“If you have any q’s about Keira Knightley, I know her entire life story at this point!” “The whole night before I auditioned, I listened to Keira Knightley interviews to get the accent down,” says Kampouris, who went after the part with a kind of baptism-by-fire mentality. And as if Kampouris required a further obstacle in her journey towards conquering the role, the production (and British director Josie Rourke) asked that she master an English accent - yet another first. Indeed, Kampouris’s dramatic awakening - not to mention her angelic flowing tendrils and porcelain visage - lends itself nicely to Cecile, a virginal 15-year-old, formerly of a convent, who becomes sexual collateral damage in the sadistic games between the former lovers La Marquise de Merteuil (Janet McTeer) and Le Vicomte de Valmont (Liev Schreiber). “But I’m playing a really naïve character, so I’m just trying to tap into that.” “During tech, was like, ‘Okay, walk upstage.’ And I actually, like, walked up the stage and they’re like, ‘No!’” She laughs.
“I’d never been on a stage until our first opening preview,” says the doll-faced Kampouris, 19, who until now is perhaps best known for her breakout in this spring’s movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Elena Kampouris, who stars in the current revival of Dangerous Liaisons at the Booth Theater, can add to that challenge: she is also tackling theater for the first time. Any actress making her Broadway debut could be forgiven a healthy helping of nerves.