'Lucifer' Star Lesley-Ann Brandt Talks Saying Goodbye in Final Season
The actress opens up about making Season 6 of Lucifer and closing the book on her character Maze.
After six seasons of drinking with the Devil, Lucifer’s Lesley-Ann Brandt is saying goodbye to her beloved character: everyone’s favorite demon, Mazikeen. Today, the show’s final season premieres on Netflix, combining its signature dry wit and cheeky innuendos with an abundance of tears and heartfelt farewells.
While the audience met Maze as an apathetic chaos monger who was determined to return with Lucifer (Tom Ellis) to Hell, over the last five years, she, like all of the characters, has evolved greatly. She develops relationships with humans and learns empathy. She even falls in love with Lucifer's ex-girlfriend, Eve (yes, the one from the garden).
As the show draws to a close, fans will learn the fate of not only Maze and Lucifer, but all their favorite characters (and maybe a few new ones as well). To wrap up the series, Brandt speaks with L’OFFICIEL about saying goodbye to the show, how her own immigrant experience impacted her performance, and what’s next for her career. *Warning: spoilers ahead!*
L’OFFICIEL: We're talking about the final season of Lucifer. How are you feeling about this being the end?
Lesley-Ann Brandt: It's sorta bittersweet at this point, still. I've had some distance from it now. We wrapped in March and I got to feel all those things that you feel when you end a show and say goodbye to a character. It was very emotional at the time. I am excited for everyone to see this final season and I have high hopes that fans will be happy with how we end the show and the storylines of each individual character. I know our writers were really—they paid a lot of attention to what people had really hoped for, some suggestions that [we], as cast, had. I know I had very in-detail conversations just paying homage to Mazikeen's journey. I know a lot of effort went into that.
LO: I've watched the final season. My question for you is: you've been with Maze now for six seasons. When we meet her, she's a textbook demon, and then by the end, she's evolved. She's found love and developed these interpersonal relationships. What's it been like going on that journey with her?
LAB: I'm really proud of that journey. I think there's a version of this character that we've seen on television. The kick-ass, bad girl type. And I think it's very easy to write her one-note and play her one-note, and I'm really proud that we didn't do that.
I sorta look at her journey similar honestly to when I immigrated from South Africa to New Zealand and, as an immigrant from Hell, trying to fit in in those first few seasons and figuring out how to deal with humans and relationships and all these new feelings, similar to what I went through as a teenager with cultural differences and making friends having a different perspective on life. And to see her fight really hard for the things that she wants, also to make mistakes and fall down, get it wrong.
I think she's gone from someone who has an absolute knee-jerk reaction to situations to perhaps taking a pause and thinking about the bigger picture and what's important. But also standing up for herself and teaching people how to treat and what she will and won't allow, as opposed to being a subservient, righthand woman to the Devil and that just being the role that she plays. I think she wanted more for herself and I think she got more for herself and she deserved it. I really took the love story with her and Eve as a wonderful way for her to explore that. In a very profound way, we see these female relationships as often layered with a lot of sexual energy, but this is genuinely just watching two people fall in love, they just happen to be two women. And I think going through those feelings with her, I certainly learned a lot from her just in the act of playing her. But I really am proud of who she ends up being at the end of our show.
LO: As a viewer, I was kinda surprised that she decided not to go to Hell in the end, but I also felt like it made sense with what her character arc has been leading up to.
LAB: Yeah, I feel like going to Hell was a desire of hers and it was maybe from early seasons and it certainly was a safe space, a place that she knew. Maze is someone who fears the unknown. If she knows what she knows, she's good. She knows how to be a demon. It's the vulnerability stuff and getting her to open up...I think her relationship with her mother definitely informed that decision, of course, which had a huge effect on her and why she chose to just accept love, come what may for her and Eve. But it's a delicate balance with Mazikeen because you have to obviously be open to that vulnerability and play all of that and explore all of it, but you also have to never forget that she's a demon. So you're sorta walking that fine balance all the time.
LO: Speaking of her and Eve, I have to talk about the wedding and the wedding dress, Maze's in particular.
LAB: Thank you! Thank you. We found this incredible designer, and I'm so involved in Mazikeen's everything, basically. Her look, her words, hair, and makeup, all of it. Because those things, how she walks into a room, it just helps me get into the character and into the scene and I think what a lot of people expected is maybe she would have something more masculine and I think she's a character that taps into both her masculine and feminine sides, as do a lot of women, but I think in that dress, it was simple but striking and very structured. And I think, opposite Eve [who wore] a very flowy, ethereal look, it just was the two of them—oranges and apples but somehow making a perfect juice.
LO: I want to talk about the big end. Did you guys get to do in-person table reads?
LAB: I think we had one or two in the beginning and then it went to Zoom. It was over Zoom, but it was so very heavy saying goodbye. That final scene, especially between Lucifer and Mazikeen, it was heavy. Tom [Ellis] and I, after we wrapped that scene, we held each other for about 10 minutes and just bawled our eyes out. They had been through so much together, and so had him and I as castmates, but I know everyone really put so much into making the best possible goodbye. I worked on that scene with the writers and Tom, and originally some of it bumped for me, but ultimately, we collaborated. I have to give Chris Rafferty, the writer, so much credit, not just for being open, but understanding and hearing actors come to him and go I've been the gatekeeper to this character for six years. I know her inside and out and here are my ideas. What do you think? He was so open to that. So those last few table reads, especially the one before the finale is really all the goodbyes with him, so it was a lot of tears for sure. A lot of choking up. I don't know. This was the first tie I had been in a show for this long, so it was hard.
