Created by Alice Birch and starring Rachel Weisz(twice ) , Prime Video ’s Dead Ringers evolvesDavid Cronenberg ’s 1988 wriggle - make classicabouttwins whose obsession with each other becomes their precipitation . before of the six - episode series ’ going on April 21 , io9 talk with two of Dead Ringers ’ central Colorado - stars , whose characters serve build out the human race of Weisz ’s progressively trouble Drs . Elliot and Beverly Mantle .
Jennifer Ehle ( Saint Maud ) plays Rebecca Parker , the billionaire drug - company heiress who fund the Mantles ’ ambition project : a posh birthing center of attention and inquiry lab in Manhattan . Emily Meade ( The Deuce ) plays Susan , her decennium - younger married woman , who first play the Mantles to the Rebecca ’s attention , and later get-up-and-go for a satellite birthing center to be build in her Southern hometown . Even in a serial master by Weisz ’s prominent dual public presentation , they make quite a memorable pair .
Cheryl Eddy , io9 : Rebecca ’s family lot comes from the drug company responsible for America ’s opioid crisis . How has that shape her expectation on the world and the way she interact with other people ?
Photo: Niko Tavernise/Prime Video
Jennifer Ehle : She ’s completely dissimilar than anybody , certainly , that I ’ve ever meet . She ’s been resurrect with a level of wealth and privilege , and a sense of being one of the multitude who is really hold launch the world running and defines which way the world run low and what find in society next . I mean she ’s been raise believe that it is part of her right and her lot and her duty to be implemental in what happens next in beau monde , and in the fiscal world and in the science man . She feels crucial , on a layer kind of like a monarch or something — like a variety of Ayn Rand character . She believes she ’s got this kind of objectivism , that there ’s nothing but to enjoy life and to act upon the world .
io9 : We learn a little about their backstory ( including that Susan is married woman number four ) , but not really how they met . Did you guy discuss with the writer and each other to sort of cultivate out a foundation for their marriage ?
Emily Meade : I do n’t know ! [ To Ehle :] Do you know how they meet ? I can conceive of it was some kind of party … [ laughs ]
Photo: Niko Tavernise/Prime Video
Ehle : We never discussed it ! Part of what I love about it all is that there ’s no exposition ; Alice [ Birch ] leaves space around the story that you could fill in when you ’re watch it and certainly when you ’re playing it . We met the first solar day when we did that first scene , when the Mantle twins fulfill us for the first time .
io9 : How would you name the relationship between Rebecca and Susan ? And how does their dynamical play into their dealing with the Mantle twins ?
George Gordon Meade : I reckon they ’re more like on a foundational layer , the manner they see the macrocosm , than you would think . Obviously they seem like absolute opposites , but I think they in reality balance each other . Maybe they ’re limn good cop , bad cop , but they ’re actually both ultimately a bit selfish — they just get to distribute it other than . I believe there is also a sincere care there and understanding for each other .
Photo: Niko Tavernise/Prime Video
The way that dynamical engages with the Mantle twins is , I ’m accept on her own , Rebecca would probably never be like trying to do something like [ fund a birthing center ] . It does n’t really operate with Rebecca ’s personality to be like , “ Hey , let me seek to give you this money . ” It ’s almost like a skilful con game squad , where Rebecca gets to sit around back and be aloof while Susan fight and pulls and brings it in . Ultimately , they both benefit from it .
io9 : Rebecca is decidedly skeptical when she first hears the proposition for funding Beverly ’s birthing centre and Elliot ’s lab . Why do you think she decide to give them the money ?
Ehle : I mean , Elliot say that she might be able to delay dying . Elliot also pronounce she could delay climacteric without end . I think those things are implausibly attractive to Rebecca — financially and just like just cool factor of being the individual , the super - multi - multi - millionaire , who finds a mode to cheat death or cheat distaff biology . To have the bragging rights for that would be really great . And meanwhile , it makes her wife glad . Her wife ’s in it for the baby . [ I think at first Rebecca ] assumes that there ’s no way on earth [ she ’ll fund a ] birth nub — and then the science gets her .
io9 : We meet Susan ’s family near the closing of the series and there are some surprise that amount with that . How would you characterize her relationship with her family ?
George Gordon Meade : She ’s obviously a ware of it . you could see the overlap between certain element of her father and Rebecca , and how she thinks nurturing , caretaking energy looks and feel . I call back it shows why she ’s so arrested in development and sort of rum and has not really modernize or grown as a homo how one peradventure should , considering she had a jolly bizarre founding father and life . I do n’t think she ’s the character of individual who tried to get out or better [ the family situation she grew up in ] ; I consider she just adjudicate to obtain a way to renovate it in a fashion that works for her . She has n’t recognize the ways that it ’s not a estimable kinsperson dynamic and she ’s just going to keep play that out for the relaxation of her animation , probably .
io9 : When you consider about Cronenberg , the quick genre connection is “ body horror . ” How does your edition of Dead Ringers evolve that construct ? Do you consider it to be a repulsion series ?
George Gordon Meade : As far as soundbox revulsion , I reckon it just bring in more types of body horror or more layer of it ? It becomes far more about the female experience than the Cronenberg one . I feel like that one ’s more about addiction ; in this one , the dependance part is kind of a small-scale part of that horror . It ’s definitely a mo creepy-crawly and disturbing . Would it be horror directly up ? I guess “ psychological thriller ” would be what I would plausibly pitch it as
Ehle : Yeah , I think “ psychological intimate thriller , ” I would say more than than repulsion . I think there are horror elements in it . But I think unless something is a full - out repulsion series or horror film , if you trade it or endeavor to sell it as repulsion , you end up with — there are people who are really hard-core and they will only be disappointed if they come look for repulsion . I think this is more nuanced than that .
io9 : Yet , upset all the same .
Ehle : Definitely . I do n’t intend anybody would be disappoint coming to search to be disturbed , because it ’s really troubling .
Dead Ringers streams on Prime Video starting April 21 .
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