Actress Brooke Carter revealed that her new Netflix movie, Damsel, also starring Millie Bobby Brown, actually filmed an alternate ending for its story.
Carter plays Floria, the sister of Brown's Elodie, who is chipper, innocent, and gets very swept up in the life her sister gets invited to. Little does Floria realize the darkness in play and the danger she’ll soon be in.
[ Damsel Netflix Movie Cast, Characters & Actors (Photos) ]
Brooke Carter Talks About Netflix’s Damsel
In an exclusive interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Damsel star Brooke Carter talked about her time making the new Netflix film, working with Millie Bobby Brown, and how the production filmed an alternate ending.
Warning - This article contains spoilers for Damsel
At the movie's end, after Elodie and her new pet dragon rather brutally burn down the entire corrupt kingdom that threw her in a chasm to die, she joins her stepmother and sister as they sail away to greener pastures.
Brooke Carter shared that the production ended up "film[ing] two different endings for the film:"
"We filmed two different endings for the film. And I feel like it would be great for them to see the other ending that we filmed, just because it could start like a whole different vibe about what's going to happen for [the] future… So, one was where Elodie stayed with us, and one was where Elodie left."
"There were a lot of changes," the actress confirmed about the final movie compared to the initial script, but it was the ending overall that changed the most:
"There were a lot of changes. I think we changed quite a bit of it. I mean, the storyline from the start to the middle stayed the same. The ending changed quite a lot. A lot of lines were cut, and a lot of lines were added. So when we were doing the reshoots, there were quite a lot of scenes that they'd swapped out for other scenes."
When asked what the hardest scene for Carter to film was, she quickly pointed to the cave scenes she had towards the end.
The actress shared how that performance "was difficult" due to balancing having to be "upset" but also "happy at the same time:"
"I think, one of the cave scenes. When Elodie finds me, it was difficult because I was upset, but I was happy at the same time. So, I found it very difficult to get my head around that scene. Yeah, that was challenging."
The actress admitted that filming some of the cave scenes "[were] kind of scary" at first, with some of the sets being fairly tight and close quarters:
"So my first ever scene that I filmed was in a cave. And it was such a tight cave. It was kind of scary. At first, I had to have my legs pulled out of it and stuff. Some of the caves were really scary compared to the others. But then I think my favorite cave scene was the one where we got to see the dragon. And then there was, like, this massive water, sort of puddle thing. And it was huge, and I had no clue how they made it."
On working with the Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, Carter called it "such an amazing experience," even if it was "quite intimidating at first:"
"It was such an amazing experience. It was quite intimidating at first because she's such a professional actress, and she's so big in the acting world. But over time, she gave me lots of tips and tricks on set, and it made me want to push myself more being around such amazing actors."
The two actors were able to bond further off-set when "[they] were staying on this wine vineyard" in "Portugal."
"When we were in Portugal, and we were staying on this wine vineyard, we had dinner every night together. And it was great."
While Carter "[does not] have a sister," she was still able to harness her relationship with her siblings to inform Floria and Elodie’s dynamic:
"I don't have a sister. So, I couldn't really relate to having a sister. But I think having siblings and how I would react to my siblings or show love towards them. That definitely helped getting used to the whole sibling with Elodie and Florida thing."
Before production even properly kicked off, Carter made sure not only to "read the whole script" to gauge "Floria’s reactions to certain things," but she also put some descriptive words together to help better formulate her performance as the character:
"I got sent over some description about Floria, and I read the whole script. And I took ideas from the script about Floria's reactions to certain things. From that, I made a slide, and I put loads of sort of description words about Floria to help me understand how she would act in normal daily life."
The Floria actress admitted that dragons and fantasy "[is] definitely one of the most interesting sort of genres," adding, "You never know what's going to happen with a dragon."
As for what makes this particular dragon in Damsel stick out amongst the pack, Carter pointed to how "it can talk:"
"I think one that makes it sick out is that it can talk. I think it's definitely a major one that the dragon can talk to Millie in it. And another is probably the dragon's backstory is another big one."
As for what might be in store for Floria after the credits have rolled, Carter admitted she feels her character may "become more closed off to the world" following the events of Damsel:
"I feel like my character would sort of grow up and realize that happily ever after, It doesn't exist because Floria's always in her own little world with princesses, and princes. She's very dazed by it. I think she's sort of become more closed off to the world after what happens during the film to her."
Damsel is now streaming on Netflix.
