's really latched on to me and I absolutely love it. And I feel very lucky to be here among such wonderful people.

LES LIAISONS DANGERUSES is now playing at the Booth Theatre (222 W 45th St) for a 15-week only engagement through Sunday, January 22, 2017.

ELena Kampouris recently starred in Kirk Jones' "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2". Her other film credits include Jason Reitman's "Men, Women & Children," "Labor Day" and Tom McCarthy's "The Cobbler." Next up for the talented actress is Ry Russo-Young's indie "Before I Fall." On television she has been seen in The CW's "Gossip Girl" and as a series regular on NBC's "American Odyssey."

Headshot photo credit: Walter McBride

Production photo: Joan Marcus

My Big Fat Greek Wedding image courtesy of Universal Pictures