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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Foundation’s season 1 episode 6, “Death and the Maiden,” now streaming on Apple+
In the logical to a fault world of Foundation, someone like Phara Keaen is a wrecking ball. Driven by vengeance over past events, she’s made herself into one of the greatest threats to Hari Seldon’s beliefs — but for an achingly human reason, that makes her all the more compelling to watch. Bringing her to life is Kubbra Sait, who brings a real sense of purpose and charm to the antagonistic character throughout the Apple TV+ series’ debut season.
During an exclusive interview with CBR, Kubbra Sait spoke about the joys of playing someone like Phara in Foundation, praised working with her co-star Leah Harvey, and discussed what it was like to be on the same scale as one of her favorite Indian actors of all time.
CBR: One of the interesting things about Foundation is how heady it can be when compared to other sci-fi projects. All of the characters are following their own, very strict forms of logic — even someone like Phara. How did you juggle those two elements as a performer?
Kubbra Sait: With every episode, Phara’s got the snazziest comebacks! She’s so cool about it. Phara is literally a cat, like a wild, feral cat. She’s terrible. She knows that she can say anything and there aren’t going to be consequences because she’s holding the gun. She’s not someone who’s not trained. Her entire life has been driven with one purpose and that is to bring down the empire. When you have that kind of confidence inside you, I think it takes a lot to shake it off. I think only when things stop favoring her is when she realizes that like, “Oh my God. Oh.”
It’s interesting because as a person, I’m not that person at all. Even if I have to say something mean to somebody, I would say it with a smile because I don’t think I’m ready for the consequences, honestly. I try to monitor my actions because I know every action has a consequence. But with Phara, she fears no consequences. So, to mouth these lines was articularly challenging because I cannot have an emotional cord connected to anything that I’m saying. And that can be pretty devastating, especially when you’re shooting in COVID times because we had a health policy on the set. So I couldn’t hug people and be like, “Hey, it’s just me. I want to give you a hug. Please forgive me.”
I was really, really fortunate to be sharing space with Leah Harvey, who is genuinely a beautiful human being. Leah is such a force to reckon with, whether it’s learning how to speak in American English, the accent, so to speak… [Leah] actually slipped into my DMs, even before the show, to ask if I could run lines with them and if they could make me comfortable in any way. That is something that I have not even experienced back at home in India. For us to share like what? 90% of our work together? Leah became my formidable strength on the show. We gave ourselves a name! We call ourselves Phalvor.
Your experience is primarily in more down-to-Earth stories, as opposed to the massive sci-fi scope of Foundation. What was that like to transition over to a story of this level, with such a larger breadth?
Oh god, I think it was really exciting to be in that world, not only from the perspective of a character that I was playing or an actor, but just the simple fact that Phara could have been from anywhere in the whole world, and [the show’s creators] chose to cast a person from India. They never asked me to change the way I speak. They didn’t ask me to sound like anybody else or look like anybody else. They just embraced me for who I am. And that for me was such a huge motivation, to begin with, because that showed me the resolution of the makers. It was so certain that this is a show that is an amalgamation of different countries.
I think the conviction of the makers to keep our authenticity in place and not give that a backstory, but just allow us to be, was a huge honor, to be honest. We were able to embrace who we are and be true to the script. That was amazing for me. I got to learn so many things that I had never done otherwise. I had never thrown a punch in my life. I’d never probably raised my leg above my knee unless I was doing high-knees at the gym. But throwing these kicks around and swirling and beating people up and stabbing people, and I’m shooting them in the face… Wow.
Phara really gets to be a unique player in this world, because of how personal her mission proves to be, and how she melds that ruthlessness and cunning with it.
She really ups the ante… The moment Phara comes in, you’re automatically picking sides. She becomes the catalyst for you to be like, “Okay, she’s the bad guy. There are good guys. Oh, but the empire’s back too. Oh, the bad guy’s after the bad guys.” What’s Salvor going to do? And you automatically start feeling for these characters. I think it is the best part of watching any drama, even if it is science fiction as a genre when there is a good and a bad and ugly… The best thing is that all of these characters, you can’t really invest all chips in one character because that character is going to really mess things up for you in the future. So it is really awesome in that sense.
