Rachel Weisz doesn’t remember when she first saw David Cronenberg’s 1988 classic thriller “Dead Ringers.” But the tale of two identical twin gynecologists with a passion for the bizarre stuck with her. In fact, like many moviegoers who have seen it in the decades since, it haunted her. And from that passion came inspiration, a new episodic version of the story, but this time centered on two twin female gynecologists.
“I loved the kind of psychosexual, thriller, twisted, codependent relationship between these twins,” Weisz says. “And later on, when I was thinking about the material to perhaps develop to produce and act in, I was thinking about sisters, and I just thought, ‘Oh, would that be possible?’ And why not? My gynecologist and my obstetrician was a woman, so why not?”
Weisz and her production entity began developing this new incarnation, and soon, “Succession” and “Normal People” writer Alice Birch came on board. Writing began during the pandemic lockdown, where seven different women contributed to the series’ six-episode arc. And almost nothing was off the table when it came to twins Elliott and Beverly Mantle, played by Weisz, of course.
“In the original Jeremy Irons film, the Mantles are always having a lot of fun,” Weisz says. “They always have a martini glass in their hand. They’re always going to glamorous parties. So, it was important that the twins were enjoying themselves until they’re not. And then, of course, once they become obstetricians, not just fertility doctors, like in the original, they’re delivering children. And so they’ll be pregnant women and babies. And the whole area of maternal healthcare came into it.”
The new incarnation finds Weisz giving one of the finest performances of her career as both Elliott and Beverly, a pair of hospital-based doctors who dream of opening their own birthing center to provide the best care possible to expectant mothers. Unbeknownst to her twin, Elliott may also have unscrupulous and/or brilliant ideas for conceiving a fertilized egg outside of the womb. Beverly is the more empathetic of the two who cares for her patients and eventually finds some peace after becoming romantically involved with Genevieve (Britne Oldford), a well-known film and television actress. Looking over both their shoulders is Rebecca (Jennifer Ehle), a calculating billionaire who agrees to fund their birthing centers with little ethical oversight. As Genevieve and Beverly grow closer, Elliott becomes increasingly jealous of their relationship and begins to unravel in a decidedly dangerous manner. Things get so dark that the words “baby sister” may be somewhat triggering.
For Birch, the contemporary subject matter lent itself to a pool of compelling narratives. Misogyny, ageism, unethical medical practices, the power dynamics of the rich and powerful, women’s rights, corporate greed, racism, and of course, the love and jealousy between siblings.
“I hadn’t seen the film before it came my way,” Birch says. “I watched it, had my mind blown, watched it again, and felt like this central relationship had so much potential and was so interesting and so sort of tragic and funny and beautiful, and that we could get six hours of television out of it.”
Weisz gives Birch credit for writing two radically different characters in Elliott and Beverly. She explains, “Elliot is brilliant in getting her needs met. And she has a pretty fierce appetite for everything, career, breaking boundaries of science, sex, food. And she just is constantly hungry, and she has something, and then she goes on to the next thing. And she doesn’t have any qualms or conscience,c I suppose, about that. It’s just how she is. And Beverly is much more reserved and shy, and she has this very beautiful dream of changing the way that women birth, that she has this noble, grand idea of building a birthing center. And she has a really complicated relationship with pleasure. She would like to fall in love, and then she does with Genevieve for the first time in her life. And it’s difficult for her. It’s difficult for her to be in love and to leave her sister.”
The Oscar winner continues, “They’re just so codependent. Elliot can’t live without Beverly, and Beverly can’t really live without Elliot, even though she’d like to get away. So it’s a really twisted codependent psychological relationship, which is just for me really, in my opinion, really fascinating terrain for drama.”
A veteran of visual effects spectacles such as “The Mummy” franchise, the somehow forgotten “Oz the Great and Powerful” and, most recently, “Black Widow,” Weisz admits that, initially, playing two characters in so many of the same scenes was tougher than she expected.
“It was more of a challenge than I realized it would be. And then we all got really good at it,” Weisz notes. “The whole crew became good at hair, makeup, costume, lighting, props, set decoration, VFX, and motion control. I mean, there were so many elements in the change. It wasn’t just me. So I was massively supported by the crew, but first and foremost by the writing. So yeah, it became easy.”
“Dead Ringers” debuts on Prime Video on Friday.
