Penny Dreadful (TV Series)

Closer Than Sisters (2014)

Eva Green: Vanessa Ives

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Quotes 

• [Vanessa Ives asks for Sir Malcolm's forgiveness, as the two join each other to find Mina] 

  Sir Malcolm Murray : Do you know how many men I have killed? In Africa we walked in blood every step. There was a time I would gladly have killed you. There may come a time I gladly shall. But for now, I can make use of you.

  Vanessa Ives : And no more?

  Sir Malcolm Murray : What else? Forgiveness? Go to your Roman church for that, you'll find none here.

  Vanessa Ives : Have you imagined for one moment what this has been for me? An unforgivable transgression that has marked me for life. You think you've suffered. You think you know blood. You think you've walked on corpses. Spread them from here to the horizon and I have walked further! You weak, foul, lustful, vainglorious, man. How dare do you speak to me of death.

  Sir Malcolm Murray : Then we will speak it together.

• [last lines] 

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa Ives writes her last words to Mina in her letter, narrating]  There is no exculpation I expect of you. My guilt is my own and that I carry with me. It is my present and my future. It has damned me well beyond this short life of mine. But I will not rest until you are safe. There is no other purpose in my life. I shall love you always. Your dearest friend, Vanessa.

  Vanessa Ives : [as Vanessa folds the letter away, narrating]  Postscript. Your father loves you very much and will do anything to save you. But I love you in a different way. I love you enough to kill you.

• [Young Mina looks at the mirror ad feels something behind her] 

  Vanessa Ives : Something whispered. I listened. Perhaps it has always been there, this thing, this demon inside me. Or behind my back, waiting for me to turn around.

• [Vanessa Ives writes about the time she realized Mina would be leaving her] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  I watched your courtship with Captain Branson flourish. All the stratagems of advance and retreat. I always thought of myself as the stronger one. But here, you were so valiant. How could he not be conquered? I think you set your future at that table. He spoke of India and suddenly I saw you going. When would I see you again? Isn't India so terribly far away? What would I do? Marry Peter? God, how I envied you. Perhaps I even hated you. How was it possible that you, always so meek and obliging, were to have this greatest of adventures before me? You would know love, you would know a man's touch, while I, the courageous one, knew nothing of life.

• [Vanessa Ives writes to Mina about the time she should've stopped Peter from leaving or Africa] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  If I could only go back now, I would run off after him and say 'Don't go. Don't go to Africa. You'll never survive, you're too weak. You're beautifully weak, Peter. I love you for your weakness.' For at that moment, Mina, I saw the future crystal clear.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa prays in her bedroom, narrating]  I tried to pray that night, God didn't answer me. But another did.

• [Vanessa Ives seduces Mina's fiancée while the room with the taxidermy animals] 

  Vanessa Ives : [while looking at a taxidermy crow bird]  The most challenging bit is the eyes. They're glass, of course, so by nature are dead and dull. But that wouldn't do for my great predator. So I put mirrors behind the glass eyes, so they would spark. You see?

  Captain Branson : It's like they're alive.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa whispers]  They are. I would put mirrors behind the entire world if I could.

• [Vanessa Ives sees Peter for the last time before he leaves to Africa] 

  Peter Murray : [as Peter rests over Vanessa in her bed]  It's Peter. I'm off to Africa. Can you believe it? Finally having that adventure we talked about. Very excited. I walked by the shore yesterday where we used to swim.

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa whispers]  You should have kissed me. Will you kiss me now?

  Vanessa Ives : [when Peter leans down to kiss Vanessa, as she struggles to say]  You're going to die there. You're going to die there.

• [first lines] 

  Vanessa Ives : [Vanessa Ives writes her letter to Mina, narrating]  My dearest Mina, my darling friend. I began these letters when I recovered from my illness. At first, I composed them perhaps every month. Then weekly and now daily. Soon I will no doubt give up all other occupation and simply write. The ending of one letter becoming and beginning with the next, an endless ribbon of words. I write in hope that one day you will answer me and that everything can again be like it was... Though I know that can never be.

