I watched Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix last week and really liked it. It was my first Flanagan show. If you haven’t watched Usher yet, it takes its name and lead characters from the Edgar Allan Poe short story and incorporates many of his other storylines and characters from his stories and poems to make one big Poe Universe. Flanagan packs a lot of Easter eggs into those eight episodes. The show follows the Usher family’s rise and downfall through two different timelines, as told by patriarch Roderick. It’s graphic, but compelling and really well-acted.

I know that Flanagan works with a lot of the same actors over and over again, just like Ryan Murphy does. His wife, Kate Siegel, is one of those actors. In Usher,” she plays public relations guru Camille, who also happens to be one of Roderick’s daughters. Camille is smart, ruthless, and a bitch. Turns out, the inspiration for Camille comes from an unlikely source: Pixar’s The Incredibles!

The Fall of the House of Usher star Kate Siegel has revealed the unlikely source of inspiration behind her character Camille L’Espanaye. In a video clip shared to Twitter by Mike Flanagan Source, Siegel admits that her character was based on the duplicitous character Mirage from Pixar’s The Incredibles. Initially suggesting that when she was a young girl she thought Mirage “was the most beautiful woman I could imagine”, she went on to jokingly admit that once audiences see the resemblance between the two characters, it can’t be unseen.

“Camille is entirely based on a character named Mirage from The Incredibles. When I was a little girl, she was like my Jessica Rabbit. Like I thought she was the most beautiful woman I could imagine. She is the one that tricks Mr. Incredible into coming and being kidnapped. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. So sorry to spoil all of your childhood dreams, but Camille is just Mirage.”

While Siegel is quick to credit the animated femme fatale who served as the assistant to Syndrome in The Incredibles for her character’s basis, creator Flanagan also mined the depths of Edgar Allan Poe’s massive catalog of written works to help give the Usher character form. Where Siegel’s Camille may owe her own trademark silver hair and cool demeanor to Mirage, the original character itself is drawn from Poe’s 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

[From Screenrant]

I think it’s hilarious that Siegel based Camille on a Pixar character, but hey, we can’t help where we get inspiration from! When the moment strikes, you gotta go where it’s going to take you. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen The Incredibles, so I watched a compilation of her best moments on YouTube and I can see how Siegel drew her inspiration from Mirage. I never would have guessed it, though, even if you had given me a multiple choice.

I thought the entire cast did a great job with such complicated, tragic, and for some, evil characters. Bruce Greenwood is particularly outstanding as Roderick, despite taking over for Frank Langella mid-way through filming (#lemon). Willa Fitzgerald is mesmerizing as young Madeline and Carla Gugino kills it (pun intended) as Verna, which is an anagram for Raven. I’m definitely going to check out more of Flangan’s shows. I’ve heard good things about Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, so I guess I’ll start with those.

Photos credit: Eike Schroter / Netflix