Exclusive Interview with Bree Turner

When the cast of Grimm met with the Television Critics Association in January, we got some alone time with Bree Turner. Turner joined Grimm in the second season as Rosalee Calvert, who returned to Portland and now runs the spice shop cum apothecary.

Season two took a bit of a break and Grimm fans were without new episodes from November to March. WhenGrimm came back, Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) is still under a spell in which she cannot remember Nick (David Giuntoli). Add Grimm to your Fanhattan Watchlist to keep up and find out what Turner has to say about Rosalee and the show’s monster Wesen in our exclusive interview.

Fanhattan: What cool things are you getting to do in the second half of the season?

Bree Turner: Well, the most fun thing so far is that they’re really putting Rosalee through the wringer in terms of my skill set with the spice shop and being an apothecary and being a healer. I think from day one entering the show, it’s been sort of this learning curve for Rosalee of can I do this? I didn’t sign up for this. I just came back to bury my brother, close up the shop and go back to Seattle. Now all of a sudden I’m fully in the mix and being asked to basically save people’s lives. I don’t think I really necessarily want to do that all the time, so I think that’s been a fun journey of rising to the call of duty as you say, and the conflict that comes with wait a minute, how did I get here? I’m very personally involved in a lot of healing and saving lives.

Fanhattan: But you can’t heal Juliette, can you?

Bree Turner: I’m very instrumental in the progress of her condition, shall we say.

Fanhattan: What I know about apothecaries is going to colonial Williamsburg in school and learning about that. Have you ever done those tours?

Bree Turner: I haven’t but as a girl I love re-enactment tours, so I would love to do that. I love going in on historical tours where you’re in the home, they have the old sewing machine and the rocker or in an apothecary shop, the bottles. I love that stuff. I live for it and our set on our show, the spice shop in particular is so gorgeous. You walk in and there is no detail that isn’t taken care of on that set. Even things that the camera doesn’t even pick up. It’s pretty cool.

Fanhattan: Even though there was a break from fall to March, did you get a break or were you working continuously?

Bree Turner: I’ve been pregnant for basically this whole time on the show. The last time you see me I’m about eight months pregnant, so I’ve had my baby and I’ve been able to go home during the hiatus. Although it seemed like so long, now it’s flying by, being able to be with my family and nest.

Fanhattan: Was that your first?

Bree Turner: My second. My second baby.

Fanhattan: How is it the second time?

Bree Turner: Oh, it’s so much easier. I wish I would’ve known with my first not to stress so much because you really have no control how they turn out. You can only do so much.

Fanhattan: How did you like shooting the webisodes in the spice shop?

Bree Turner: It was really, really cute. We shot it all in one day right before break. We just added that to the already insane schedule, but Silas and I were at the shop. It’s very funny. What was nice about it was it’s a really light kind of frothy webisode. Everything we deal with on Grimm is so urgent, there’s such a sense of urgency to everything, that Silas and I and the other actors had a blast. It almost felt like a mini-sitcom. It just felt easy and fun and charming and sweet, so hopefully the fans connect with it because it was fun.

Fanhattan: What are your favorite monsters on Grimm?

Bree Turner: Well, the hexenbiest is one of my favorites just because having a female be so nasty is really fun. And I love the morph with the hexenbiest, the hair turning white. It’s just so, so nasty, from such a female perspective in terms of the sexiness and the sex appeal of the hexenbiest and how they use that I think is really fun.

Fanhattan: What new monsters are you excited about?

Bree Turner: We have one coming up that we all got real intimate with and you’ll see when the episode airs. It’s an insect Wesen and it is really gross, and that was really gross. I had to do some stuff firsthand. My gag reflex was put to the test.

Fanhattan: What do you usually do on Friday nights when Grimm is on?

Bree Turner: I watch it with my husband.

Fanhattan: Are you online and do you tweet with it?

Bree Turner: Yeah, we do. The fans are such a huge, huge element to this experience so we do a lot of live tweeting, all the actors, and that’s so fun. I did my first one with the Quill episode where I become possessed with the yellow fever.

Fanhattan: Was it hard to keep up with all the tweets coming in?

Bree Turner: Yes, I had to take like two Aleve after. I had carpal tunnel. I was sweating. I was so stressed out just because it’s real time because they’re coming in and you want to interact. What’s so fun about Twitter is that you get these firsthand relationships with these fans and they’re not following you to be a jerk. They’re following you because they’re a fan so that’s really great.:

Source: voice.fan.tv