‘Orphan Black’: The Complicated Task Of Having A Dinner Party With Yourself [Video]

For many fans of BBC America’s hit TV sci-fi series, Orphan Black, the fact that one actress plays several roles throughout is often forgotten about after the first few episodes. Tatiana Maslany plays all the versions of her clones in Orphan Black, including (but not inclusive to) Sarah, Beth, Alison, Cosima, Helena, and Rachel.

But what happens when they decide to hold a dinner party involving four of the clones in the Orphan Black season 3 finale? And what happens when, within that dinner party, Tatiana starts improvising between her characters? That’s what this latest video posted to the official Orphan Black Facebook page sets out to explore.

Cinematographer for Orphan Black, Aaron Morton explains the logistics of having to place one actor in four different places in the one shot.

“Any time you have four clones in the one scene, it’s time consuming. The attention to detail has got to be pretty high.”

As Tatiana points out, besides the four Orphan Black clones, there are also five other characters in the scene as well. All of those characters are interacting with each other, talking, passing things around, moving from place to place around the table. This means the scene had to be shot multiple times and then layered in on top of each other. Everyone had to be in sync with each other and clone doubles were called in to help Tatiana out with dialogue between all the Orphan Black characters. These clone doubles were also in costume so that everything could be seamlessly blended together. On top of this, the dialogue had to be performed naturally with an ease that would look like each character was in the room at the same time and interacting normally among themselves.

While the dinner party scene in season 3 of Orphan Black was only a small part of the episode, it took two days to shoot. Tatiana explains the procedure during the video interview.

“There was a lot of me sitting at the table by myself talking to nine people who weren’t there.”

Sometimes she was seated with one other person, or a few other people, but she likened it to a “patchwork” that finally came together. Jay Prychidny, editor for Orphan Black, describes it as “something that we’ve never seen before.” He also points out that, on top of all the technical difficulties with shooting this scene, at the end of one of the shots, Taniana effectively starts improvising between her characters. He is hoping it is something they see more of in upcoming seasons.

Orphan Black returns for season 4 in 2016.

Are you a fan of Orphan Black? Who is your favorite clone? Let us know by commenting below.

[Image credits: BBC/Orphan Black screen captures]