NEED TO KNOW
On the new HBO series The Seduction, Lucas Bravo plays the villainous Comte de Gercourt
The French show is adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Bravo tells PEOPLE why the role was “therapeutic” for him despite its “darkness”
Lucas Bravo is leaning into the darkness with his new role.
The Emily in Paris star plays Comte de Gercourt on The Seduction, a new French HBO series based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ iconic 1782 novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He’s the subject of a revenge plot orchestrated by Madame de Rosemonde (Diane Kruger) and the Marquise de Merteuil (Anamaria Vartolomei), who she’s taken under her wing.
Playing the villainous nobleman was “therapeutic for me,” Bravo tells PEOPLE. “There’s a bit of darkness in all of us — it’s [about] how you allow it to come out.”
For the French actor, 37, playing Gercourt allowed him to channel some of the darker sides of himself — in a healthy way. “Either you live life where you can balance the two, the darkness and the light, [or] you suppress it,” Bravo says. “And I feel like I’ve given Gercourt all those little crazy aspects of my darkness that I never explored.”
He adds, “I was able to observe them from a distance, through his process, and kind of let go of them.”
Caroline Dubois/HBO
Anamaria Vartolomei, Diane Kruger and Lucas Bravo in ‘The Seduction’
The Seduction is not the first time Laclos’ novel has been adapted onscreen. The story is best known as the hit 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, which John Malkovich, Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer starred in. But the story has also been explored in 1989’s Valmont, starring Colin Firth, 1999’s Cruel Intentions and more recently, a 2022 Starz limited series led by Alice Englert and Nicholas Denton.
Where the HBO series stands apart, though, is in its richer female perspective. “I realized that, from the book to the Stephen Frears and Miloš Forman adaptations [[Dangerous Liaisons and Valmont], we lost a lot of details that were bringing nuances to the female characters,” Bravo says. “Willingly or not, through their perception, they thought some stuff wasn’t important, and that we brought back into this adaptation.”
The series also introduces a “prequel side of [the story] that allows us to understand a bit more about the motivation — what Rosemonde or Merteuil went through, and what guides them to want to make the fear change side[s].”
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Caroline Dubois/HBO
Lucas Bravo in ‘The Seduction’
The Seduction sees Rosemonde takes the Marquise under her wing after she’s betrayed and embarrassed by Bravo’s Gercourt. Rosemonde opens the Marquise’s eyes to the the dangerous libertine world of aristocrats in 18th-century France, as they and Sebastian Valmont (Vincent Lacoste) scheme to take down Gercourt.
Per HBO’s official logline, the six-episode limited series is a “thrilling exploration of the price of emotional & sexual freedom in a world where women had little” that sees the Marquise embark “on a daring journey to become Paris’ leading courtesan” after Valmont betrays her.
The Seduction premieres Friday, Nov. 14 on HBO and HBO Max, followed by weekly drops until the finale on Dec. 19.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com ’
