The Originals: Riley Voelkel on Freya's Relationships (2024)

On The CW series The Originals, Klaus (Joseph Morgan) and Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) have been marked by the dark magic of The Hollow, which has placed them into an adversarial collision course that threatens to end one of them. At the same time, Freya (Riley Voelkel) is still trying to cure Klaus’ infection and hopes that Keelin (Christina Moses) will voluntarily decide to continue to help her and the Mikaelsons.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Riley Voelkel talked about what she’s most enjoyed about having a five-year time jump this season, how she feels about the actions her character has taken, how Freya feels about Keelin, whether Freya might find love, having to find a way to work with Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin), the challenge they’re facing with the threat of The Hollow, whether Freya and Vincent (Yusuf Gatewood) could be allies, and who she’d like to see show up from The Vampire Diaries. Be aware that there are some spoilers discussed.

Collider: What have you most enjoyed about having the five-year time jump this season? Has it made things feel a bit different for you?

RILEY VOELKEL: For sure! I think it brought back the show to focusing a lot on the family, which I always love. My favorite scenes are always of the Mikaelsons. And we get to see Hope, for the first time, as a child instead of this little baby that we’re carrying around. She has these powers that we don’t even know the extent of yet, and that’s really interesting. Freya can connect with her on that because she grew up with the same power curse. After the five years, Freya is even more bonded with this family and is 100% a part of it. Now, the goal is just to avoid what they deal with all the time, but unfortunately, that never lasts long. There’s always a bigger, badder villain coming after them.

Freya has helped save her siblings and she’s found a way to kill Marcel. Is she at the point where she feels like they should be more appreciative of everything that she’s doing for them?

VOELKEL: Yeah. She definitely is on her own sometimes, with having to make the hard decisions. Like she’s said, her family can be over-sensitive when it comes to Marcel, and if she has to make the hard decisions, she will. She did it with Davina, and she’ll do it with Marcel. She feels, being the older sister, that she’s the one that has to make those hard decisions and remind them that it’s family first and that she doesn’t care about anybody else. But the family, now having fully embraced her is like, “You’re stuck up in that bell tower, 24/7. You’re constantly focused on trying to protect this family, rather than realizing that we can only do this for so long.” So, when they captured Keelin, Hayley and Elijah were like, “We’re still being bad things, in order to protect this family. At what point do we start living life?” I think that in this season, you’ll start to see Freya also realize that and realize that there are things outside of always being the one to protect the family, and possibly have a vulnerable side and relationships outside of the family.

How do you feel about Freya’s actions? As the actress playing her, are you somebody who feels very protective of her, or do you also wish that you could just shake her sometimes?

VOELKEL: I think it’s a mixture of both. I definitely see where she’s coming from, as far as wanting this family her whole life, and then finally having it and her sole goal being to protect them. But sometimes, I think she almost gets in a manic place, not being able to relate to them when they have emotional bonds with people like Marcel. She doesn’t really understand it. She’s very black and white in her thinking. And so, we’re going to start to see that Mikaelson wall be broken and her start to feel feelings that she’s not used to feeling and realizing that she deserves that. She’s just so focused on the family that she doesn’t necessarily think about a life outside of that, like Rebekah does. Rebekah knows that she wants a life outside of this. Even though family comes first, we’ve still gotta live a life, otherwise what are we fighting for? Freya is going to start to realize what that means.

Freya has seemed to soften a bit, when it comes to Keelin. She seems to be asking for her help now, and not just threatening her. What was the turning point for Freya, and how does Freya feel about Keelin now?

VOELKEL: At the beginning, she was like, “Listen, I’m going to use you for all you’re worth. That’s just the bottom line, and I don’t care how you feel about that. I need you to make this antidote and to protect my family.” But when she makes the deal with Keelin, there’s a turning point. Even though she’s forcing her to help, Keelin is sticking to her word. When they go off together, she realizes that she doesn’t have to say, “If you leave, I’ll kill you.” She’s realizing that Keelin is actually a person of her word who’s willing to help and who almost wants to help. There is a connection there. We see a slight disappointment when the deal is done and Keelin did what she asked and Freya is like, “You’re free to go now.” It was almost fun or easier to have this partner in all of this stuff that Freya is normally alone is. There is a weird connection there, and we don’t normally see that. She got uncomfortable when Keelin was like, “Is this an apology?,” and she was like, “I don’t know. I’m not good at those.” There’s something there, and there’s some kind of connection that’s growing.

We’ve seen how important finding love is to Rebekah (Claire Holt), but do you think there’s love in the cards for Freya?

