Oliver Jackson-Cohen was meant to play Victoria Pedretti's love interest in Bly Manor
13 October 2020, 11:01
Oliver Jackson-Cohen speaks French in Bly Manor promo
Netflix decided against it and the original Haunting of Bly Manor draft was completely changed.
The Haunting of Bly Manor was almost very different. Originally, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Victoria Pedretti were supposed to play lovers.
Last week (Oct 9), Netflix finally released their long-awaited The Haunting of Hill House follow-up The Haunting of Bly Manor. In the series, Hill House stars Victoria Pedretti and Oliver Jackson-Cohen return as brand new characters. Victoria plays the role of Dani, a governess of a haunted estate, and Oliver acts the part of Peter, a mysterious man who used to visit.
READ MORE: Flora from Haunting of Bly Manor is the voice of Peppa Pig and fans can't believe it
Now, Oliver has revealed that he and Victoria, who are close friends in real life, nearly played love interests in the new season but Netflix changed the script.
Why did Netflix stop Oliver and Victoria playing lovers in Bly Manor?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about Bly Manor, Oliver revealed that he was written as the gardener in one of the original drafts of the script. However, the role was adapted into Jamie (Amelia Eve). He explained: ″It was an iteration where Victoria and I were going to play lovers. And then I think Netflix was like, 'No, that’s a bit weird seeing as [you played] twins.'"
As much as we'd love to see Oliver and Victoria have an on-screen romance, this makes complete sense. Also, if the script hadn't been edited we wouldn't have got our iconic, queer Dani/Jamie love story. Not to mention, we wouldn't have gotten the chance to see Oliver flex his villain chops as the dastardly Peter Quinn.
Discussing his characterisation of Peter, Oliver said: "Mike and I were both really interested in blurring the lines. What Peter does in Bly is toxic. It is about masculinity and it is about ownership and it's about possession. I kept on saying to Mike, he's a little boy that's really badly hurt and he's put on all of these masks in order to appear to be this thing."
Fingers crossed that Oliver and Victoria can play love interests in a future season of The Haunting now that they've played characters who aren't related in Bly Manor. Starting a petition for season 3 to be inspired by The Shining with Oliver and Victoria as Jack and Wendy now.
