Felix’s family takes the forefront in the new season of ‘Orphan Black’

As a show about clones and mysterious corporate scientific experiments, BBC America’s “Orphan Black” explicitly confronts questions about biology, agency and consent. But at its core, the series has also always been about family. This season, that theme is at the forefront.

The latest episode of “Orphan Black” revealed that the relationship between Sarah Manning and her foster brother Felix Dawkins is strained following the revelations of Season 3.

When the show kicked off, Sarah (played by Tatiana Maslany) was an absent parent intending to reunite with her daughter, whom she’d left in the care of her own foster mother. She then witnesses a woman with her face jump in front of a train to kill herself.

Since that explosive moment, Sarah was pulled into the world of clones, an orphan encountering more “sisters” than she could have ever imagined, including an actual twin sister, and even some “brothers.”

Throughout her journey, one of Sarah’s constant supporters has always been Felix, played by Jordan Gavaris. As Sarah uncovered more details about the mysteries surrounding her existence, Felix has been by her side to help infiltrate exclusive nightclubs, kick down doors, pull cons and even be a shoulder to cry on.

Like Sarah, Felix is an orphan who was taken in by Siobhan Sadler, or Mrs. S. An artist, Felix lives in his own loft that serves as his studio, where he also entertains his male companions -- for business and pleasure. He’s unapologetic about his sexuality, his lifestyle and his identity.

It is this unselfconsciousness that initially attracted Gavaris to the role of Felix.

“I’ve always been a very self-conscious person,” shared Gavaris. “And here’s this person that just encapsulated all of these things. So sexually liberated. So unashamed of his body. So expressive. Funny. He was really funny. I loved his humor.”

“He was just a lot of parts of myself that I was too embarrassed to share publicly otherwise,” said Gavaris.

As Sarah encountered and developed relationships with her clone sisters, Felix also established friendships with them, each with its own unique dynamic. But the events of Season 3 were especially difficult for Felix.

While Season 3 saw Sarah resolve some of her differences with Mrs. S, it came with the revelation that the two are biologically related. Kendall Malone, Mrs. S’s mother, is the “original” whose DNA was used to create the clones. And with this revelation, everything Felix understood about his family shifted, which is the catalyst for his arc in Season 4.

“I think one of the biggest things [for Felix] is probably learning that Sarah is related to S and Sarah is related to Kendall and they’re all related. That the family all has a blood tie. And that he’s very much on the outside,” said Gavaris.

“He’s just working out what it means to him to be the real orphan,” Gavaris continued. “And what that means for his relationship with his sister and it’s sad. It’s very sad to feel like the outsider in your own family. That’s the place where you’re supposed to feel the most protected and feel the sense of most belonging. And I don’t think he does.”

Gavaris spoke about the journey Felix takes to understand himself and his ideas of family this season.

Family is important to Felix. Even in Season 3, Felix seemed to be the most invested in protecting the family unit.

Yeah. I think the idea of keeping the unit together is just in the interest of if I don’t keep this together, if I don’t keep my family together, I don’t have anything. That if I lost this thing, I’ve lost everything.

So when it came to the revelation of this blood tie [between Sarah and Mrs. S], in a sense, he did lose, maybe not everything, but he lost something. I think he lost the illusion that they were all wayward. They were all orphaned. Therefore they were together. That was the source of their bond.

This season we really explore what makes a family. And what makes a bond a bond. Is it a blood tie or is it something more?

Is it safe to say that Felix is in a darker place this season?

He does start in a darker place, yeah. But he’s not dispirited and morose for the sake of being those things. It’s not just “Oh, he’s sad.” There’s movement. There’s still an engine of intent and that will carry him somewhere. It was an interesting journey to go on. And I think it’s satisfying. Where he ends up is satisfying.

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Of all the non-clone characters, Felix is the one who has developed relationships with the most clones. Did you have a favorite clone to get closer to?

They’re so different now. I think I could more easily answer that question two years ago.

