Exclusive: Donna Mills On Her Mean-Spirited Character in V.C. Andrews Dawn

One never tires of Donna Mills. Now considered Hollywood royalty, the actress has turned in plenty of attention-grabbing performances over the years. From Tobie in Play Misty For Me alongside Clint Eastwood, to the sinister yet misunderstood Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner in Lorimar’s Knot’s Landing. More recently Mills was featured in Nope, and turned in more than 30 episodes on TV’s General Hospital as Madeline Reeves.

Now Mills heads into the V.C. Andrews-verse, playing the mysterious Lillian Cutler in the Lifetime limited series, V.C. Andrews Dawn. Lifetime enjoyed great success of its limited series Flowers in the Attic: The Origin, based on the original works of bestselling author V.C. Andrews; the series nabbed a whopping 10 million viewers. Now comes Dawn.

This dark and mind-bending history of the Cutler, Longchamp and Booth families — everybody needs a therapist — features Brec Bassinger (Stargirl, Bella and the Bulldogs) as the titular character, Dawn Longchamp, who grows up in humble surroundings with a hardworking father (Jesse Metcalfe) and older brother Jimmy (Khobe Clarke). Until…

Everything Dawn loves is ripped away from her. She discovers the bold truth about the people who raised her and is thrust into new family whose twisted secrets forever change the course of her life. Enter Lillian Cutler, played by Mills with aplomb. Lillian is Dawn’s treacherous grandmother. She’s stern and steely, and inflicts cruel punishments when Dawn doesn’t obey her.

Mills loved stepping into the role and working with the cast, but there was one scene so brutal, she insisted the writers take it out of the script. Donna Mills shared more with MovieWeb in these highlights from a panel interview with journalists below. Watch the full cast interview here.

What Donna Mills Wanted Taken Out of the Script

“Lillian is who she is,” shared Mills of her character, who battles things out emotionally with Dawn, who suddenly enters her family dynamic. “And that’s the beauty of her of the character. I never thought, ‘Oh, that’s too much.’” She paused. “That’s not true. There was one thing that I didn’t like in the script, and they actually ended up cutting it. I don’t even know if Brec knows what it was. It was the only thing that I disagreed with in the script. At one point, I kicked [Dawn/Brec], and I thought that was too much. And they did cut it. So, I was glad.”

Lillian sports a mean streak like no other here. That’s par for the course when it comes to V.C. Andrews tales. Expect Mills to be one of the series major scene stealers and for Brec Bassinger to emerge as a champion of emotional depth. Joey McIntyre and Fran Drescher also star in this addictive ride.

“Lillian was a lot of fun to play,” Mills went on to tell the panel. “She kind of drove the plot, because she was responsible for a lot of things that happened in the story.” In terms of the wickedness and all that drama, Mills added: “I mean, that’s the best kind of story you can possibly have to tell as an actor. V.C. Andrews is really a good storyteller. So, to be an actor, with that good of a storyteller is heaven.”

On Working with Brec Bassinger

The ensemble cast here deliver strong performances. Let’s face it, this is V.C. Andrews, so things get very deep and very dark. “It engages you and makes you want to watch it,” Mills commented about the source material, which emerged as a gothic novel in the form of Flowers in the Attic in 1979 and went onto to become a global sensation, selling more than 40 million copies. And that plot — two kids locked up in an attic so their mother can inherit the family fortune. Creepy at best. Dawn delivers on that front, too. Expect plenty of plot twists.

“You want to continue to watch and find out what’s going to happen to Brec,” noted Mills of the limited series. “I never tried to rein Lillian in. I’ve played villains before, which I love — that’s my favorite. [I take] whatever’s in the script, then whatever you can make up for yourself… something you may have happened. But very seldom do you get an actual blueprint.” She continued:

As for working alongside Brec Bassinger and being the “villain” of sorts opposite Dawn, Mills pointed out the range of emotions Bassinger managed throughout the shoot. “It was amazing to me that Brec was able to do all that… every single day. I take my hat off to [her]. Going to all those different arcs, ages, and everything else really hard. Really hard.”

Playing mean can be fun. Perhaps exhausting. How does Mills shake it all after the director yells, “cut!” “Well, the thing is, once you’re off the set, away from the cast and everything, your own life comes back to you. So, I never find it hard to let go of a character. It belongs on the set. Once you’re off the set, you are yourself again.”

V.C. Andrews Dawn premieres July 8 on Lifetime and streams the following day. Experience the full panel interview here.