In Ripley, Netflix’s dazzling eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s landmark 1955 crime novel The Proficient Mr. Ripley, the method to the fabric is extra emotionally chilly and intentionally paced than within the 1999 film adaptation. Anchored by a bravura efficiency by Andrew Scott, the collection — nominated for 13 Emmys — was written and directed by veteran screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Oscar winner for Schindler’s Record). Zaillian joins THR for a dialog about this bold undertaking’s journey to the small display screen.
What impressed you to remake one thing that had already been tackled to nice success by Hollywood?
Twenty years had passed by for the reason that 1999 film. I felt that there was a means of doing this in an extended format that may hopefully seize the sensation that I had once I first learn the e book.
Was there an essence to the e book that you just felt had not been captured within the movie?
It was the sensation of attending to know these characters in such element and spending that a lot time with them you could’t do in a two-hour film. I used to be very drawn to the method of how Ripley went about doing his schemes. Specifically within the e book, there have been these two lengthy sequences as he struggles to determine the right way to do away with two our bodies. You possibly can’t try this in a movie. That will take up half the movie.
The primary homicide scene virtually goes right into a slapstick space the place so many issues go unsuitable for him. Is that straight from the e book?
It was lengthy within the e book. He does fall out of the boat within the e book. I don’t know if I’d say slapstick, however to me it was necessary to indicate that this isn’t an expert killer. He’s not achieved this earlier than. It’s not premeditated. He doesn’t assume issues by means of on this means. It was enjoyable to put in writing and it was enjoyable to shoot.
You actually relay how a lot of a ache within the ass coping with a lifeless physique is — how heavy it’s and the way exhausting it’s to cover one.
Andrew was terrific with it. He actually did do all that stuff. It was exhausting. Each time Ripley tries one thing and it doesn’t work, he stops and he thinks, “OK — how can I do it?” These moments have been necessary to me to indicate.
Let’s speak about Andrew Scott. It’s an unbelievable efficiency. Was his age — 47 — a consideration in any respect?
I wished any individual older. I didn’t perceive what the massive deal can be that some man’s son ran off to Europe at 25. That’s the story of each 25-year-old at present. And so Tom Ripley would logically be the identical age as Dickie Greenleaf [played by Johnny Flynn]. If he’s older, he’s extra determined. They’re each determined. Ripley has been at this longer. He and Dickie have been round lengthy sufficient to know that they’re failures.
Visually, it’s simply so, so stunning. I hope you bought some form of commendation from the Italian vacationer board for this factor. Might you discuss a bit about how sumptuously you shot this and the way lengthy it took to arrange these photographs?
We had numerous time to shoot, which was nice. We shot for 170 days. I believe that’s greater than 20 days an episode, which is so much for a collection. I did wish to method it like a film — I imply, with the care that you just absorb a film and with the time that you just take. I wished [crew] who, like me, had spent their careers doing films versus tv. And when it comes to the look, I had at all times imagined it in black and white. It rooted us within the time interval. It jogged my memory of movies from the time interval.
One other efficiency I actually liked was by Eliot Sumner, who added one thing so new and completely different and nice to the a part of Freddie Miles.
I used to be despondent casting that half as a result of I had checked out 200 actors, and I discovered that almost all of them, I assume as a result of they have been influenced by the 1999 film, have been doing sort of a tackle Philip Seymour Hoffman. I didn’t wish to try this. And a tape got here in someday from any individual I didn’t acknowledge named Eliot Sumner, and it was such a distinct tackle it that I used to be simply sort of spellbound by it. I simply liked the audition.
Talking of scene stealing, let’s speak about that cat watching Ripley drag a physique down the steps. Was that an actual cat?
That was an actual cat, and a Maine Coon cat from Rome. It was truly the second cat; the primary cat I reluctantly needed to hearth. However this cat was so chill and simply had a glance on his face of figuring out all the pieces that was occurring. And I’ve to offer numerous credit score to our second unit director of pictures, whose title is Predrag Dubravcic. He shot all these issues with the cat. He had the persistence of a saint and did a unbelievable job with it.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone problem of The Hollywood Reporter journal. To obtain the journal, click on right here to subscribe.