Tatiana Maslany on Censorship, Idealism and Being Driven by Instinct
Words: Dominique Sisley | Photographer: Danielle LaRose | Creative Direction: Grace Ellington | Makeup: Yunqi Ying | Hair: Daniel Lutz | Styling: Dot Bass | Videographer: Marie Koury | Photo Assist: Vic Walcott
“I’m going to crawl into a hole,” Tatiana Maslany declares, speaking over Zoom from her home in LA. The Canadian actress is tired: she has been up since the early hours, jet-lagged, having just returned from a few weeks away filming Apple’s upcoming series Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. She is soon set to leave again, this time to shoot for long-time collaborator Osgood Perkins’ Vancouver-set horror, The Young People. Although Maslany is known for her intense work ethic – while the lead in sci-fi series Orphan Black, she would often do 17-hour days – this last year has been more of a challenge. “It’s been really schleppy,” she says, shaking her head. “In a great way. But I’m wrecked.”
We are speaking just as her new film, Keeper, hits cinemas. It is an early autumn morning in LA, and Maslany’s home looks suitably cosy – the walls are adorned with art, photos, and shelves of well-loved books and records. Rain patters against the window, and her dog Earl careens across the living room, in a life-or-death duel with a stuffed penguin. (“Sorry,” she laughs, the second time he interrupts the call. “He’s having a party.”)
In Keeper, that sense of cosiness curdles into something much more unsettling. The latest film from Longlegs director Perkins follows a couple, Liz (played by Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), as they spend a weekend at his family’s cabin. But strange entities soon begin to intrude on the idyll. Perkins has billed the film as a “relationship horror”, but rather than being about modern dating – a world already brimming with nightmare fuel – Keeper’s concerns are more evergreen. It is about losing yourself in a relationship that has long run its course, the deadening grip of relational obligation, and the horrors of heterosexual role-play. “It’s [about] being lonely and trapped in a relationship that, by all accounts, looks nice,” explains Maslany. “The cabin is in this beautiful setting: romantic, secluded, it could be lovely, yet there’s this feeling of loneliness, claustrophobia… It’s the discomfort of, ‘I’m not myself here. I don’t belong in this dynamic. I don’t know why I can’t leave, and I don’t know why I’m ignoring these things I know are true.” The true heart of the terror lies in the way we ignore red flags and stifle our own intuition. “If you stay in that dynamic, if you stay in that relationship, you’re gone.“
Dress: Belle
Maslany has always been an actor driven by instinct. She grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, in a family shaped by her grandparents’ immigrant roots – Austrian, German, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian – and their “huge work ethic.” It was a creative household: Maslany danced “from a very young age” and made home movies alongside her actor brother, Daniel. (“We have thousands of VHS tapes of us dancing for my parents in the living room, forcing them to watch us do plays.”) As a teenager, she got into competitive improv, which taught her to be “alive” and comfortable in the face of uncertainty. “It was a really good training ground because I felt incredibly self-conscious doing it. I was very nervous. I always had stage fright,” she says. “It’s a great training ground for staying present, even when you’re unsure.” That sensibility carried through her 31-year career, with Maslany now known for her chameleonic approach to choosing roles – whether that’s She-Hulk in Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, or making intimate indies and off-kilter genre films. Her one consistent fascination has been the “roles we play” in the world and in our relationships. “I’m very interested in doubles, in the adaptiveness of women – or queer people – and their ability to perform what’s required to stay safe or succeed or fit in.”
“That’s the heartbreak of being an idealist artist: the thing that’s your superpower, [being open, porous], is also the thing that makes you receptive to the ugliness.”
