Women in Hollywood: Talking with The Expanse’s Shohreh Aghdashloo

Women have made enormous strides in the entertainment industry, with 2020 being a banner year for us. A record number of women-directed film and television series, garnering three Golden Globe nominations. And we just concluded a Sundance Film Festival that saw over 50 percent of the projects directed by women, a sure sign that this tidal wave of female progress has only just begun.

As part of a series about women in Hollywood, I will be profiling the innovators who are helping to change the landscape of the entertainment industry. Representation is vitally important, and in this sense, there is one series that’s been on the cutting edge of progress the whole time: The Expanse. Women are at the forefront of this sci-fi drama in which they drive the story in seamless fashion. They are powerful, resourceful, brilliant, and completely realistic.

Leading this group of fascinating women is Chrisjen Avasarala, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo. Or for those #screamingfirehawks, she’s otherwise known as the queen. It was a genuine pleasure to interview a woman I personally admire—both as her fearless character Avasarala, the genius UN politician—and the immensely talented actress who plays her. Talking with her was like speaking with both royalty and your favorite aunt at the same time.

Culturess: First off, you have the most amazing wardrobe on television. I have to ask you about the costumes.

Shohreh Aghdashloo: That’s my favorite subject. Her name is Joanne [Hansen], our amazing costume designer.

And it’s not just Avasarala’s larger-than-life costumes: Belters, Martians, Earthers. Oh my god. Every time I go to the wardrobe to try on my outfits, my costumes, I have to move through the corridor, it’s filled with Belters’ and Martians’ outfits and I’m like, I have a hard time to pass on them.

She is unbelievable. And she is so humble for who she is. When I met with her for the first time and I went for a fitting, I was really surprised when I saw my costume and I said, oh my god, what a beautiful costume.

I never thought it could be this grand. She said to me, ‘Is there anything you would like to change about this outfit, or add something to it?’ I was looking at her in bewilderment, like ‘oh my god, this amazing designer is asking me whether I would like to have a saying in this.’

She, like me, truly believes in collaboration. Cinema, television, group work, such as this one is based on collaboration, and I was ever so happy, on cloud nine, that this amazing costume designer is willing to collaborate with me. And she said, ‘if there’s any color that you like to use, let me know.’

And I told her that, I loved what Alfred Hitchcock does in his films. with his use of color. Every time we see red in Hitchcock’s films, we know that somehow, something dangerous is about to happen. He does it purposefully.

Because his color chart is amazing, and he used them very appropriately. So, I told her about Alfred Hitchcock, and I said, ‘And there’s a scene in which there’s an assassination attempt to get rid of Avasarala, do you think we could add a little bit of red to this outfit, just for my own sake?’ So, we know that we have used red to let the audience know, those who are familiar with using colors in movies and TVs, something between us?

Culturess: Yeah, I remember seeing the red costume from S1 at New York Comic on display. And it’s my dream that they will have like a dress up booth so they can have some of the costumes from The Expanse (post-COVID, of course), so people can try them on.

Aghdashloo: It’s my favorite. Oh my god that that costume is amazing.

Culturess: The red one, right? The red one where she’s in the snow. Yeah, that’s my favorite too.

Your character is such a groundbreaking, female powerful character. She’s a real global leader. In a seamless way you imbue all this power. You’re not throwing punches, it’s all just internalized, contained power. I wanted to ask what your secret was to create such an innately powerful character.

Aghdashloo: You’re absolutely right. Her power comes from within.

She comes from a tribe of politicians, she has studied politics. She speaks 10 languages. She knows everyone in the political world. The names and even their ranks… This woman, her knowledge exceeds her rank. It’s that self-confidence, or self-esteem.

Another thing that adds to her organic sort of character is the fact that she is truly a public servant… She believes in serving people, the public, and therefore she’s not looking for a key position or role in the government. She’s trying to do her best to prevent Earth from another nonsense war.

Therefore, at least for me, her actions, are justified. I do understand why she’s doing certain things that supposedly she shouldn’t.

Senator Gillis asks her as to why she’s not running for office and she says, ‘sir, I would like to get s**t done.’

Culturess: Yeah, you know I also love how her cursing, she’s elevated it to an art form. There’s like this huge following, everybody loves it. There’s even a YouTube video (more than 1) of her best cursing moments. But how much is that you or is it the writers that gives her such a flair for cursing?

