Jodie Turner-Smith’s Dragon Queen Is Clicking Through YouTube Makeup Tutorials
The woman known as Bad Monkey’s Dragon Queen is at a crossroads. Actually, scratch that. She’s kind of blowing up her life. After seven episodes of being Andros’s most well-dressed practitioner of Obeah, our queen has made it clear she’ll do whatever it takes to get off the island — even if it means severing ties with her dear grandmother and childhood best friend in favor of cavorting with the ruthless on-the-run developers who have no problem killing her if she double-crosses them. Gracie, a pre-anointed name few have earned the right to use, hits a breaking point while visiting the grave of her mom. She snaps at her grandmother, Ya-Ya, when Ya-Ya reveals she’s aware of the extent of Gracie’s nefarious ways, which include stealing a land deed from a local family and selling it for a hearty profit to the married developers. And that’s when Gracie steps into the middle of her own curse.
“You think I really believe in all of this shit?” she asks a shocked Ya-Ya. “What does it give me? Why do I have to give my whole life to a story people tell around a fire at night? I’m tired of it. Where’s my hope or love?” Flashbacks reveal Gracie was forced to reckon with a difficult childhood, as she lost her mother at a young age — there was never a dad in the picture — and chose to dedicate herself to Obeah under Ya-Ya’s teachings following yet another romantic heartbreak. Jodie Turner-Smith says the duality of this role, switching between the fearsome Dragon Queen and more reserved Gracie, was the most “deeply collaborative and shaped” character she’s ever played. “I was allowed to be in the driver’s seat for the first time in my career,” Smith says. “It was empowering to do. I hope people feel the love that was put into her.”
We’ve now been exposed to Gracie’s backstory as a young woman and her motivations for transforming into the Dragon Queen. How did this knowledge align with what you were expecting?
Bill Lawrence always presented this character to me as: the Dragon Queen was never meant to be a one-dimensional person. She’s definitely deeply sorted in her ways, but she wants more. Bill had an understanding of who she was and what exactly is driving her. As we were putting it together and completing more of these episodes, I saw what he meant by that.
Something I wondered a lot about, and now got confirmation in this episode, is how the locals perceived the Dragon Queen. If Eve is to be believed, they’re pretty much evenly split on if she’s full of shit or not. Do you think Gracie was aware of the skepticism? I almost caught a flinch in her expression when Eve said that, like it was new information.
I think Eve’s statement was more about trying to rattle her than necessarily a reflection of the truth. We saw it demonstrated by the way that everyone who’s a local, and even Egg who’s not a local, reacts and responds while in her presence. I think her reputation precedes her as someone to be afraid of. When it comes to Obeah in the Bahamas, it’s still considered illegal. Obeah is very much stigmatized in those communities. And Obeah practitioners themselves — and this is something I learned while speaking with consultants — because of the way they’re demonized, you always have people that are serious practitioners with what is mainly just “bush medicine.” And then there are people who are charlatans and take advantage of the fact that people are interested in it, and they’re full of shit.
As in anything in life, there’s always going to be someone who decides, I can use this stigma to my advantage and not actually be practicing in the way that’s meant to help people, but be to my benefit. I’m going to make people afraid of me, make myself unapproachable, and I’ll just get money. It speaks to the reality of that. There’s going to be people on both sides of the line. But there’s something about the Dragon Queen that’s so scary. Even if people don’t believe the magic is real, they still get enthralled by her magic.
Let’s break down Gracie and Ya-Ya’s fight and the devastation that follows. The biggest blow comes when Gracie proclaims she doesn’t believe in her grandmother’s teachings and refers to it as “shit.” My heart sank. Does she actually believe what she’s saying?
Like any person who’s in deep pain, there’s a part of herself who just wants to get by and there’s another part of herself — even if it’s unconscious — who’s borne witness to some of the miracles or mysticism of the things she does. It’s like anyone practicing any religion. The place that separates someone is faith and whether or not you have faith in something. Gracie is a person who, for a long time, has been in a position of having her faith shaken.
In what ways?
