Seeing as it's based on a David Cronenberg movie, it should come as a surprise to no one that new Prime Video series Dead Ringers is, well... pretty bloody dark. But for creator Alice Birch and lead actor Rachel Weisz, it was "crucial" to showcase the sillier sides of its twin protagonists in the disturbing, twisty thriller.
Much like in the 1988 film, the show follows gynecologists Elliot and Beverly. Here, the sisters deal with pregnancy and baby-related issues too, which sees them strike up a complicated alliance with Rebecca Parker (Jennifer Ehle), the morally defunct tycoon responsible for a New York City-wide opioid crisis, to set up their own birthing center. When Beverly embarks on a romance with Genevieve (Britne Oldford), though, the duo's co-dependence becomes strained – and their Frankenstein-esque ambitions in their work find themselves pushed to madness and malpractice.
“All that came quite naturally," Birch, who wrote two of the six episodes, says of the sisters' unexpectedly playful relationship in an interview with 12DOVE. "I think that they are able to be – I mean, perhaps this can be debated as to whether it’s true for Beverly as she falls in love with Genevieve – but they are able to be their truest selves together, which can be quite infantile and silly. Also, I think we wanted to have so many different tones and traverse all different genres within the show and their silliness is really important."
"It was a crucial bit of color to the show for us," Weisz added. "When they're in their professional lives, they are fully adult and highly functioning. I mean, Elliot is a genius in terms of her science – whether it's ethical or not is a different discussion. Beverly is a brilliant doctor, so full of empathy and kindness but then, yeah, when they're alone together, they can become completely adolescent."
Plus, they simply had more time to explore the twins' dynamic. "The film is so iconic and so its own thing that we wanted space and a longer form to be able to tell their story in a new way," says Birch.
While Cronenberg's Beverly and Elliot, who were brought to life by Jeremy Irons, may not banter with one another quite so much in the movie, that's not to say they don't have fun. For Birch, in fact, it was one of the most essential parts of the story to carry over into her and Weisz's reimagining.
"What we wanted to retain from the film was the brilliance of these characters; we wanted these women to be absolutely at the top of their game, to be unapologetic, and to be having a really, really good time. That's what Jeremy Irons' character seems to be doing in the film until, well, you know, it all goes wrong," she laughs.
As far as differences between the old and new takes, however, Birch didn't give them much thought. "We knew them being women would change everything. It means that when they're coming into a room and there's a patient there, there's a different kind of shared understanding," she explains. "There's not that othering that happens in the Cronenberg film. But we never really consciously talked about how it would change things."
"When the decision was made to make them both obstetricians as well, and have them delivering babies and bringing them into the world, that changed a lot of things, too," Weisz chimed in. "It wasn't just fertility and gynecology, it was new life."
Dead Ringers premieres on Prime Video on April 21. If comedy-thrillers aren't your thing, check out our list of the best shows on Amazon Prime available to stream now for some viewing inspiration.
