Tatiana Maslany Reveals the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Sister Alice on HBO’s PERRY MASON

With a cast of hugely talented actors, including EMMY®-winners Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany and GOLDEN GLOBE®-winner John Lithgow, HBO’s new detective series PERRY MASON delivers an engaging, gritty, and gruesome backstory to the 1960’s courtroom drama. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, the series follows Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) a down-and-out defense attorney who takes on the case of a lifetime, investigating the brutal kidnapping of a one year old boy. As the series moves into the second half of its captivating first season – with new episodes premiering Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Crave – award-winning Canadian actor Tatiana Maslany shared the inspiration behind her larger-than-life evangelical preacher character Sister Alice. Here’s what Maslany had to say about: Approaching the role: “I was really coming to it fresh. When I read the script and found out about the legacy, I didn’t dig too much into other PERRY MASON material because I felt like Alice wasn’t really connected to any of that and [the show] is its own piece entirely. I was more interested in looking into Sister Aimee Semple McPherson who was a preacher in LA at the same time as Alice would have been. She was sort of who Alice was based on. She had this larger than life persona and revolutionized the way people preached in terms of reaching people on TV and radio. She’s somebody I didn’t know about until the writers told me about her, but she was such a great reference point.” Sister Alice’s connection to the case: “Sister Alice is an evangelical preacher – head of the Radiant Assembly of God – who holds court to hundreds of congregants every week and reaches people via the radio. She has this iconic rock star status but behind the scenes has a very different life and is kind of a mystery. Personally, she is a lot more complex than she appears to be on the stage. Her church becomes part of the investigation into the death of baby Charlie Dodson because so many of the people involved in the case frequent the church. Alice feels a special connection to [Charlie’s mother] Emily in the loss that she’s experiencing – the pain and injustice of it – and takes her under her wing.” How she prepared for the role: “There was so much in the script to jump off of, but I also read Sister Aimee Semple’s books of sermons. I read a book outlining her journey to becoming a preacher and listened to her audio recordings and a few video clips on YouTube where I could see her style of sermonizing. Sister Alice is an unusual woman because at the same time as she is preaching humility, she has a fox fur around her neck! She’s a cool contradiction in that way and I felt like that was a really interesting key to Alice. There’s an untouchable quality about her but she is also very of-the-people.” How she got into character: “There’s a scene in episode five when Alice is doing a divine healing with this man who can’t walk and she’s on this platform in the middle of a mob of people and there’s this real rock star feeling where everyone’s getting worked up. Our director played AC/DC when we were warming up to start the take, to get the crowd into that animal sort of place. It was such a rush to have that crowd and feel that energy.”