LO: When I saw the finale, I thought it felt really full-circle. Was there a similar reaction with the cast?
LAB: Yeah, I thought everyone felt good. It was such a tricky ending for us because we thought we were ending in Season 5, so there was a whole different finale scheduled. Then, Netflix was like Sike! We're going to give you some more. So a lot of the storyline had to be reworked, and I think there was a little bit of worry about if we had enough story in there to do another 10 episodes, but credit to our writers again for ensuring that we never—I don't think there were any fillers if that makes sense. I think the story moved along, and I think every actor felt their closure was exactly what we needed. I was there for the final day, for the final scene of Lucifer and Chloe. They shot the very final scene of the series on the last day as the last scene, so very meta and certainly helped the actors get to where they needed to be emotionally, but I think everyone, as far as I know, was really happy with the way we wrapped things up.
LO: The scene that really got me was Dan getting to go to Heaven. Did you have a scene outside of Maze's scenes that got you?
LAB: Oh my god, yes, that was definitely at the top. I haven't watched this season, but certainly, the stuff that involves [Scarlett Estevez]—Trixie—dealing with her feelings around her father's death and that loss. As a parent, my worst fear is that for my child and not to see him grow up, and Scarlett's such a wonderful young actress, but that character finally being able to deal with his guilt, which is such a huge human theme: the guilt of the choices we make in life. Some of those decisions are really hard, and some of us beat ourselves up for our entire lives for decisions that we make, so it felt really good to see what was ultimately a flawed character with a really good heart like Dan find his way to Heaven and find a way to forgive himself and find a way to have his daughter know how proud he was and that he loved her and how sorry he was, too.
LO: Looking back on the last six seasons, do you have a favorite storyline or episode? Maybe Maze's, maybe not.
LAB: I think anything in relation to the family. I would say Lucifer's relationship and his struggles with his father really resonated with a lot of people. Finding it really difficult to have a relationship with a parent that you feel hasn't been there in the way that you need them to be. I thought what Dennis [Haysbert, who plays God,] and Tom did was really beautiful. Then, I would say, one of my favorites was being able to flip into the skin of my mother and explore not just a period and a time, but also why she made these awful decisions that ultimately really hurt her children, but she did it with the absolute best intentions which a lot of parents do, unknowingly. And they're hurting their children unknowingly.
I think certainly exploring the Maze and Eve relationship was really wonderful and has been really great, on a huge platform of a show, to show that love is love and that it looks exactly the same as all other kinds of love. I'm really proud of that. I think, too, the Linda—again, I'm really drawn to the family stuff. Linda dealing with her daughter and accepting her decision and, again, that sense of guilt and dealing with the decisions that you make and the guilt that comes with that. I have adopted family members, and I understood a lot of that and it was very emotional. And of course, you gotta love the Deckerstar storyline. It's like the Ross and Rachel. Will they? Won't they? Oh, it's so close. I'm just glad they found each other.
LO: If you could be any other character besides Maze, who would it be?
LAB: I always said, from the beginning, because I get asked this question a lot, I always said I'd want to be Lucifer. Only because I really would be interested in seeing what the Devil, from a female perspective, how she would process a lot of the things that the Lucifer character goes through because women and men are very different. There is another Netflix show The Sandman coming out and they have Lucifer cast as a female so I am really excited to see that show, but I have always wondered what would that look like from a female's point of view.
But I also think that Dr. Linda is a character that gets to interact with everyone and everything. She really gets the besides-the-scenes of everyone's psyche, so that might be a really fun character.
LO: Well, the show has a huge fan base, which is largely responsible for the show getting picked up by Netflix, and I feel like this season was, in many ways, a gift to them, because it gives a completed end to the series. Is there anything you hope fans take away from this season?
LAB: I think, and again I said this before, we blame so much of the hard things or the awful things that happen to us on situations [and] on other people, and I would hope that our show—and there are major scenes about taking responsibility for yourself and accepting your flaws, working through them, but trying to come out the end a better version of yourself. No one is perfect. It's not a guy in a—I mean I don't want to get into the religious aspect of it, but is it really a guy in a suit who owns a bar that's making you do these awful things, or are you making bad choices? Is there work you have to do? And that if the Devil, one of the most iconic characters in religion and just history in general, can find redemption, can find his humanity, then I think we can all do that.
LO: Before I let you go, are you working on anything now? Any upcoming projects?
LAB: I am—I'm developing something, something I created and will star in and produce on. And there's another project right now that has been developed for me that is in those beginning stages. So nothing that I can necessarily mention, but there are things happening. I did do—I'm a part of the anthology series, a horror anthology series...I think that's out in full at some point. But that's what I'm doing. I've really been focusing on those two projects.
