TVLINE | When you and I spoke in August, you said the John Teller letters would play an important role this season, but I can’t imagine you knew just how much havoc they would wreak. Is Tara going to feel blame for Gemma’s beating? Will she eventually shoulder some guilt over Piney’s death? Isn’t that all born of the letters?
One of the things I was really was struggling with as we working on these episodes is that there’s so much information that starts to come out — how do you even begin to digest it all? Tara has a pretty sensitive psyche, so even though she’s strong, these things move her. It’s almost like a perpetual state of post-traumatic stress disorder, because bad stuff is always happening, so as an actor you’re like, “What would that be like?” And the answer is that there are some things you can process, and some things you can’t. You feel some things acutely, and you go totally numb around others. But yeah, she is a character who takes a lot on herself, and something in her has really snapped. After losing her hand and that gift, and with the possibility of losing her child, there’s something in her that snaps, and then a lucidity and a calm settles in. When you lose so much you’re like, “What else can there be?”