These same skills have proven useful in navigating the TV and film industry. Despite enjoying a wildly varied career, those instincts – to play, to create good art, to lose yourself in a character – are constantly under threat from shifting standards. As studios become more risk-averse, relying heavily on star power and IP, the space for mid-budget, character-driven work is shrinking. For performers, there is also the ever-growing pressure to market and share every aspect of their lives. “It’s a brutal time [for actors],” Maslany says. “So much of our job now, with self-tapes, is having to edit and watch yourself. You’re training yourself to become the eyes that watch you, which is a nightmare because it breeds self-consciousness.” She visibly winces when asked about her relationship with social media. “I hate it so much,” she says, laughing awkwardly. “I just posted stuff for Keeper [on my Instagram]. But I posted my own weird behind-the-scenes shots – things that aren’t PR or ‘cool’ – and I’m like, ‘Oh fuck, did I post my butt accidentally?’ I always have anxiety after I post something, that I revealed too much.”
Coat: OTKUTYR
Dress: Ivy Kirk
Maslany has also been vocal about misogyny in the industry, speaking candidly in the past about being sexualised as a teenager on set, from a crew member hitting on her at 17 to being put in a midriff-baring outfit for a scene in which her character was meant to be grieving. “The industry will find your insecurities and exploit them,” she says. Has she ever considered quitting? “A thousand per cent,” she says. “That’s the heartbreak of being an idealist artist: the thing that’s your superpower, [being open, porous], is also the thing that makes you receptive to the ugliness. You have to navigate that constantly.” The saving grace, she adds, is finding collaborators like Perkins, who are driven primarily by curiosity and a sense of play. “It’s like great improv: you have structure, but you feel totally free inside it.”
“Mamdani is so fucking exciting. It’s a sea change. It shows people will follow a leader who speaks explicitly about changing things for working-class people, about Gaza, about immigrant rights, trans people.”
Shirt: Silk Laundry | Jeans: Jordache
The same sensitivity that leaves her exposed in the industry also compels her to speak out. In 2024, when most of the industry was silent about the crimes being committed in Gaza, Maslany used her Canada’s Walk of Fame induction speech to call for a ceasefire, criticising what she described as the Canadian and US governments’ complicity in genocide. In clips, she is seen sobbing at the mic, voice trembling. “It was terrifying, and it was met with crickets,” she says of the speech. “But maybe people hadn’t been watching yet, or that language [of genocide] wasn’t mainstream yet. But within the circles and what I was learning, it was common speech. Obviously, the system has been in place for decades. Palestinians have been under occupation for decades. It’s not new.”
Politics, for Maslany, goes hand in hand with her art. “I’m always fighting to be free as an artist, and when you’re fighting for that, you see where freedom doesn’t exist in the rest of our lives,” she explains, adding that the last few years have been particularly “radicalising”. The rise of Trump, the intensifying violence in Palestine, attacks on trans rights, Covid and the ensuing abandonment of vulnerable people have all been driving factors. “It’s horrendous,” she says. “Every day is a new horror. But there’s a fight. Exciting things are happening. Mamdani is so fucking exciting. It’s a sea change. It shows people will follow a leader who speaks explicitly about changing things for working-class people, about Gaza, about immigrant rights, trans people.”
Dress: Francesca Miranda | Ring: Miansai
That said, in an age of rising censorship, the stakes for speaking out are higher than they’ve ever been. I point out that, around the time of her Walk of Fame speech, many people were losing work for speaking out on Gaza. Has she ever been scared of that? “The threat of a cost is a way of keeping us quiet,” Maslany says. “I’m protected in so many ways – I’m a white woman who’s worked for 31 years. I’ve done the big Marvel thing. I have some power. So I have to use it.”
Maslany discusses her future with the same cool practicality. She doesn’t strategise or plot out roles; she just follows whatever feels right, in her gut, at the time. “I get curious about whatever’s in front of me,” she says, with a shrug. “I didn’t know anything that was going to happen this year, and it all surprised me. I’m very lucky.” Her only real goal is to stay soft enough to create good art, and strong enough not to let fear or expectation dull her creative instincts. She’s happiest, she admits, when she’s dancing – when she can feel herself “riding a wave” without knowing where it leads. It’s a feeling Maslany has been chasing since those living-room VHS tapes in Regina, and one she’s still fighting for now: the ability to stay curious, “alive”, and open to whatever comes next.