With Sarah, there’s just this enormous history and it’s weighty and darker, usually, because there’s the shared understanding of all the things that have happened to them throughout the last couple of months or years or however much time has passed in the show’s universe.

With Alison, it’s always a good time. There’s usually hijinks and a caper.

With Cosima, there’s a mutual understanding, a mutual respect.

With Helena, it’s weirdly maternal. Which is so strange. There was something really interesting that happened on set this year and I had a very bizarre impulse to do something and it was very maternal. Very grandmotherly and I was like, “What in the world?” Because I think he saw her as a threat at first, but, you know, as soon as you get to know Helena, she’s the lovable monster and you just want to take care of her because she’s so, she’s not helpless, but she’s hapless.

I don’t have a favorite though. I get to explore something new every single time.

Rachel is a lot of fun. She inspires and informs his violence and aggression. Because she’s so unabashedly dominant. She’s so dominant that it makes him want to dominate.

How was it in Season 3 to play undercover Felix opposite Krystal, where you and Tatiana are both playing someone outside of your normal interactions?

It was great. I think that was one of mine and Tat’s favorite days. We had a really great time because that was the first time that she was really getting to explore Krystal. And it was the first time that we’ve ever seen Felix try and con.

I talked in an English accent all day and then would just turn it off for the scenes hoping that maybe some English-y things would kind of slip through. I think they did, but I don’t know, who knows. I’m sure nobody caught it. But it was fun.

It’s fun because I don’t have to pretend that she’s not absurd. Because Felix is smart and Krystal is just hysterical. And it’s always really fun when you get to be in on the joke in a scene. When you get to just listen authentically to another person. You don’t have to pretend that what they’re saying isn’t absurd. Everything she says is crazy and hilarious and he can kind of poke fun at it.

All I have to do is just listen to Tat riff because she just improvs the hell out of those scenes, and there’s something new every time. She’s a lot of fun playing that character.

How much has Felix grown for you through the seasons?

Tons. Tons and tons. I thought I knew exactly who he was, because he grows with you, like you grow as a person. I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve noticed and it’s tricky in our “Orphan Black” universe, because I think the timeline of the show is something like eight, nine months. Maybe a year. But we’re all four years older, and between the ages of 22 and 26, there’s huge growth.

I feel more self-possessed than I’ve ever felt. And I feel that’s kind of a silly statement to make at 26 because I’m sure when I’m 36, I’ll look back and go like, “Oh my God, I thought I had it figured out. I thought I was confident then and now I’m there.” And at 46, I’ll say the same thing. But truly I think he’s grown up a lot.

I think the first season for me was so much of a performance piece. It was all about what I could get away with. I was very inspired by [Andy] Warhol and that quote, “Art is what you can get away with.” I just thought, “Yeah, just let’s always try to push the envelope wherever we can.” But then the character deepens, and the relationships you have with the other characters deepen, the relationship I have with the other actors on the show deepen, and you’re affected by them, and then it becomes less of a performance piece and much more experiential. As in when I go to work, it’s not about what I can do with the character, but just experiencing the character moment to moment. That’s the goal. So in terms of process, it’s changed for me that way.

And I think he’s just grown up a lot. It would be crazy to think that he wouldn’t be affected by everything Sarah’s gone through. Everything that the sisters have gone through. The like 550 times we nearly lost Kira. It’s probably like that many times now. It would make sense that he darkens a little. He’s a little heavier. Feels like there’s weights on his shoulders.

How important do you think it is for audiences to see a character like Felix?

Hugely. Because he’s the omniscient or objective perspective that the audience can follow. They’re following their protagonist, [Sarah], but he’s their voice of reason. He’s the audience’s conscience or objective perspective.

I’m a very political person. I’m a very opinionated person. I have a lot of opinions about LGBTQ representations in the media, and it’s not just a gay community issue. It’s a black issue. It’s an Asian issue. It’s a minority issue in general. Anybody who is subjugated or disenfranchised. It is very, very, very important to see these people represented on television. And I feel Hollywood, they try to get it right, they really do. They really do try, it just takes a little while. Any kind of progress. Social, civil, whatever you want to call it, it takes time.

