With the season two premiere of Showtime’s “The Affair” set to premiere Sunday, cast member Julia Goldani Telles could not be more excited.
The show explores the extramarital relationship between Noah Solloway (Dominic West) and Alison Bailey (Ruth Wilson). This season, Telles will reprise her role as Whitney Solloway, Noah’s oldest daughter.
A talented ballerina for most of her youth, the Los Angeles native retired at 16 after an injury. Her professional dancing days may have been over, but Telles’ retirement allowed her to pursue a lifelong dream — acting.
“I took an acting class and I booked an agent [who] put me on this show called ‘Bunheads’ where I could dance and act,” she said. “[‘Bunheads’] was a really fun and comfortable transition to acting. I mastered half of it, and then I had to figure out the acting bit.”
Telles explained that a major challenge during her initial transition to acting was the style that accompanied “Bunheads” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s unique writing.
“We talked really, really fast, jumped on each other’s words and had to listen for cues,” Telles said. “It was very stylized acting, but now on ‘The Affair,’ the style is very different. It’s a lot more internal and it’s a different process.”
The namesake scandal on “The Affair” is told through separate points of view, a unique aspect that Telles loves about the show. Telles is also enthusiastic about the added perspectives of costars Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson.
“Maura and Josh … will bring new dimensions to it not just in the structure of the show, but in the essences of who they are,” Telles said. “There’s a new darkness and also a new light in their perspectives that we haven’t seen before.”
In addition to her excitement for the new season, Telles also anticipates that the loyalties between the audience and the show’s characters will be tested, and that the fans will constantly be on their toes.
“There’s much more room to explore since we know the show better now,” she said, “and it’s just really intense.”
The best part of the show, Telles said, is that its intensity isn’t just limited to what audiences see onscreen. She credits the show’s authenticity to her admirable cast mates.
“They inhabit their characters well,” Telles said. “It helps when you’re acting with really good people to feel like the circumstances are real because they believe that they’re so real … They believe it so deeply.”
Playing off of her costars’ intensity, Telles shared one scene in particular in which she really connected with her character Whitney.
“I had a scene where I had to attack Josh Jackson and I was so scared to do that scene because he’s a big guy and we had to fight,” she said. “I kind of just went for it and I was just crying during and after the scene and I didn’t understand why … That was bizarre. It was a good kind of bizarre, though.”
Telles’ love for “The Affair” goes beyond the cast and set, and extends to the lessons she’s learned about herself as an actress along the way.
“Being on ‘The Affair’ kept me inspired and kept me a little bit scared, which I loved,” she said. “In ballet, you do things a certain way … In acting, there’s a lot more gray area. When you get on set, you have to let go, and letting go is hard. It’s amazing and really rewarding when you do, but it’s scary when you kind of venture into the unknown.”
Telles said that letting go was difficult because of the love she developed for her character, wanting to do her justice and serving the story as a whole. However, this difficult task is ultimately what draws her to act.
“It’s terrifying and also great,” Telles said. “You are constantly striving to be better and trying to master it. It’s just really hard and it kind of never ends, but I also hope it never ends.”
