She said: “What was so interesting about her, it’s almost – I think what kind of sums it up in a way is that scene at the end in episode two when all of the violence is going on, and she’s listening [in] – what was an interesting thing to oscillate between – [was] the person that she was, and this narrative that she’s living.
“But I think what’s really interesting is it’s almost like she created her own narrative, and she’s living in her delusion, really.
“So I guess for me it was more about squashing the truth, it was kind of like not accepting the reality of what was actually going on and meanwhile she’s kind of almost like living her own movie star life in her mind, which made it really complicated in a great way, in a really great way.”
She added: “I think the [question of] ‘is she a victim or is she not’, how much of her was brainwashed, how much of it was a choice to be there and a choice to live in the delusion.
“I think that’s what’s really interesting, to make the choices that she made in keeping this reality in a way that she could so that she could keep existing and being with Charles.”
Speaking to The Sunday Mirror, Nadine Gires, a former neighbour of Sobhraj and Leclerc who helped Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg build a case against the duo said she felt “sorry” for Marie.
Gires explained: “I felt sorry for Marie-Andrée because she was a sad and simple person, not the movie star we see in the series.
“And she was Charles’ prisoner. She told me, ‘I have no passport, no money and if I try to leave he will kill me.'”
Whilst incarcerated, the real Leclerc was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
As seen in The Serpent, the Indian Supreme Court released Leclerc and she returned to Canada to spend the rest of her days.
She died on April 20, 1984. She was 38-years-old.
The Serpent is streaming on the BBC iPlayer now and airs Sundays at 9pm on BBC One