• [Vanessa Ives writes about the clouds to Mina] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  I don't remember clouds when we were young. Were there any, my dearest Mina? Just beyond the horizon, perhaps? Or was it all seashore and sandcastles? Such a thought is naive, I know. But aren't memories always that.

• [Vanessa Ives writes about the gate between her and Mina's home] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  Were any two families closer than ours? I don't remember a day that gate between our home was closed. Until the day it closed forever.

• [Vanessa Ives writes about the memories at Mina's family dinner table] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  Those festive homecomings I remember most. They were our true holidays. My mother and father were always welcome company at your table. Your father would return to us with rare gifts and a sunburn. But rarest of all, were his tales of adventures, I'm sure much edited for our ears. Peter's eyes would light up, such a marvelous future he imagined alongside his father.

  Vanessa Ives : [the family celebrates Sir Malcolm's homecoming, narrating]  But for all our kinship, my Mina, we were not completely alike. Mysteries of my Catholic church were alien to you and your family. Had I had been older, I would have seen more. Beneath the laughter, beneath that great, easy outpouring of conversation, it wasn't tension exactly, was it? Not amongst two such congenial families. No. It was more a tremor of something. Like words hollered down a bottomless pit that come back occluded and more complex. Adulthood.

• [Vanessa Ives writes about that night in the hedge maze] 

  Vanessa Ives : [narrating]  And on that terrible night, that night it happened, did anything particularly important happen at dinner? No, not that I recall. Honestly, I thought I was going to find you and Peter around the next corner, playing some trick on me.

  Vanessa Ives : [Young Vanessa finds the two parents having sex, narrating]  My mother. Your father. More than the shock, the sinfulness, the forbidden act, there was this. I enjoyed it.

• [Vanessa Ives speaks about naming a creature before it is born] 

  Vanessa Ives : I've always felt you have to name a thing before it comes to life, like a witch's spell.

• [Vanessa Ives speaks with her first doctor while possessed] 

  Vanessa Ives : Have you seen someone who's drowned? I have. Not a dog or a cat. Not enough soul in a dog or a cat. I mean a man. A hundred men. A slave ship. Yes. More than anything. Pulled right down, while the men still chained. Souls in torment who now find themselves in greater torment? Have you seen that, Dr. Christopher Matthew Banning?

  Dr. Christopher Banning : Vanessa, it's very important to me that you sit down now.

  Vanessa Ives : Who's Vanessa?

  [Vanessa attacks the doctor by trying to bite his face] 

• [the Master in the form of Sir Malcolm asks Vanessa Ives if she will close that door to her life] 

  Sir Malcolm Murray : You could have shut the door at any time. You still can. Right now. Will you?

  Vanessa Ives : Yes.

  Sir Malcolm Murray : And give up everything we could have together? The true knowledge of man's virtue, as well as his sin. The power. The sight beyond this world.

  Vanessa Ives : I want nothing beyond this world.

  Sir Malcolm Murray : Don't lie to me. You've always been drawn to the deep ocean, to the dark whisper, a mirror behind the glass eyes. To life at its fullest. Will you close that door now?

• [the Master in the form of Sir Malcolm tells Vanessa Ives to join him] 

  Sir Malcolm Murray : [quoting John Keats]  'Darkling, I listen and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath.'

  Vanessa Ives : [as Vanessa kisses the Master]  So the darkness spoke.

  Sir Malcolm Murray : Yes. But you listened.

• [Vanessa Ives sees Mina on the beach] 

  Vanessa Ives : Sister.

  Mina Harker : I do not blame you. Whatever sin, it has been forgiven in your suffering. So much suffering.

  Vanessa Ives : It is more than I deserve, but I can't forgive myself. There's so much to say.

  Mina Harker : Or so little.

• Vanessa Ives : Your father loves you very much and would do anything to save you. But I love you in a different way. I love you enough to kill you.

• Vanessa Ives : There are things within us all that can never be unleashed.