Based on the story of the Mitford sisters, Outrageous follows six sisters who refuse to play by the rules and whose often-scandalous lives made headlines around the world. Set in the 1930s, it is a tale of betrayal, scandal, heartache and even imprisonment.
Following the show’s release on BritBox in North America and UKTV’s U and U&DRAMA streaming service in the United Kingdom, and ahead of its Australian release on BritBox next month (it will release on July 24th here), Peter Gray spoke with series star Joshua Sasse, who stars as controversial aristocrat and politician Oswald Mosley, touching on his research process, how he found his way into the character beyond conventional methods, and what was the biggest challenge as an actor he faced in doing so.
When doing a show like Outrageous, how much research are you doing into the Mitford sisters themselves? Or even the era beyond the script? And in that research, was there anything that surprised you the most?
Certainly this is an era that people know less about. Obviously, the Second World War in 1939, potentially 1938 onwards, is deeper rooted in everyone’s consciousness. I just went back to Oswald Mosley’s roots. I started with him first, and there was a lot of material to go through, which was really necessary to sort of do that foundation. I just worked on what my scope was to him as we met him, and I didn’t work after this season ends. The season ends in 1938, and so I didn’t work past that period. I just focused on everything that I could get my hands on. From source material and archival companies in the UK and, luckily, I have some family connections with the Mosleys, and they were able to sort of delve deep into it. That was my way of getting to it.
I obviously read Mary Lovell’s book, and I didn’t know anything about the Mitfords, really, so it was a lovely deep dive. I knew more about the Duchess of Devonshire and the works of Patrick Leigh Fermor. I don’t know if you’ve read any of his work, but that was nice, because most of the really good information I got, certainly about Mosley, had been from ulterior sources of material, so a lot of his parliamentarians and his diaries and things like that, where there were very telling comments…I think when you are lucky enough to play in a biopic like this, it necessitates a lot of emotion. And you have to make sure you’re getting it right.
When you’re playing a character that’s grounded in historical events, do you lean on research? Or do you lean on instinct? How does that process unfold for you?
I think you have to look at the character as a human being, essentially, and in a psychological sense you have to work out why they’re making the decisions they’re making. With Oswald, it was a lot to do with the war, with him not going to university, with his relationship with his father and mother, and to try and retrospectively puzzle-piece together to understand why they made the decisions they made, and how they came to that conclusion. Nobody sees themselves as a bad person. Everyone’s a hero in their own story, so I tried to be sympathetic to (Oswald) as a person. Yes, I’ve got source material and the historical stuff, but it’s not my role as an actor to sit in judgement on that. It’s just my job to understand why. And that’s much more interesting. The story is what the story is. I’m more interested in how he came to, or why he came to it personally.
Going off that mentality, as an actor, sometimes you hear that costumes, sets, even scents can influence a performance. Did any of that help you inhabit the role beyond what you were putting in yourself?
Yeah, certainly when it’s an era like this. I think any actor in any medium, it’s always good to get your foot in the boot, because it’ll change the way you walk. If the clothes are tight or if the shoes are ill-fitting, it’ll affect your gait and your walk and how you feel. All of that stuff is always really relevant. Something I did this time with Joanna Vanderham, who plays my wife, was that we went went – secretly – perfume shopping with each other, and we created the scent for each other (and) we didn’t tell anybody about it. It was our little secret, so on set we had a sort of clandestine feeling around it. It wasn’t so much the olfactory bit of it. It was just that a layer to it, other than the text and the stuff that’s really useful, is that in a visual medium I find it useful to use all the senses if you can.
I can’t tell you how lucky we were to have Claire Collins on our team. I mean, the costumes were the most extraordinary things I’ve ever witnessed, and that was a massive part, character wise, because (Oswald) is a real person. They had this amazing warehouse where you’d turn up and there was all of the original 1930s wardrobe. It was all antique, perfectly preserved stuff. Claire contacted me maybe three months before, and just said, “Look, I’d be really keen for you to wear all this stuff, but you’re not going to fit in it.” If I wanted to fit in it my body shape had to change, so I lost 12 kilograms to fit into these (clothes). And that made a really big difference, because if how they’re cut and how they feel. When you’re creating a character, you never where your hook is going to come from. You have ideas and hopes and concepts, but when I put on one of Oswald’s uniforms that he designed himself, he was trying to mimic Mussolini, it’s a really satisfying result for me as a performer. It was really informative.
As you spoke about not falling into judgement of his character, he’s really quite a person of extreme contradiction in a lot of ways. He’s seductive to some, repellent to others. How do you get into the psychology of that without slipping into an almost caricature?
