Emmanuelle Vaugier has a flair for portraying characters that exude a chic urbanity. For these glammed up parts, a great deal of attention is usually placed on Vaugier’s hair, makeup, and wardrobe. However, in her latest role, Assistant District Attorney Regan Faulkner on Audience Network’s critically-acclaimed gritty crime drama “Rogue” [Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT], Emmanuelle is taking a markedly different approach.
“Regan is very salt of the earth,” she explained. “She’s there for her job. She doesn’t lead with her body or her physicality to get what she wants. That translates to the way she dresses and the kind of makeup she puts on. She knows she’s good at what she does, so she’s never led with those other things.”
“That was actually a conversation that our showrunner, Matthew Parkhill, and I had about Regan,” Emmanuelle noted. “I was totally game for doing whatever made the most sense. We sat down and had coffee in LA before we started shooting. We discussed the character, what direction Matthew was going in, how he envisioned it, and the tone of the show. We also talked about how I saw the character and discovered we were both on the same page.”
“There are certain shows where you’re playing a detective and you’re wearing Prada,” Vaugier added. “I don’t know any cop that has the budget to wear a Gucci jacket, a Prada belt, and a pair of thousand dollar boots. It’s usually the glossy network TV shows that sometimes do that and it does look fantastic! But that was not this show. We wanted to stay real and be true to who these characters are and how they would actually be in real life.”
“They’ve kept this show very grounded and real in both the writing and the style that they shoot it. It’s one of the few shows I’ve done where hair and makeup is so minimal. When I say minimal, if there was just an ounce of blush or any sign that there was actually makeup on my face, Matthew would come up and say, ‘She’s wearing makeup. I can see it. We need to take that off.'”
“There was this running joke that I would always make about Matthew having a little drawer in his office, and that he would go into the makeup trailer and take stuff out of our makeup bags and hide it in his drawer so we couldn’t use it,” she laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone who had such a keen eye for makeup.”
Emmanuelle admitted that at first it was a little daunting. “We were shooting in HD and every little thing was showing. Every little detail. But I’m watching the show and it looks great! It reads the way it’s supposed to read and everybody looks really real, there’s no glam makeup on the cops. Albeit, they are very beautiful girls. Meaghan Rath [“Being Human, “New Girl”]… You don’t need to put an ounce of makeup on her. She’s gorgeous!”
In an Audience Network “Script to Scene” video for Season 4 of “Rogue,” Meaghan (who plays Clea Annou in this last season) commented, “I haven’t seen anything like this on TV. The grittiness of the show… the characters… the acting is so fantastic.”
In the same video, Matthew Parkhill pointed out that this is the final and most ambitious season to date. Cole Hauser’s character, Ethan Kelly, has gone back to San Fransisco for redemption and to try and get his life back together. Unfortunately, he becomes involved with Casey Oaks (played by Neal McDonough), a corrupt cop that Parkhill describes as “a psychopath with a badge.”
“In this season, Cole’s character, Ethan, comes to me for some help and I get wrapped up in his world and get in over my head,” the actress revealed. ” But I can’t really tell you too much more than that because it would reveal the plot line.”
Besides staying busy with acting, Emmanuelle works to support animal rescue organizations across the United States through her Fluffball Foundation. At the inaugural Fluffball, which was held back in 2009 in her own home, Vaugier raised $6,000 over the course of a single afternoon.
“Every couple of years, we choose a new charity to support. My focus, in the most recent years, has been to pick small, local charities that need the help and the visibility. It’s not that the bigger ones don’t need the support and donations, they absolutely do, but they don’t struggle as much necessarily as some of the smaller ones do. A lot of these organizations start that way and they become much bigger, so I like to try and find the smaller start-up groups and help get them going.”
“This year, we haven’t officially named who we’re going to be raising money for yet, but what I’m looking at are horse rescues that also do therapy with kids and adults. I’ve been able to find horse therapy places that work with kids and adults, but not necessarily with rescued horses. I want to bring the two together so I’m currently doing some research.”
To learn more about Emmanuelle’s foundation and to find out how you can get involved, visit www.thefluffball.com.
Emmanuelle Vaugier: website • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter
“Rogue”: website • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter
The Fluffball Foundation: website • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter
In the U.S., “Rogue” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Audience.
In Canada, “Rogue” airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The Movie Network.
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