Anna Popplewell

Anna Popplewell is sitting in a conference room in the Hearst Tower blinded by an enormous ray of light that stealthily appears on her seat and her seat alone in the middle of an otherwise sunless week. We figure this out fast: the actress does just fine in spotlight. She's in New York on a short break from filming the CW's new series, Reign, in Toronto, where she's moved temporarily for the gig. Popplewell has lived in London, shopped in New York, and worked around the world, but she describes the place like it's Narnia (which is, by the way, where you know her from). "It's like summer camp," she says, bragging that despite being a terrible tourist, she's actually made it to the CN Tower once since she and the rest of the young and beautiful cast have arrived in the Great White North.

Tonight she's stepping into another fantasy world on the premiere of Reign, which Popplewell describes—quite accurately—as "Tudors meets Gossip Girl." The plot (and it's a plot) centers on Mary, Queen of Scots, played by newcomer Adelaide Kane, and the princes, ladies-in-waiting, traitors, and for some reason even ghosts that surround her. Popplewell depicts Mary's most brazen friend, Lola, who's in for a rough, royal ride alongside the teenage queen. But we'll let her tell you all about it…

Anna Popplewell: I play one of Mary's ladies-in-waiting, Lola. She's quite idealistic about coming to the French court with her queen. She's full of feeling and emotionally led, and she's faced, even within the first episode, with the kind of harsh reality and political machinations of the French court.

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HB: Lola is probably the most daring of the queen's ladies, isn't she? They're her childhood friends but also her subjects, after all.

AP: There's often a conflict, I think, between how these characters are as friends and how they are in terms of their duty to their queen. It's an interesting series because we're pretty free with the history it, and it gives us license to abandon some of the curtsying and formalities--some of the things that present barriers to the more human aspects of life at court. Lola is particularly daring in standing up to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the first episode, but she never would have gotten away with that at the time. Fortunately we won't see her beheaded just yet.

HB: How does Tudor fashion suit you?

AP: The costumes are really fun on this and kind of a mash-up. It'll be like a Tudor-style corset with custom-made sleeves and a 30s skirt with Oscar de la Renta earrings and Marni shoes. It's its own fashion world. Next episode I'm going to be wearing a Temperley dress, but it's had extra panels put in, and I'll be wearing some bejeweled headband.

HB: Do you have a favorite piece so far?

AP: A pair of Lanvin shoes, which I really like, and this amazing, burgundy 30s dress.

HB: You've done fantasy before, quite a bit of it. Is that a favorite genre?

AP: It's what happened to happen. I like fantasy, but it's not like I've set out with this "I'm never wearing jeans and a t-shirt," attitude. I just want to do anything where I'm learning, and it's definitely a learning curve doing a series because I've never done this pace before.

HB: Quite a shift.

AP: It's an enormous thing to be filming at this rate. We're making 48 minutes of content in eight days of shooting. Usually, if you're filming something that quickly, it's because you've got three people in a room doing an independent film, and it's all about slow-burn character development. This is about character development, sure, but we're filming 48 minutes of content in eight days with three crowd scenes, one of them a party—and fireworks.

HB: The show is being filmed in Toronto, so you've moved there from London for the time being. Have you settled in?

AP: A lot of people have moved for the show actually, so there are lots of Brits, Aussies, Canadians, of course. I really like being on set when you've all moved on a job because it makes you bond very quickly. You're all out of your time and comfort zone, so you kind of only have each other. It's like summer camp.

HB: Any tourist tips?

AP: Well, there's one Torontonian amongst us, Janessa [Grant], who plays Aylee. She's automatically had to take on the role of team leader. As for tourism, though, they have this new thing at the CN Tower called the EdgeWalk, where you can walk like Pocahontas around the outside of the tower and sort of hang off of it. One of the cast members went ahead and did it.

HB: I'll wait until it's tested by more of the cast—which, in true Gossip Girl manner, is made up of so many young girls. How is that? Fun? Scary?

AP: We were just talking about this today actually. Often the question is like, "Oh, it's a lot of girls--do you all hate each other?" which is such a horrible automatic thought. But no, everyone's really lovely, and we all get on like a house on fire. We all live a couple of streets away from each other in Toronto, so we all hang out—it's great.