Interview: The Power actor Eloise Pennycott on starring in Amazon Prime Video’s electric adaptation (BSL)

There’s quite the buzz around The Power. Already a hugely successful novel for author Naomi Alderman, the sci-fi thriller in which teenage girls have the ability to shoot electricity from their fingers has now been adapted into an Amazon Prime Video series – starring Ria Zmitrowicz, Toni Collette and Deaf actor Eloise Pennycott.

In an interview with The Limping Chicken’s Liam O’Dell, Eloise shares her experience working on her first professional job, learning Russian Sign Language and filming in South Africa.

“I honestly just think I would make a lot of toast. I’d become a human toaster,” Eloise laughs, as I ask her what she would do if she had ‘the power’ like her character in the Prime Video series, Marinela. “I would be very, very happy in that being my life. Some people use it for violence, some people use it for power, I would use it for toast.”

Introduced in Episode 5, Marinela – who is also Deaf – has ‘the power’ or ‘electrical organ discharge’ (EOD), and when disability is so often sensationalised as being a ‘superpower’, Eloise says there was something very exciting about the context of disability being added to her character’s storyline.

“The whole ‘disability is a superpower’, I find that very patronising, and I don’t necessarily agree with that,” she says. “But on the flip side of things, this world that Marinela – my character – is in, is so dangerous and already just a horrible, horrible situation.

“When we see her come in, [two men] sort of say, ‘well, no, of course she can’t have ‘the power’, she’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s not all there’, because I’m disabled,” Eloise continues. “So it’s because of my disability, that they assume that I’m not a threat.”

This, as the episode goes on to reveal, would be a pretty big mistake – and Eloise stands by her belief that if Marinela wasn’t Deaf, a lot of the “incredible stuff” which lies ahead for her and the rest of the girls in Moldova in future episodes wouldn’t happen.

Moldova, of course, is a country in eastern Europe, and quite far away from where the episodes were actually filmed: in Reading in the UK, and Cape Town in South Africa.

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“Me and my mum, we both got to go over together because I was 16 when I was filming it, and so she was my chaperone,” Eloise says of her time in Africa. “We had an apartment by The V&A Waterfront and we stayed there, and we went up into the mountains and vineyards to film. It was just incredible.

“They took over this entire kind of working village on one of the vineyards as the shooting location, and it was just such a massive set. It was very immersive, actually. Part of the weirdness of TV is where there’s one wall and then it’s not real, everything was real whilst we were shooting, so it was just beautiful.”

A greater realness came with the access provision both on set and in the fictional universe. “It felt really safe and really kind of exciting to work with,” says Eloise, who confirms her scenes were shot when COVID safety measures were in place. “It’s great as well with the authenticity in the show. Episode 8 hasn’t come out yet, but in that, I have a couple of lines. Because it’s set in Moldova, I’m using Russian Sign Language.

“They put me on a call with a Russian Sign Language interpreter so they could teach me the signs, and make sure that was all accurate,” she adds. “So that was really exciting, because the access was existing both behind the scenes and also in the world of the show. There was a lot of authenticity, which I really liked.”

And how was it learning Russian Sign Language? “It was intense,” Eloise replies. “I was booked as a non-speaking role, and they decided they wanted to give my character a couple of lines. I got to set on my first ever day of work, and it was like, ‘oh, we’ve given you lines now, we’re going to put you on a call with a Russian interpreter’. I was like, ‘oh my God, OK’, but it was amazing.

Warning: The following video contains flashing images.

“It was a very strange change of communication,” she explains, “because we had Svetlana – the Russian interpreter – on a Zoom call, and she could only speak Russian. She didn’t speak English. So she’d be showing me the signs and the lip patterns, and then speaking the words to the Russian translator, who would then be letting know my interpreter what Svetlana was saying. Then my interpreter would be telling me what the words meant. So it was like a four-way chain of communication, so it was a little bit intense, but it was so exciting, picking that up for this new job.”

Not just a new job, but the first professional acting role for the actor, who is currently starring in a touring stage adaptation of William Goulding’s Lord of the Flies.

“I had no idea what an incredible project it would be. I just took it as another acting role. But the fact that the book is incredible, it’s so magnetic and electric,” she says, pausing to acknowledge the pun.

Eloise continues: “It’s just wonderful, and then how many women in really strong roles there are behind the scenes in the show, I just found so inspiring. All of the writers were female, so many of the producers, the executives…

“It’s so female-led and so that was so empowering, it being my job, in that I was on set with so many women, essentially – because this industry is still quite male-dominated. My first experience wasn’t necessary typical of the industry, but it’s what it very much could be. I fell into it, I wasn’t expecting this project to be as incredible as it is, but I feel so lucky to be in it now. It’s so amazing, I love it.”

The Power is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes released every Friday.

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Photo: Thomas Ibbs Photography.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.