Souki: Actress Played Her, But Directors of HBO’s ‘The Vow’ Didn’t Tell Audience

Is it a big deal? Probably not. But The Vow hired an actress to play Souki Mehdaoui on The Vow, without disclosing that she was an actress.

The story was true. Souki seems to have been accurately represented. The question is should The Vow, a docuseries that purports to be a verité documentary, have disclosed they employed an actress, instead of leading audiences to believe the woman they watched was telling her own authentic story of abuse?

“Verité” means “truthful;” the style is observational, as if the camera is only watching without direction to those being filmed.

But there was an actress being directed. Maybe it’s not a big deal.

Souki Explains

Last November 22, just one day after HBO aired the final episode of The Vow, Season 2, Souki Mehdaoui appeared on Rough Cut, a podcast about documentary filmmakers and video journalists.

Souki spoke of her experiences with HBO’s “The Vow,” Season 1. 

Rough Cut describes Souki as a “documentary filmmaker, director of photography [DP] and subject coordinator.” She was also “a member of DOS, and NXIVM, and a partner of now-imprisoned Keith Raniere. She was a subject in the HBO documentary series The Vow.”

She was a subject of the documentary, but never appeared in The Vow. Her name is never mentioned.

Souki’s story is told in season 1, episode #4, by an actress who played her, as “Jane.”

While it is Souki’s story, neither Souki, her voice, nor her image appear. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

It was the result of last minute changes, and instead of Souki appearing and using her name, The Vow substituted an actress at the last minute.

The Vow didn’t explain to the audience that the woman on screen, “Jane,” was an actress, and not an actual member of NXIVM and DOS, as she said.

As far as I recall, she was the only actress in the 15 episodes of the two-season docuseries. The audience and the media did not catch on.

She is eventually seen.

Distractify found it peculiar, writing, “At first Jane is sitting with her back facing the camera. But the audience gets to see her face little by little… First, the cameras show her eyes, then the lower half of her face, then they pan out to show her whole face. By the end of her interview, it feels like anyone who knew ‘Jane'” personally would have had no trouble recognizing her.”

Why did they need an actress to play Souki?

Because Souki left The Vow.

In her Rough Cut interview, Souki said she was unhappy with directors, Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim.

She had worked with them as a cameraperson on ‘The Great Hack.”

For season 1, of The Vow, Souki was both an unpaid “subject,”  filmed in front of the camera, and a paid DP.

In her Rough Cut interview, Souki talks about the problems of working behind and in front of the camera.

Souki:

“It got really messy, because I met these directors [Noujaim and Amer] and ended up being both a subject and working for them on a slew of other projects for about three years, the biggest being a DP for one of their feature docs.”

Souki:

“I became a subject for filmmakers while I was working for them as a cinematographer. So my roles would flip sometimes over the course of an hour, where we’d go from being behind the camera to in front of it and vice versa.

“I had the incredibly surreal experience of interviewing DPs to film me on behalf of the directors (Noujaim and Amer), and had to sort of explain my trauma to them as if I was recounting some logline from a film festival directory, and it was requiring me to look at myself, like an object, but for someone else’s story.

“It’s like, don’t try this at home, unless you’re willing to have your heart completely crushed by the knowledge that your pain is entertainment.”

As The Vow reveals, Souki found out Raniere, with whom she had an affair, was the head of DOS. She learned it from the Frank Report.

The segment of The Vow where ‘Jane’ appears as Souki.

The actress who played Souki in The Vow said, ‘When the Frank Report came out, I was in shock. I didn’t know about the branding. Or Keith’s initials on the brand. I started for the first time to realize that things were not as they seemed.”

Screenshots from The Vow, used to illustrate who Souki learned about Raniere’s role in DOS.

When Souki confronted Raniere through texts about the brand being his initials, he lied in response.

Raniere texted: “Not intended initially as my initials but they rearranged it slightly for tribute (if it were abraham lincolns or bill gates initials no one would care). The primary meaning and design of the brand symbol has nothing to do with my initials.”

Eduardo, please note for your series, “Lies About NXIVM That People Think Are True,” that Raniere lied about who designed the brand. He did. He drew it first and showed it to the front line slaves. They did not design it as tribute to him. That’s nonsense. Ask Dani Padilla. Then Raniere told them to lie to recruits about its true meaning. Truth should cut both ways. If you want to debunk the lies about NXIVM that people think are true, you might also debunk the lies Keith Raniere tells you that you think are true.

Finally, for the sake of disclosure, I was in six episodes of The Vow, including the one the actress was in, though I knew nothing about it at the time. No actor played me. I played myself.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where Souki explains why she quit The Vow and how she quit. And the torment she had over it.

Frank Parlato