Jonathan Levine admits that he’s typically known for directing comedy features. However, when you watch his new limited TV series, “Nine Perfect Strangers,” you are going to see the filmmaker spread his wings a bit more by taking on his most ambitious project to date. And in this episode of The Playlist Podcast, Levine talks about taking on his first major TV gig for the Hulu series and why “Nine Perfect Strangers” was far from a simple story to tell.
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There’s a lot of buzz surrounding “Nine Perfect Strangers,” which is a series that follows a group of people brought together to attend a very mysterious and expensive wellness retreat led by a Russian woman named Masha. The series comes from the creator and writer of “Big Little Lies,” David E. Kelley, and has an all-star cast led by Nicole Kidman, as well as folks such as Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Shannon, Regina Hall, Samara Weaving, Luke Evans, and more.
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“Nine Perfect Strangers” marks the first real TV gig for Jonathan Levine, who is probably best known for his features such as “Warm Bodies,” “50/50,” and his most recent film, “The Long Shot.” In the interview, we discuss quite a bit why there’s a big difference between his previous projects and “Nine Perfect Strangers,” other than the medium you watch it on. For Levine, the Hulu series presented him with something of a major tonal challenge, conveying humor, mystery, suspense, and drama within the opening minutes of the series.
“I did really look at it as a horror movie,” said Levine and the opening of “Nine Perfect Strangers.” “I looked at it like the beginning of a horror movie, and all of these people are going to, basically, a haunted house. You’re establishing them, but you’re also establishing a layer of mystery, so then the audience can lean in.”
He added, “When you do it wrong, it’s a disaster. But the difference between wrong and right is SO minimal. [The tone] has to be very precisely calibrated.”
And one of the best resources Levine had on set helping him set the tone for the series is his lead, Nicole Kidman. He admits that he relied a lot on Kidman to help him navigate the tonal waters.
“Clearly, this tone is a big swing,” Levine explained. “She wasn’t afraid of it, and I was a little afraid of it. And she kinda held my hand and guided me to the point where I wasn’t afraid of it.”
He continued, “I trust her to find the truth in those moments. And I guess that’s what can take a big performance and make it feel grounded and real.”
Again, the filmmaker is making the transition from film to TV with “Nine Perfect Strangers,” but he’s just one of many feature directors that have tackled a limited series recently. And for Levine, it was a nice change of pace, working on a TV show and not stressing over the outside factors that come with making feature films.
“As a filmmaker, you put all your work into [a feature film], and it comes out, and in one weekend, if no one sees it, it’s considered a failure,” he said. “You’re reliant on this all-or-nothing situation…I was just coming off of ‘Long Shot,’ which was one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. And I just fucking loved it. And we came out the weekend after [‘Avengers: Endgame’]…and it definitely didn’t end on a positive note for me.”
Levine added, “There was a kind of safety doing [‘Nine Perfect Strangers’], that it could just live or die on its merits alone…In television, when you take a risk and do something outside of the box, that’s what people like. And in a movie, when you do that, you’re told not to because it doesn’t test well.”
In addition to “Nine Perfect Strangers,” the filmmaker talked a little bit about other projects such as his upcoming “Dirty Dancing” sequel as well as the story behind why he walked away from the “Spider-Man: Homecoming” director search even though he was one of the final people pitching.
“Nine Perfect Strangers” premiered this week on Hulu. You can hear our entire discussion below:
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