When we hear the word “adaption,” we often sigh in discontent. Multiple incarnations of popular film and TV stories have been and gone, and many have left a sour parting note. Tackling the bones of David Cronenberg's 1998 hit, Prime Video's Dead Ringers is a narrative definition all its own. FILMHOUNDS spoke to actor and executive producer Rachel Weisz and creator Alice Birch to drill down into the world of the Mantles.
Rachel — I hope you don't mind me saying — I feel like it's probably fair to say that you're a lesbian icon. I know [at the BFI premiere of Dead Ringers] you talked about the Beverly and Genevieve relationship not being a conscious decision, but creating normalised representation is something that you not only do really well in your career, but you've done incredibly together with Beverly in particular. Is there a sense of satisfaction that comes with being able to achieve that, even if it's the byproduct?
Rachel Weisz: Of course. Yeah. There's a lot of satisfaction in that.
Alice Birch: I think that's the whole hope. That's the thing you're striving for — for it to feel real. Authentic. And particularly with that relationship, we wanted it to feel romantic and full of potential. So it's wonderful if that's the case.
In terms of body horror, we are so used to the most ludicrous scenarios in films having a lot of blood and gore. What's really interesting is that DR is more hyper-realistic and centered on the woman's body. We're not really used to seeing that on-screen. What did you want to achieve by making the show so visceral? What does it say about our wider and secular film culture that we're not used to seeing women's bodies portrayed in this way?
AB: It felt interesting to us to see. We've watched stuff with violence in and we're so used to watching it in a whole different way that it has its own cinematic language. It can be so many things. I understand what people are talking about [Dead Ringers] as graphic, bloody horror, but it's also the most beautiful, miraculous thing ever. It was always there in the script from the beginning. It was always on the page that we would see birth depicted in that way, and then every new collaborator that came in added to that. Sean (Durkin) had a really clear vision of how to shoot those scenes, the makeup, the prosethetics.
RW: We talked to Sean, the director of episodes one and two and the last one he was an executive producer on — I don't know if he'd mind me saying — he recalled very vividly being present at the birth of his first child. It was very interesting to him to make it hyper-realistic.
Are either of you squeamish? I imagine you have to have a strong stomach to take on those scenes.
AB: I think also it's very technical on the day. It's a lot of prosthetics and talks about cameras, angles, lighting. Makeup people are coming in with lots of brushes to work on the blood splatter. It's that sort of thing I think that probably changes it slightly. I don't think I'm very squeamish.
RW: I'm more squeamish over violence, not so much about babies being born.
Did it feel distinctly different adapting the show from an existing film?
AB: Yeah, really really different. I mean, the book adaptations I've done for screen may feel more like a bit like midwifery, like helping that book come up onto the screen, and often just be what experience you've had as a reader. For something like adapting Sally Rooney (Normal People, Conversations With Friends), it's not about me, it's about Sally and really honouring that story in that world. Being as faithful as possible. With this, we had six hours, which is a lot more time to tell a lot more story. I think the film is so iconic, so extraordinary, we never wanted to just remake it over six hours. We wanted to find a reason to tell it.
RW: I mean, most of it came from Alice's imagination, and the writers. Particularly the arc of the story — co-dependent twins and when a patient comes between them.
AB: Then you want to nod to the film. That was a lot of fun, finding the different ways to. Whether that's through the colour palette, or some of the lines. There's a lot of music from the 80s. Finding those different ways to salute that.
RW: Genevieve's TV show is called Rabid, which is another Cronenberg film, so it's an homage Cronenberg. He's such a master. But it's still its own thing.
AB: Adaptation isn't really the right word. I wonder if there's another definition for it.
Alice — you've spoken about your love of writing dinner scenes previously. What do you think it is about the dinner party setting that allows the truth to come out, or all hell to break loose?
AB: I do love a dinner scene, I really do. My background is in theatre, and it does feel quite theatrical in terms of the writing. The challenge of the writing. Trying to make sure that you keep all of those characters and voices alive and present in the space. It's actually just a technical challenge that I really like. It feels like it has the potential to go somewhere dramatic and exciting when people are busy and there's lots going on and you can see that, but also to try and keep a conversation. I don't know. It just feels like they're gonna misbehave.
RW: But there's also a kind of innate formality to a dinner. That's kind of delicious when it falls apart. I mean, not all of the dinner scenes fall apart.
AB: They do.
RW: They do actually, yeah! In terms of people maintaining their politeness.
AB: It doesn't stay at the table in a happy, knife-and-fork-down, “Thank you!” way.
RW: That's when a family sits down at a dinner table. That's where it all begins.
You really put female pleasure at the forefront of the series, whether that's sexual appetite or a literal hunger for food. Do you think the authenticity of that stems from having an all-female writers' room?
AB: We talked a lot about it, about the importance of pleasure, joy, and fun and having that levity, and, but also different kinds of pleasure. I think Elliot definitely takes her pleasure very seriously. We knew that it was going to go somewhere darker and that the show would definitely spend time in tragic places. So being able to counter that with real pleasure in all its different forms was really satisfying. That was one of the first things that we found in our research. When we look at Elliot in particular, she's an incredibly efficient pleasure-seeker.
RW: We talked a lot about the fact that in the original film, the Mantle brothers had so much pleasure — they always had a drink in their hand or were always at a party — until things go wrong. It's human pleasure but they happen to be women, also having a lot of fun. It's funny, it just came to my mind, but I can't remember what happens — have you seen Cool Hand Luke? The movie with Paul Newman. He gets dared to eat boiled eggs. Like he eats hundreds of hundreds. So many boiled eggs. He goes into a toxic protein shock. It doesn't end well. But you do see this character just eating and eating. Sorry. I digress. That apple juice has really got me going.
The pacing of Dead Ringers is so frenetic — did it feel particularly intense to film certain scenes?
RW: We can't really talk about it because it's a spoiler, but particularly that final episode and all that occurs in it. It was very intense. There was a lot of there's a lot of intensity in the show, and then there's a lot of pleasure-seeking, and joy, and fun. It's hard to choose one thing but I would say that the show has just run the gamut. Hopefully it's quite a ride because it's got a lot of highs and a lot of intense events.
Dead Ringers launches on Prime Video on Friday 21st April.
