Role Camille L’Espanaye in ‘Fall Of The House Of Usher’ Was Inspired By This ‘The Incredibles’ Character
Kate Siegel reveals that her character,
Camille is also influenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s character of the same name from his short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.
The inspiration for Camille’s character adds depth and intrigue to the show, similar to the numerous Easter eggs hidden throughout the series.
The Fall of the House of Usherstar Kate Siegel has revealed the unlikely source of inspiration behind her character Camille L’Espanaye. Loosely based on the assorted works of 19th-century poet and author Edgar Allan Poe, Mike Flanagan’s final Netflix show charted the graphic and fatal downfall of the powerful Usher family headed by patriarch Roderick Usher (played by Bruce Greenwood and Zach Gilford) and his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell and Willa Fitzgerald). Siegel, herself a frequent collaborator with Flanagan, assumed the role of Roderick’s illegitimate daughter Camille, best known for serving as the head of public relations for the Fortunato corporation.
In a video clip shared to Twitter by Mike Flanagan Source, Siegel admits that her character was based on the duplicitous character Mirage from Pixar’s The Incredibles. Initially suggesting that when she was a young girl she thought Mirage “was the most beautiful woman I could imagine”, she went on to jokingly admit that once audiences see the resemblance between the two characters, it can’t be unseen. Check out the clip and her comments below:
Camille is entirely based on a character named Mirage from The Incredibles. When I was a little girl, she was like my Jessica Rabbit. Like I thought she was the most beautiful woman I could imagine. She is the one that tricks Mr. Incredible into coming and being kidnapped. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. So sorry to spoil all of your childhood dreams, but Camille is just Mirage.
However, some eager fans were quick to do the math and realized that Siegel would have been 22 years old when The Incredibles was first released in 2004, later prompting the actor to self-correct and express her embarrassment.
The Original Basis of Siegel’s Camille L’Espanaye Explained
While Siegel is quick to credit the animated femme fatale who served as the assistant to Syndrome in The Incredibles for her character’s basis, creator Flanagan also mined the depths of Edgar Allan Poe’s massive catalog of written works to help give the Usher character form. Where Siegel’s Camille may owe her own trademark silver hair and cool demeanor to Mirage, the original character itself is drawn from Poe’s 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Widely regarded as the first modern detective story, and the basis for later great fictional sleuths such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Murders in the Rue Morgue introduces readers to Poe’s own brilliant investigator, C. Auguste Dupin, the same name given to the Assistant United States Attorney played by Carl Lumbly and Malcolm Goodwin. Camille, however, is the name of a young girl who is found murdered along with her mother under unusual circumstances.
Much like how Flanagan used Poe’s original title to inspire the nickname for the Fortunato research facility where Camille meets her fate, so too did he borrow his unlikely culprit. After deciphering the clues left at the scene of the murders, Poe’s version of Dupin deduces the killings were committed by an orangutan that was captured in Borneo and was brought to Paris to be sold. With this origin in mind, Siegel’s own unlikely choice of inspiration seems even more bizarre, however much like many other Easter eggs hidden throughout The Fall of the House of Usher, her revelation adds even more depth to an already intriguing show.
