Rivalries are a defining aspect of the drama on Palm Royale, but in season two, the claws literally came out in a knock-down, drag-across-the-house showdown between Kristen Wiig’s Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons and Claudia Ferri’s Raquel Kimberly-Marco.
The brawl between the high-society wannabe and the wealthy socialite was inspired by the era that the Apple TV comedy precedes. “I did a bunch of research on Dynasty and watched all these crazy catfights with these women, which were so fun,” says Emmy-nominated stunt coordinator Mallory Thompson. “I was like, ‘I can’t even believe this was a thing in the ’70s.’ ”
Thompson and Emmy-nominated stunt performers Sonja Wajih and Colby Lemmo used every inch of the Palm Beach-set Dellacorte estate to execute the two-and-a-half-minute scuffle, which ends with Raquel being hog-tied by Maxine after the two accidentally fall into the mansion’s backyard pool.
“Fights are usually 10, 20 seconds, but [creator Abe Sylvia and producer Jesse Sternbaum] were, like, ‘This can be long … it’s Dynasty, just keep going,’ so we went through the house, up the stairs, down the stairs, out the house,” says Thompson.
The stairs proved the most dangerous element of the scene. “We have two women doing a stair fall together in heels and in very little clothing, so they couldn’t really put a lot of pads on,” Thompson explains. “And then they went into an actual wood table that we scored, but this was solid wood. That was probably the most tricky in terms of keeping [Wajih and Lemmo] safe and healthy,” she adds. “They came out with some bruises, but no injuries.”
Wiig and Ferri did their part to make the scene as real as possible as well.
“They wanted to do everything they could. … I was like, ‘Claudia, we can’t throw you down the stairs,’ ” Thompson recalls with a laugh. “We didn’t want to injure our actresses by any means, but we put them in the spots that were these really great actor reaction moments. The whole fight has so many screams, so having them add that elevated it and made it funny.”
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
