By Natalia Ningthoujam
New Delhi, March 16 (IANS) American show "The Royals", based on the lives of a fictional British royal family, is set to present the beauty of Amalfi Coast in its fourth season, which will go on air in India in a few weeks, said its creator.
The makers of the show, which has many British actors like William Moseley, Jake Maskall and Tom Austen, had teamed up with artistes like composer Siddhartha Khosla and actress Laila Rouass who have roots in India. One of its lead actresses Elizabeth Hurley even draped a sari for an episode.
And it seems like Indian elements will continue to shine in the latest season of "The Royals" as in one of the images shared on the official account of the show, Alexandra Park, who plays Princess Eleanor in the show, is seen sitting and smelling a fruit, probably purchasing fruits from an India vendor. In the background, women in suits and men in kurta, pyjama can be spotted.
Any plans of getting "The Royals" team to India?
"I would love to. We shot a little bit on the Amalfi Coast. It's a spoiler that we shot in Italy. In London, you can get wonderful places very easily but I would love it if we could travel a bit more and shoot in some of these places," the show's creator Mark Schwahn told IANS in a telephonic interview from London, where a majority of "The Royals" was shot.
Back in July, Park had tweeted a photograph from the Amalfi Coast and captioned it: "Such an absolutely gorgeous bloody mystery innit."
But it seems like her former onscreen bodyguard and lover Austen didn't accompany her to Italy. He had tweeted: "If anyone in Italy sees Alexandra Park can you take her phone off her. She keeps sending me pictures of herself at the beach. Grazie."
The fourth season of the show premiered in the US on March 11. It will soon air on Colors Infinity in India.
The first-ever scripted series for E! network has just 10 episodes in each season. Do shorter seasons mean better TV shows?
"I wish we had more episodes for 'The Royals'. Fifteen is a much better number than 22 or 10. I don't like that the fans have to wait so long for the next season. But it's the model of the studio.
"I think it is financially beneficial to the studio but it's tougher on the fan base. I still spend a year making 10 episodes just like I spent on making 22 episodes. I'd rather make more episodes quite frankly," Schwahn had told IANS in the interview last August.
Is he expecting "The Royals" to be renewed for a fifth season?
"I always tell the cast and crew to treat it as the last season so that we appreciate it but never plan on being the last season. When I did the pilot of 'The Royals', I felt that if we don't do five seasons... I had made a mistake along the way because I still got a lot of stories to tell," said the creator of the hit TV show "One Tree Hill", which had over 22 episodes in almost all its nine seasons.
"We felt like we were on the right network at the right time and they were committed to scripted drama. I just felt 50 episodes were barely more than two seasons of my last show ('One Tree Hill'). So I felt like we could do 50 episodes easily. I set my baseline at five seasons.
"Obviously, we are one season short right now and I hope that we get it but I'd like to do the show even if they don't let me to do the show anymore as I like the cast, the stories, I enjoy making it and I like being in London. I like that we have such a nice international fan base," he added.
But the team might not get back together for one more season as Schwahn was suspended from "The Royals" in November 2017 after his colleagues accused him of sexual harassment.
(Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in)