It was definitely a concern, not wanting to turn into pastiche. I think just because of his aura as this mustachioed bad guy, which was a look that was quite ridiculed at the time. It was very farcical. To be honest, a lot of our concepts over the last 70 years have been a consequence of Oswald Mosley. We didn’t know it, but that whole hair slicked, mustached, tight-suited thing was from him. I was very conscious of that. And it’s not just a visual. As you said, it has to come from a human element to understand where his manipulations with people came from, the inadequacies that he felt, and why it was happening? It’s half-shown with Diana and his desperation to rise up the social ladder and his desperation to go politically to impress his father, to impress his mother, and to impress himself. He didn’t go to university, his war career wasn’t anything to shout about. He wasn’t a death solider. He was injured. And he sort of had an ignominious end to that as well. I think all those parts and pieces did make up for a fairly outlandish character, and I think when you know that’s what you’re working with, I think you have to work extra hard in order to keep him grounded.
As you said, there’s a duality to him. He was really charming. He charmed his way up the social ladder and charmed his way into politics. There was a duality to it. So I just tried to lean on that side of it, because it’s for history and everybody else to judge his actions. I tried to not focus on the period of his life after our first season. I didn’t want to try and think about the repercussions of it. My source material, the books, they’re all sort of three-quarters the way through finished, and I’m not going to read until we move on. That’s the process.
It’s interesting you saying that, talking about his career and his choices, because I was going to ask if you identified a central contradiction or vulnerability in his character that helped you understand his choices or behaviour? Did you feel you found any one specific thing that really made him who he was?
I think there were two things. One, I certainly think he was one of the first men in the world to fly in an airplane over a battlefield. And he was in the Royal Flying Corps order, so he was able to look down and see trench warfare and see what he described in his letters as mustard gas rolling in and watching entire lines of people die. That had a massive effect on him. As did seeing ex-soldiers in the streets dying of poverty within the UK. I know from all the source material that for all of the calumny that was said of him, well it was probably correct critique, but he really did believe what he was fighting for in an anti-war way.
The other was a letter that I found in an archive from his mother, and it was sort of setting up a bit of a Jesus complex with him. I think because he felt that his mother, who he adored and adulated, had said that rather early on, he had a Messiah Complex. I really ran with that, and I took that letter to Mary Lovell, and she hadn’t seen it before. I said how I really think this is a telling piece about this man’s psychology. He had no love from his father, very tough love from his grandfather, but his mother was setting himself up. I showed this letter, and it was quite strong material. It felt like permission, in a way, to take this ulterior path. It was enormously helpful.
In doing your research and finding out what you did, as well losing weight to fit the attire. Beyond that, was there anything about this role that stretched you as an actor that you weren’t prepared for? Was there anything that you learned about yourself in playing Oswald?
Good question. It was definitely a big challenge. I think when you immerse yourself in someone, and that skin is very different from your own and you live with that…it was nice to go home at the end of the day (laughs). It felt very heavy. I think because I lived in it all day, it’s not my usual method to in character all day, but with this I did. Oswald had such an intensity. All the material I read, especially from the parliamentarians that worked with him in the House of Commons that talked of his maniacal glare, even when he was talking about something that was non-contentious, there’s a consequence that comes with that. I definitely had to close my eyes on the drive home.
One of the things I loved about this show is that, even though it’s set however many decades ago, it has a lot of resonation with today’s audiences. How do you think it’ll sit with people watching it today? Given that there’s these themes of rebellion, identity, ideology…
Certainly there are a lot of parallels. These women were the original “it girls”. I’d like people to come to their own conclusions. But in the 1930s, there were these people dancing to jazz and drinking champagne while Rome was burning, and that culture that was obsessed with frivolity and celebrate was booming in the 30s. This show’s been in development since Brexit, so the turmoil at that time…the parallels are a fluke.
Despite the seriousness of what it represents, it will be an escapism show for many audiences. It will be a show that audiences will easily binge and watch for pure entertainment. What’s your piece of escapism?
Bluey. I’ve got a four and a five-year-old, so I’ll sit down and I’ll cry watching Bluey. I love it. I’m a complete fan. And when my kids grow up, I’ll still watch it (laughs).
I went to school with Chilli (Melanie Zanetti), so that’s my way of impressing anyone with kids.
(Laughs) That’s so cool. I prefer most of the stuff I watch to be films of the 1970s. That’s more my style. I’m a big David Lean fan. I try and watch that stuff. I think as an artist in any medium, you have to be very conscious of what you saturate around you. If you’re a painter and you only go to certain types of galleries, that’s going to have an influence on you. I’m really picky about what I watch because of that. That was some of the best advice I was given from Julie Christie. I try to hold on to that.
I mean, not a bad person to take advice from.
She’s a good friend of mine and my stepfather. She lives away in the hills of England, and she can be quite scathing of a lot of things, but it was such a great piece of advice as a young actor (to hear) to be really conscious of what becomes a part of your own lens. Very wise.
Outrageous premieres on July 24th, 2025 on BritBox Australia.