Aghdashloo: I should truly say that it’s the fans. It is so much of a fan-based movement, more than any other show that I’ve ever been a part of. It was the fans who saved the show. If you recall, the show was canceled, after its third season. Everybody was upset, especially the young people on the show, and I’m the oldest one. And I kept telling them, well, when one chapter is closed the other chapter opens. And all of a sudden, I received a text message, along with a photo of a plane with a message saying to ‘save The Expense’ [when fans sent over a blimp with the message ‘Save The Expanse’ to Amazon’s headquarters].

‘I know we’re not doing this, who is doing this?’ ‘Fans are doing this. They put pennies and dollars together to send this plane up, they’re now turning it around Amazon’s headquarters,’ so you can imagine. It was the fans that saved the show.

And it was the fans that said they love me cursing. That I had to ask them, I believe it was one of the Comic Cons… I said, ‘Why do you want me to keep cursing?’ And one of them said, ‘you’re doing it with such class, we love it.’

‘All right then, I’ll keep doing it.’ And of course, that caused our brilliant, brilliant writers to add some salt and pepper here and there.

Culturess: Exactly.

Aghdashloo: And they love it, I keep hearing, like, ‘could you kindly just sing a birthday song for me and say f**k?’ ‘I cannot do that.’ And they say, ‘why not?’ And I say, this is the intellectual property of The Expanse, I cannot [laughs].

Culturess: Another thing I love is your relationship with Bobbie Draper. I’m sad that you didn’t have much screen time this season [except the finale]. I mean the season was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I’m wondering if there’s a chance that the two of you will spend more time together in season 6. If there was going to be a spin off, I would love it to be an Avasarala and Bobbie go on adventures.

Aghdashloo: Me too! To be honest with you, it’s not just Avasarala saying this, but also Shohreh: I love working with Frankie [Adams]. She is amazing, amazing. Although young, but she’s a very good actress and… she makes me feel great working with her.

Because there are actors who come in just to hit their marks or run their lines. Thank God we don’t have any of them on this show. And there are actors who are truly interacting, which means acting, and Frankie is one of them.

I’m dying to see what happens in season 6, to be honest with you, I am truly Looking forward to see if Avasarala or Bobbie are going to meet again or going on a trip together, I’m dying to find out. I haven’t read the book for an obvious reason because I didn’t want to know what’s gonna happen to my character. I was worried that it may affect my portrayal of her.

Culturess: One of my favorite moments this season was also the flirtatious interaction between you and Amos. I hope we get to see more of that, how much fun was that? And do you think he’s chickened out of the high heel off?

Aghdashloo: My god, It all started, as you recall, it all started with high heels, when he’s trying to teach me how to walk in mag boots, telling me that, ‘it’s not like walking in high-heels,’ and I tell him, ‘where did you learn all this,’ and he was ‘I wasn’t always doing this.’ And it started right there and then. We both, after we did this scene, we turned to each other and looked at each other, and I said, ‘Oh my God, Wes, you realize what’s happening here?’

And he goes, ‘yes, I know, I always knew there are layers into this scene, but couldn’t pinpoint them out.’ Now that we have played it, I can understand. I can understand more of what is going on between these two characters.’

I noticed that every time Avasarala sees him or has a meeting with him, she’s very careful with her attire, and makeup, and jewelries, and stuff. And I thought, ‘oh my god, this woman may have a crush on him as well.’ And when I said it him, and he said, ‘do you think it’s possible?’ I said, ‘why not? Of course. She’s a woman.’

She can see how strong this young man is and perhaps also she would love to recruit him and have him on her side. Besides everything else.

Culturess: I do watch your cooking videos that you post, I enjoy those quite a lot, so I was going to ask if you have any future ones planned, if you’re going to be releasing anymore. Those are fun.

Aghdashloo: Yes, definitely. I love, love cooking.

I started with a simple rice, which made many Iranians angry. It had a backlash on me. They said, like, ‘oh my god, only a really simple jasmine rice? She should have put in chicken or fish or meat, next to it. Now Americans think that we only eat rice in Iran’ [laughs].

I told them, the reason I did not put any kind of meat next to it is the fact that first of all, there are many people who are vegetarian nowadays. Second of all, many people may afford to buy the rice but not afford to buy the meat or the fish. So, I tried to keep it simple.

I would definitely do it soon as I am done with my daughter’s move… And I told her, I may bring you out, only because I want you to do another cooking show with me and she said to me, ‘by all means Ma, I’d love to make that.’ So definitely we’re looking forward to it in the future.

Culturess: Oh, that will be great, I love those.

Aghdashloo: I’m so happy like you like them. Thank you so much for telling me. Honestly, You made my day.

Culturess: Rice is a lot harder to cook well than you think.

The full fifth season of The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime Video for streaming.

What did you think of The Expanse season finale? And what are you looking forward to in season 6? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.