Last updated: December 27, 2014


Tablet Confidential

Conspiracy, deceit, intrigue and romance return to the Hamptons


Emily VanCamp stars in a second season of "Revenge". Picture: Supplied Source:

CLAD in jeans and a butter-soft biker jacket, wearing not a trace of makeup, Emily VanCamp curls into a chair at the Los Angeles studios of hit series "Revenge".

Less guarded and more forthcoming than her alter-ego - the vengeance-driven and mysterious Emily Thorne who took the Hamptons, and our television screens, by storm last year - the diminutive actor says "Revenge" season two has taken on-screen Emily places she never imagined.

Season one saw VanCamp’s character under the assumed identity of Emily Thorne in a single-minded pursuit of the powerful Grayson family, determined to take them down, and anyone else she believed responsible for framing her dead father for an horrific crime.

There was blood, deceit, conspiracy, romance and faux-mance before a season-ending cliff-hanger turned Emily’s campaign on its head and left a life in the balance.

In season two the web gets more complicated, leaving Emily unexpectedly vulnerable. First, she’s dealing with the discovery that the mother she thought dead (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) isn’t - a turn which puts the usually steely Emily off track.

"She’s a little bit distracted, which is very unlike her, and you'll start to see she's really slipping on a lot of stuff," VanCamp says.

"She's not as protective of Jack (her childhood sweetheart played by Nick Wechsler who, as last season ended, found out he was going to be a dad with Emily's 'sister' Amanda).

"She's really, really tripped up by the fact that her mum is back."

Distraction number two comes in the form of a new face on "Revenge", but not in Emily's life - mysterious Englishman Aiden Mathis (Barry Sloane).

The two share a deadly and romantic past - he is as well-trained as her in martial arts, but also has a capacity to affect her emotionally.

"Aiden is a previous love and he kind of betrayed her, so you start to understand where some of her trust issues come from," VanCamp says.

For a while, Emily seems set to fight largely personal demons as the Grayson family goes about its dastardly, double-crossing business. But mid-season, a major event resets Emily's need for vengeance.

That "event" is hinted at in the first episode, and while VanCamp won't be drawn on its nature, she says the result is "it's the moment when Emily decides, 'enough - I need to get back on track and I need to remember what I came here for'."

Revenge may be serious business but in real life, VanCamp can take time to chuckle over her character's good fortune with the men of the show.

Off-screen, VanCamp is in a relationship with co-star Josh Bowman, who plays Daniel Grayson.

On-screen, Emily and Daniel were an item last season, engaged as part of her plan to bring down his family before it was all called off, and she hints that season two just might revisit that romance.

But first Emily has to deal with pining for childhood love Jack and deciding whether to kiss or kill old flame Aiden. VanCamp laughs uproariously at the observation that it's a pretty good gig for an actress to be linked with three hot co-stars.

"I really can't complain. She really does have a lot of men; she's kind of the Hamptons whore," she laughs.

"I guess that's what happens when you're so emotionally disconnected. That's why there are so many of them. Because Emily doesn't need them.

"Jack, he's her one true love, he's the all-American idea of the perfect guy, I think. Aiden is the sexy Brit who kind of brings that mystery, that intrigue and they have a very almost volatile but loving relationship.

"They have both been so deeply wounded in their lives for separate reasons, but they have an unspoken understanding of each other.

"They don't do a lot of talking, it's very Mr and Mrs Smith in many moments."

VanCamp laughs, imagining Emily and Aiden's perfect date "wouldn't be dinner and a movie, it would be watching 'Fight Club' ".

"At any given moment they might beat the crap out of each other, or start making out," she says.

"And then Daniel is this sort of preppy all-American rich kid, probably not Emily's first choice of what she would go for in her life, but absolutely is integral to this quest that she's on.

"I think she struggles with it quite a bit because I think she identifies with Daniel in certain ways that she never thought she would and has always had a soft spot in her heart for him.

"So yeah, she's a lucky girl, I'm not gonna lie. She sort of like filters through them likes it's nobody's business.

"Gabriel Mann (who plays Emily's friend and ally, rich computer wizard Nolan) always talks about how he wants Nolan and Emily to have some weird relationship.

"But I think we have enough at this point, I think we'll keep that as a brother-sister relationship. I think we have enough with the three other men."

"Revenge", Monday, 8.45pm, Seven