The second season of Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake—Top of the Lake: China Girl—feels more like a loose film sequel than a traditional TV second season. The new six-episode installment arrives four years after the first, in a different setting (Sydney) and with a new group of characters populated around our lead, beleaguered detective Robin Griffin (played by Elisabeth Moss). One of the new faces in China Girl is Alice Englert, the 23-year-old Sydney native who plays independent, impetuous Mary, who is revealed to be the daughter a teenaged Robin gave up for adoption. (Mary’s adoptive mother, Julia, is played by an Australian actress you may have heard of named Nicole Kidman.)

Amidst the central thematic story lines related to motherhood—Mary’s relationship with Julia grows tense as she gets to know Robin—there was a real-life motherhood “plot” at play on the project as well: Englert is the daughter of Campion. (Englert’s father, Colin, and Campion divorced in 2001.)

A few days ahead of the second season premiere, Campion and Englert spoke to Vanity Fair about working together, the unusual ways in which Campion has supported Englert’s acting career, and what a third season of Top of the Lake might look like.

Vanity Fair: Jane, did you write the role of Mary in the second season specifically with Alice in mind?

Jane Campion: Yeah. It was actually a real exciting kick for me when I realized [Alice could play the part]—as I was trying to get ideas for how the second season might look, and what we left uncreated in the first season—and [I] remembered the daughter, and did the maths on it and realized, “Ah, yes, that could be Alice.” I was excited because I had hoped to work with her on the first series, but she got a bigger job.

What was it like to collaborate on this? Do you work well together? What challenges did you run into?

Alice Englert: What I always say and have realized is that we weren’t trying to work together as mother and daughter, because I think that would have been impossible. We were trying to work together as . . .

Campion: Bring out our better sides.

Englert: As an actress and director.

Campion: [Focusing on] tough acting, directing problems, you know? We wanted to find a way to collaborate well where we could use the best of both of us . . .

Englert: We’ve always had a working relationship.

Campion: . . . to get those solutions. And sometimes, yeah, we frustrate each other, and maybe we can let steam off about that in a way someone who’s not a family member wouldn’t feel open to do. But I think having Alice to write for was really fun. Two reasons: she’s super talented, and it’s the kind of grown-up gift you want to give your kid.

Englert: It’s a hell of a gift.

Campion: One of the ways we managed to navigate [her] teenage years was to work together on scenes that Alice was given for auditions, and that brought us to a very adult space—with real problem-solving, and things which were challenging and interesting. I think it’s something we’ve always enjoyed. [To Englert:] Remember when I was trying to get you to take off the lipstick or something?

Englert: I was doing a Snow White and the Huntsman audition, and they had said in the notes that the girl should wear red lipstick, you know, because they're Snow White. And Mum thought that was incredibly naff, and I wanted to do what I was told.

Campion: Oh my God, I got so controlling about it.

Did you end up wearing the red lipstick?

Englert: No, I did not wear the red lipstick. I did what mother said . . . after much resistance.

Campion: It was fun. She did a great job. She got to be on the short list, and we went together to L.A., on her dime this time . . . I was going up to [Snow White and the Huntsman] Rupert [Sanders] and saying, “I don’t know about the hair.” He was like, “You are kidding me, you are not talking to me,” [laughter] and I’m, “Oh, I like it like that.” Susie, who was the casting agent, was an old friend of mine, and she said, “Look, we can come up behind this bush and watch.”

Englert: It’s true; I saw her. I was doing an audition and she was . . . her head was poked out from behind a tree.

Alice, what was it like working with Nicole versus Elisabeth? Did you have different acting dynamics with each of them?

Englert: They’re both very professional and generous, honest, hard-working ladies. You know, so are you [to Jane]—you’re naughty, though.

Campion: They’re naughty, too!

Englert: They’re naughty, too. They’re all naughty! . . . I don’t know. I mean, as an actress, I guess I try to be present for the other person and pay attention to them and myself. For Mary, it’s very different, but I did feel in a way that [Mary] was in a love triangle with her boyfriend [Puss, played by David Dencik] and her birth mother. And I think Puss recognizes this, that in a way, she’s cheating on him with her birth mother.

Jane, was it hard for you as Alice’s real mother to watch her in this troubled dynamic with Puss?

Campion: I mean, not as much as I had to watch it, no. And actually, I re-did most of those scenes because I thought it would be—

Englert: You did turn up to [watch] them, anyway.

Campion: I did, because I wanted to be supportive to my daughter as well.

Englert: Is that why? Oh, cute!

Do you think you would work together again?

Englert: Yeah, I’d do it. I’d do whatever you want.

Campion: I would, too. I’m the luckiest person having this one as my daughter, because we just really enjoy traveling together and having fun together.

Englert: We like being silly and serious.

Campion: Yeah, we just like being silly together. So that’s the biggest thing. The work is, you know, “O.K., whatever we can do that." But just to actually have fun together and travel and be together.

I feel like there has to be a third season. The show ends on such a cliff-hanger this year.

Campion: Every actor has their own scenario where they take the lead in the next.

Englert: I expect to have disappeared, like so many of those before me in Season 1.

Campion: If there was anything I feel like I’m going to circle round and pick up, it’s GJ, Holly Hunter’s character. [When we would revisit her], she’s kind of ended up in Thailand and dying for the whole episode.

Englert: [Jane] just tells everything!

Campion: We were so sad not to have [GJ in season two]. She was so strong and amazing; that’s why I want her back. It would all end up back at the lake, of course.