In humanity, in the goodness of people, and in love. The most important person in a child’s life is their mother, and she left Gracie and died. That’s a deep wound, and she hasn’t healed from it. As she grows older and experiences more heartbreak, she continues to build that wall around her of not believing in the goodness of people. You inherit these things. There’s going to be a part of you that goes along with something because this is what your family says you should do, and that’s what happened with Gracie and her grandmother. She’s on a journey as a person who lost her faith, in a sense. There’s a part of her that’s saying she doesn’t believe, but that’s more about how angry she is with her circumstances and less about what she actually believes to be real. In the beginning of the show, Ya-Ya says to her, “I always knew that you have the gift; you cursed that boy and he died.” And Gracie said, “No, he choked; it was an accident.” You can see there’s a part of her that’s not really sure and wonders, Am I pretending not to know how powerful I am?
Can you tell me a little bit about how you and L. Scott Caldwell approached this scene of emotional reckoning? What was essential for you both to convey?
It’s so easy with L. Scott. She’s a great talent and carries such a gravitas. We had a natural relationship that wasn’t necessarily a grandmother and granddaughter, but in a way, she’s an example of what you often see in Caribbean cultures: a grandmother who steps in once the mother goes away. It’s in every child’s journey to want to individuate their grandmother. They either do it in a gentle way or a hard way. What’s deep between Gracie and Ya-Ya is love, regardless of how much Gracie is of a dark mind. She’s been playing this role of the Dragon Queen and she’s not sure where to go next. But she’s sure that she feels constrained by it all. She wants to get away. She chooses in that moment to say the thing that would be the most hurtful to the person that she knows loves her the most. She really wants to be able to separate and tear away. She can’t do that with Ya-Ya’s love holding her.
Amid their fight, Gracie reiterates that she “knows everything I lost.” We’ve seen flashbacks of her mother’s death when she was a teenager, but we’re not privy to much else about her family. How did you interpret that statement?
Nobody is clearer about the pain and suffering that they’ve experienced as the person going through it. Gracie just needed to lash out. What I think she’s really saying is there’s nothing that Ya-Ya can do to her that can demonstrate she has a real understanding of how much exactly she’s suffering and continues to. When any woman is coming of age, it’s a time when you need that person the most — a mother — and Gracie doesn’t and will never have that. She now has a level of clarity about what’s been taken from her that Ya-Ya will never understand.
I also really valued the perspective of Gracie’s no-bullshit close friend, Asia, because it gave us a glimpse of her true personality while not shrouded with the Dragon Queen image. Why do you think that friend stuck around when all the others left?
She’s a human being and a person who was once a child who had goals, dreams, and ambitions of her own. She’s experienced life. Asia is the only person who ties her to that world. To everyone else, Gracie only represents one thing. Look at it this way: If the population that you’re trying to control finds something that makes them feel powerful or independent, like Obeah, that becomes a target and a stigma. I bet Gracie had a lot of friends who went, “Oh, now that she’s doing this, I can’t associate with her anymore.” Asia is a true friend who stuck with her and saw beyond all of that for her humanity. She knows Gracie is more than that and Obeah doesn’t make her a bad person. A lot of what this episode is about is Gracie deciding to lean into lesser parts of herself — parts that she doesn’t want people to love, or be with, or be close to. So she cuts off the two people that are most important to her to accomplish that.
The Dragon Queen’s outfits are such a visual feast: stunning colors, sharp silhouettes, and always with coordinated makeup looks. How does the way she dress reflect who she is?
I was very lucky that Bill supported my vision for this character. Even the color of her nails and eye makeup are representative of the energies I wanted to channel for those scenes. A lot of times I leaned into Where is Gracie’s state of mind and who is the Dragon Queen being in this moment? I wanted Gracie to feel like she’s a modern young woman. She’s on her phone, she’s on Instagram, she’s looking at YouTube makeup tutorials. She’s a modern girl! People often make this assumption that someone on a small island isn’t in touch with the rest of the world. The internet connects us all, and there’s so much creativity amongst people all over the world, and especially people who don’t necessarily have lots of money or access.
Gracie is creating a life inside of her small world. And inside of her small world, she’s big. I wanted her to come across that way and channel that with her personal style. We see it’s a part of her armor — what she puts on. That’s a way she keeps people separate from herself. She embodies this character that she plays when she becomes the Dragon Queen that pushes people away and makes them think, Don’t fuck with me.
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