You empathize with Phara for what she’s doing, but at the same time, the heart is not going to let you be like, “Yeah, man. Yeah, it’s okay. Bad things happen to her, but it is justified.” Because we ask these questions in the world we live in today. When she takes down Terminus and she’s got her army in Terminus, she’s not after the lives of innocent people, but a lot of innocent people are dying. And then she justifies it on the tower. “These are the people who listen to Hari Seldon. Because of what your prophet said, my world won. Every single one of them is an accomplice to what has happened.” She doesn’t care if this was thirty-five years in the making. She’s very clear that what has happened to her is incorrect. It’s not justice. She’s got to claim justice for it. I think that’s just phenomenal for the show creators… They move on to tell you even Phara’s story, where she came from, and what she saw in front of her eyes.
Apple TV+ is such a great place for this show to reach a global audience. How exciting is it to be a part of a massive show like this, with a massive outreach?
You know, there’s this other thing that really got me excited [to join Foundation]. So, many, many, many moons ago, there was a film called Indiana Jones. And there is one of my most favorite Indian actors in it, and he plays the antagonist called Mola Ram. I was so excited because he is one of my most favorite human beings. He’s not alive anymore. It’s probably one of my greatest regrets that I didn’t get to meet him while he was alive. His name’s Amrish Puri.
But I was like, “Hold on, world. Am I playing a villain on the world stage, and the only other person to have done that is my favorite person in the whole world, Amrish Puri?” He got to play Mola Ram. I get to play Phara Keaen. I really hope one day I am gifted with two bobbleheads. One is Mola Ram, one is Phara Keaen.
What would you say was the best lesson you learned from this experience?
There was [an actor on set, with one word of dialogue]. His word was “Yes.” That guy was working with us for twelve hours. He has one word, and he says, “Yes.” I think that for me is professionalism. It’s about not saying, “Oh, I just have one word?… I can do it in my shot.” I’ve seen that happen around India where we do have a hierarchy. And if it is an actor who doesn’t need to be there, they will block this scene, block that scene, and call this person when that person is required. But here it was almost theatrical in the sense that it was like drama on the stage.
What moved me is that I am somebody who follows instinct when it comes to my scripts. What I learned from my co-actors, especially Leah, showed me how important training in the craft is, because they’re a trained actor, as are so many other people on the show. Nobody wakes up and goes like, “Yeah, well, my father’s a producer, so I’ll be an actor tomorrow.” It’s a free pass to go try your luck. I think that happens a lot in America and it happens a lot in India because these are the two places that I would be probably more aware to speak of. I don’t know what happens in the rest of the world. But what I’ve seen is that the UK actors are trained actors. They have invested time in learning scripts. They know how to read scripts. They put so much of them in that script.
Foundation was a school, and I’m so privileged to be in that school. You learn on the job. There are so many times that you can read so much text, but you don’t know where to apply the text because you haven’t met those opportunities to apply the text. And over here, I was learning and then finding text to support it and be like, “Oh, that’s what it means. That’s what that rule is.” Or I would speak to Barbara Houseman, who was coaching me as an actor for certain scenes, because some scenes were really, really heavy. Like the backstory of Phara, she wanted me to go back into my thoughts and say these lines and ask, “How exactly do you tap into the spirit of a soul like this character? How do you find it? What do you do with it?”
These are just lines. What really brings life to them is the way you say it. You could say one line in so many different ways. But did that choice that I made in that particular scene, was that the right choice? That’s only something you can question after you’ve seen the show. I question myself all the time. Like when I watch the show now, I’m like, “I could have said that differently.” I think we’re just greedy, hungry, and never really, really, fully happy, because if we were, we wouldn’t be able to do our next best job.
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