I think it was important to see a character who was not in a heteronormative or romantic normative relationship. Or a traditional relationship with anybody.

So it was good to see a gay character that wasn’t married with a child. Not educated. That was, I guess, fringe, in a sense. And I know that there are the arguments being made like, “You shouldn’t represent gay characters like that because that’s a kind of representation they should steer clear of, that doesn’t help the community, it hinders.” But the reality is that those people exist in the community and it’s unfair to say they don’t deserve a voice too. Or that they don’t deserve to be represented on television. I just think it’s important to represent everybody, all shapes and sizes without judgment.

I think that was another thing that was different about this particular character. The show didn’t represent him to judge him, or to criticize the way that he lives his life, or the choices he makes or how loud and fay or outrageous his wardrobe is that week. It’s immersive. It’s just presented for the audience with limited bias and the audience can draw the conclusions they want to draw.

Do you have any particular Felix moment that you’re most proud of?

I think the Tony storyline was something I was really proud of. It wasn’t the most flashy acting. But it was a very different kind of acting. It was sitting in the discomfort of oh, we don’t know what we’re doing, exploring a storyline like this.

There was so much fear, which I think was palpable on screen. Like Tat and I were both terrified because we just want to get it right. We want to do the artistic thing, which isn’t always the right thing ... and I know it’s television … but it is art. TV is art. It’s mass art. It’s accessible to the masses. But that, I think, is why it’s most important and it’s most important that TV does artistic things because so many people are watching.

We just wanted to make sure that the characters were honest. That Tony was honest and that Felix’s reaction to Tony was honest. And I was proud of us for doing something really scary as a show. Everybody -- the crew, the writers -- we did something kind of scary.

And Tat was so bloody brave to do that ... to put herself in a position where she could be criticized very heavily. As could everybody, the writers and everyone. And I think there was some criticism. But I don’t care. I was just proud that we did it. And I was proud that someone out there, like everybody else gets the opportunity to do with her clones and the characters on the show where they get to see themselves represented, I’m proud that maybe one or two people or 200 people or 2,000 people, however many people it was, even if it only reached one, that they could see themselves reflected on screen just for a second. That’s nice.

Any hopes for a Tony/Felix reunion?

Yes. I push for it all the time.

I think it’s safe to say that if the characters aren’t dead, then there’s hope that we’ll see them again. There’s hope that all familiar faces will return. I think everyone, they get very excited when things happen on the show because they think that’s it or there’s a sense of finality.

But everyone should wait to see how the mystery plays out. Because it is, it’s a mystery. Until the very last episode of this series, you can’t say with certainty that anybody’s dead or that anybody’s missing or whatever. We’ll have to wait until the very last episode.

What are your future hopes for Felix?

I hope I get to discover something about him I didn’t know yet. Something new that I hadn’t discovered yet.

It used to be like “I wish that he would have a relationship” and now I feel very different about that. I did a lot of research and I think it’s a very traditionalist expectation that for him to be a healthy person, and for him to be OK, he would need to have a boyfriend or have a relationship of some kind that’s traditional or heteronormative and I say, oh ... that. That’s not what makes a healthy person. Nobody needs that to be healthy. And that’s not fair and maybe that’s not who he is.

So I’ve stopped saying that. Because that’s just not fair to him, and it was very much like what Jordan would want for him because I think that’s great and I would want that, but that’s not what Felix wants, I don’t think.

So my goal is that we just get to continue to stretch him in an interesting way.

Like the scene that he had in Season 3 with Rachel when he was looking for Sarah and he was very desperate to find her and a lot of his desperation and need for Sarah was all wrapped up in this violent, violent outburst he had with Rachel. And it was cool. I had never seen that side of him before. It was interesting to explore.

So anything like that that could stretch him in a way that we haven’t seen yet. In a way that I haven’t seen yet and something that would be a challenge for me.

Or you know, just like, make him play clones. That’ll challenge me.

This interview was edited for content and clarity.

Twitter: @tracycbrown