VOELKEL: Definitely, and I think she deserves it. I think she just doesn’t know how to accept that she deserves it quite yet. She’s never had a connection with anyone beyond one night, so she just is new to it. I think she’s new to anyone even caring about her. She never puts herself first. And the idea that someone would actually care enough freaks her out. In the long run, I think everyone deserves love, especially Freya. She’s been through so much, and for her to be able to find someone who can return the favor would be awesome.

Freya has come into direct conflict with Elijah and Hayley already this season. How is her relationship with them now, especially knowing that Hayley will have to turn to her for help again?

VOELKEL: Well, Hayley is frustrated because she hates doing these terrible things, in order to do good things. She wants to protect her daughter from this terrible world that they live in. But Freya’s point is that it is a bad world and a scary world, and sometimes you have to do bad things, in order to stay alive and protect each other. They just come from different perspectives. For awhile, that’s going to be an issue between her and Hayley, but at the end of the day, they do need each other. Same with Elijah. Elijah is tired of it, too, and he, of course, wants Hayley happy. Freya is shocked when she thinks he has her side, but he really has Hayley’s side. They’ve been in this world longer than her, and she just doesn’t understand how they could give up on this fight. But when it comes down to it, her love for Hayley’s daughter, Hope, is going to supercede all of that. They’re going to have to learn how to work together and realize that they do want the same things and that they do love each other. Freya tells Hayley, “Hope is a Mikaelson, and you’re not,” but then is stopped by Elijah. I think that the harsh words sent in Hayley’s direction are one of Hayley’s fears, too, that she’s not a part of this family when, in fact, she is. Freya knows that and has dealt with it herself, and they have to come to a place where they know, in their hearts, that they care about each other, that they are family, and that they’re going to have to work together. They want the same thing, they just have to understand each other’s perspectives. They will eventually need to come back together and work as a family, and you will see Hayley and Freya absolutely have to work together.

Freya is dealing with two threats right now – one that has a face, with Marcel, and one that has no face yet, with The Hollow. How is she handling that?

VOELKEL: As far as Marcel goes, she’s almost indifferent, in the sense of being like, “If he comes after my family, I will put him down,” and she wants to get through to Klaus with that. But The Hollow, this dark magic entity, is affecting multiple people in her family and is also affecting Marcel. At this point, that’s what they have to deal with first. However, she’s going to give Klaus a dagger that she knows can put Marcel down. She knows that whatever this dark magic is, is going to pit those two against each other and wants both of them gone, so she wants Klaus to get it through his head that, if it’s between him and Marcel, not to let it be him. This thing is bigger than all of us, and he needs to protect his daughter because his daughter comes first, over everything. Maybe Marcel isn’t the threat she thinks he is. He seemed to be the threat, at first, and they were seemingly going to get away from him and live a life outside of New Orleans, but that didn’t work. First and foremost, they’ve gotta deal with The Hollow. If that means putting Marcel to the side, fine, but if it means that he has to be put down, in order to get to The Hollow, she’s fine with that, too.

Do you think Freya and Vincent could be allies, or do they see things too differently?

VOELKEL: I definitely think they see things differently. I think they’re coming from different angles. Vincent doesn’t want to be involved in this. He’s dealing with The Hollow, which is something that he’s dealt with his whole life. Freya just wants to protect Hope and her family. It’s not going to be easy for them to come to terms with each other and possibly go at this thing together. Vincent still holds that terrible grudge against her from Davina, and as much as Freya wants Vincent to get over that and be able to work together, if that means helping family, she knows that’s not going to happen. She knows that Vincent is never going to forgive him for that and that they’re not going to be on those terms, but if they want the same outcome, which is to stop this thing hurting these kids, they may have to get over that and find a way to work together.

Julie Plec intentionally left the door to New Orleans open for cast members of The Vampire Diaries, and we know that Matthew Davis will be making an appearance, later this season. Is there anyone from that show that you’d personally like to see show up, either as an ally or an adversary for Freya?

VOELKEL: I don’t know if it would ever happen, but I’ve always thought it would be interesting for Bonnie to come over, seeing as they’re both witches. I’d had a lot of fans ask me, “Who do you think would win in a match between Freya and Bonnie?,” and it would be interesting to see her have another witch there and see where that would go. But every cross-over we’ve had has always been so cool for the fans and for us, working with the actors from a world that is the same world. Doing a cross-over is always really interesting, and you’ll see Matt Davis’ character, Alaric, open up an interesting connection to the two worlds.

The rest of the Mikaelsons are always so ruthless in their response to situations that their behavior is almost predictable, but with Freya, you never know how she’ll react, even sometimes going against her own family.

VOELKEL: Totally! She’s usually very much on her own, being the big sister. But there’s a pretty big change in Freya, or an opening to Freya, that I think the fans will really like.

The Originals airs on Friday nights on The CW.