There’s No Escaping The Past

However dark one’s past and elaborate the lies to cover it up, secrets have this odd way of revealing themselves at the most inopportune times.

In the case of the gripping Netflix
NFLX
thriller Pieces of Her, premiering March 4, it’s all about living a lie until it all comes crumbling down. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling novel of the same name, the eight-episode mystery has a female dream team behind it. At the helm are executive producers Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies, The Undoing) and Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland), showrunner Charlotte Stoudt (Homeland, The Morning Show) and executive producer/director Minkie Spiro (The Plot Against America). Of note, Slaughter’s books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide so the audience for this one is sure to be huge.

This team has a knack for hooking viewers with gripping dramas where everything appears picture-perfect on the surface but what lies beneath is anything but. In this case, it’s just another day for mother-daughter duo Laura Oliver (Toni Collette) and Andy (Bella Heathcote).

Things in their small Georgia town feel quiet, too quiet in fact. It’s a far cry from the lively streets of New York where Andy lived before returning home to care for her ailing mother. It’s Andy’s 30th birthday and Laura just wants to take her daughter for lunch to celebrate. All hell breaks loose at the local eatery when a crazed gunman targets his ex-girlfriend and her mother, who have just stopped by to chat with Laura and Andy at their table. This sets off a chain of events that unravel their lives and Laura’s many secrets.

In a recent interview, Emmy-winning television and film producer Papandrea, well-known for several novel-to-screen hits including Wild and Gone Girl, spoke about her love of Slaughter’s book and how she knew early on that she wasn’t the only one interested in its adaptation. She’d heard that Glatter also wanted to see it on the small screen.

Papandrea admittedly loves a good mystery and wanted to team up with Glatter for this one. “I knew together we’d be stronger. We both had a very strong reaction to the book early on.”

When we spoke, Papandrea was back in Australia where historic floods have left parts of the continent submerged. “It’s so eerie,” she said as the phone line crackled. She paused for a moment before getting back to Slaughter’s novel and how it captivated her. “Karin’s books are so good.”

Papandrea has specific taste when it comes to thrilling storytelling. In a past interview, she discussed the magic formula. “It’s all about creating sophisticated thrillers.” As with The Undoing, this story is centered around a woman attempting to maintain the facade of a picture-perfect life which crumbles under the pressure of all of her lies.

Under the banner of her production company Made Up Stories, Papandrea focuses on character-driven tales with female leads and Pieces of Her was an immediate must for her arsenal. “I knew I wanted to adapt this one within reading the first 20 pages. You’re like, ‘What the f**k is happening here?’ and it draws you in immediately,” she reflects. “I’m fascinated with stories of identity and of people who are not who they seem to be. This one also has that complex mother-daughter relationship at its heart. It’s just a great mystery.”

This story brings to mind the old adage: Wherever you go, there you are. “Can you really start a new life?” Papandrea asks. “Your past is always a part of you. In this particular story, different characters know different secrets and there’s the past versus the present. It’s a very complex narrative and the viewer has to put the puzzle pieces together. I’m very excited about people unraveling it.”

Per Spiro, who directed all eight episodes, putting characters in a traumatic situation and seeing how they react in the moment intrigued her. “It’s a fascinating study of the human psyche. Combine that with a nail-biting thriller with women at the heart of it and I’m in! The opportunity to direct the entire season of a new show is a ridiculously exciting prospect. And when I knew Bruna Papandrea was at the helm, it became a no-brainer.” 

As for the attempt at escaping the past, Spiro concurs it’s an impossibility. “We can’t escape our past, no matter how hard we try. Even when we think we’ve successfully buried those secrets and lies, they still somehow rear their ugly heads.”

Papandrea regularly works alongside David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman on projects (such as Nine Perfect Strangers) to bring bestsellers to the screen. Her instincts are sharp and she and her team often option books pre-publication.

“We look for distinctive writing. Show me a world I don’t know. I go for the character before the plot. I wouldn’t make a thriller that wasn’t character-driven and I’m drawn to genre-bending stories. There has to be substance but it’s always the writing that pulls me in. I need to be entranced by the storytelling and I also ask if I’ve seen it before. It’s important to us that each book thrives on its own, which creates a real appetite for people to watch. We also hope these books get a new rejuvenation and energy from the shows, as well.”

As for Pieces of Her, Papandrea always wanted to work with Collette. “It was a big thrill for me to finally work with Toni. Even without saying a word, her face tells so much. You have to be an extraordinary actor to pull that off.” 

Starring alongside Collette (Unbelievable) and Heathcote (Relic) are Jessica Barden (The End of the F***ing World), Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys for Life), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones), Aaron Jeffery (Underbelly), Omari Hardwick (Power), Gil Birmingham (Yellowstone), David Wenham (Lion), Calum Worthy (The Act), Nicholas Burton (Damaged) and Terry O’Quinn (Patriot).

Up next for Papandrea is the six-episode Netflix psychological thriller Anatomy of a Scandal, based on Sarah Vaughan’s bestselling novel of the same name. She’s also excited about her first-ever anthology coming to Apple TV+ entitled Roar. The eight-episode series is based on a book of short stories by Cecelia Ahern and is an all-female project that was directed and written by women with female characters at the center. I suppose you can say she’s competing with herself here as both series premiere on April 15.

If her storytelling secret was a recipe, there would be a magic ingredient. “It’s all about maintaining tension,” she says of both upcoming thrillers. “What can I say? This type of storytelling is something I as a viewer cannot get enough of.” 

Neither can we. Please, keep them coming.