‘Mayfair Witches’: Beth Grant on Carlotta’s Repressed Sexuality & Religious Fanaticism
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Mayfair Witches Episode 4, “Curiouser and Curiouser.”]
Carlotta Mayfair is easy to despise. The Mayfair sibling’s religious fanaticism convinced her that abusing her sisters and niece Dierdre was not only acceptable, but necessary. But her controlling (to say the least) nature came to a head in Mayfair Witches Episode 4, which premiered Sunday, January 29 on AMC.
After seeing Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) embrace Lasher’s necklace, Carlotta decided killing her was the only way to keep the family safe. The attempt failed, and the episode ended with Lasher (Jack Huston) coming for his revenge against the zealot. Suffice it to say, things are looking grim for Beth Grant‘s Carlotta.
Grant sees a straight through line between Carlotta’s childhood and her choices as an adult. And perhaps surprisingly (based on Carlotta’s extremism alone), Grant thinks much of her behavior is driven by repressed sexuality and the feelings of shame that come with it. Here, the actor breaks it all down.
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
Only some of the Mayfair witches have special powers. Without gifts of her own, Grant says Carlotta turned hard into her Catholic faith. During Deirdre’s (Annabeth Gish) wake, Carlotta told Rowan that Lasher “offered himself,” and the power that comes with him, to her when she was a young girl. Given that Lasher only attaches himself to the Designee of the family (the firstborn daughters in Deirdre’s matriline), this seemed like a lie Carlotta had spun to make herself look desirable when she didn’t feel so. She buried her desires, refusing to address them at all, in favor of conveying purity and innocence.
“Her religion is where she does her incantation and her rituals and lighting candles. And I mean, let’s face it, Catholicism and witch rituals are similar,” Grant says with a laugh. “But I think once Lasher came to her as a child, she had to find a way to protect herself. And in her mind, she’s a good Al-Anon, protecting the family. She’s gonna control everything, and she’s gonna suppress all the negatives. We all have dark sides, every one of us. I think that you can’t suppress it. You’ve got to accept it and understand how to use it.”
Because of this, Carlotta harbors deep resentment of her family’s magical abilities. “And maybe her sexuality!” Grant adds. “She is a spinster, and how could you not be attracted to that icon [Lasher], or that archetype?”
“She is probably, on some level, very attracted to him,” she continues. “It’s not easy for her to resist his power either. He’s kind of the genie in the bottle. Why wouldn’t you want access to all of that? I think she has suppressed her sexuality, which you cannot do. And women are learning now to accept their sexuality, to accept their dark side in today’s world. And that’s why this series is such so great for women today. All my girlfriends are saying, ‘Now, why didn’t we have this back then?’ ’cause it is our story, too, even those of us of a certain age. We’re on this hero’s journey, too, of acceptance.”
The root of Carlotta’s abusive control of the Mayfair women is pure jealousy, Grant says. “We’re going to learn more about that in Episode 5, so stay tuned,” she teases. But the sibling rivalry with Cortland (Harry Hamlin) played a big part in Carlotta’s early years as well.
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
“I have a brother. I’m six years older than him, and honey, when he was born, the world stopped. The king was here,” she says, giving a glimpse of how Carlotta’s life was changed by the arrival of the family’s only son. “I know that feeling of jealousy. Cortland chose to use this power in a very crass way, a hedonistic way. And I chose to reject it and try to protect the family in the way that I thought was best. Now, is either one right? I don’t think so. I think the real answer is somewhere in the middle. And that’s why Rowan is our hero, because she will find how to use this power in a way that she’s not being controlled by it, but she’s not suppressing it. And it’ll be a more passionate way, a more fulfilling way.”
Rowan is the breaker of generational curses in her newly found biological family. Grant loves the “great Southern mythology” woven through her story this season. Having grown up in the deep south herself, the actress says she knows these New Orleans ladies “deep in my bones.”
“It took a great Southern woman to create these characters in this story,” Grant raves of the late Anne Rice, author of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches and Interview With the Vampire books. “I just can’t say it enough.”
“But I think that Carlotta gets lost in it. She is self-will run riot,” the actor adds. “She is trying to do the best that she can, what she thinks is best for everybody. Well, we can’t do that in life. We can only do what’s best for ourselves and get in touch with our own. She should be getting in touch with her dark side, with her sexuality. It would probably be good for her to go to a bar one night and have some fun, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
Instead, Carlotta took a “demented journey” that landed her in a mental place where she can justify killing her family.
“She gets lost in her desire to control, which if you’ve ever been married, you would understand,” Grant jokes. “Having been married — this is my third, but very successful marriage — I learned not to try to control him. To get them to do it my way, I think, is where she gets lost. And in her Catholicism because it is a fanatic Catholicism … I really think she’s a lost soul.”
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
In the final moments of Episode 4, Carlotta attempts to kill Rowan (and seemingly herself) by locking the doors to the dining room and setting it ablaze. She then tries to stab Rowan, but Ciprien (Tongayi Chirisa) storms through the doors, leading to Carlotta accidentally stabbing him instead. The episode ends with Lasher magically closing the doors to the burning Mayfair house as Rowan and Cip try to escape.
“She certainly doesn’t mean to kill Ciprien, and I don’t think that her grabbing the knife to go for Rowan is planned,” Grant says. “She is in turmoil. She’s heartbroken when she sees that [Rowan’s] got that necklace on and that she’s touching herself sensually. She’s heartbroken.”
Nothing Carlotta does in that dining room was born out of rational thought, according to Grant. She says she was “lost in the fervor” of the moment. It’s a lethal culmination of Carlotta’s lifelong suppression of her true nature.
“If you don’t deal with your dark side, your sexuality, your anger, your greed, all those lovely little character defects, those seven deadly sins, then they’re going to get you,” she says. “They’re gonna come around and they’re gonna bite you.”
We’ll see what happens to Carlotta after that bite in Mayfair Witches Episode 5.
Mayfair Witches, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+
