“Dead Ringers” – Rachel Weisz and Alice Birch on New Reimagining and Honoring David Cronenberg [Interview]

Prime Video has birthed a new vision of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers, with executive producer Rachel Weisz starring in the dual role of Beverly and Elliot Mantle. 

Available now, the limited series is created, written, and executive produced by Emmy-nominated writer and playwright Alice Birch (Lady Macbeth, The Wonder).

The series follows the Mantle twins, who share everything: drugs, lovers, and an unapologetic desire to do whatever it takes—including pushing the boundaries of medical ethics—in an effort to challenge antiquated practices and bring women’s health care to the forefront. 

For the series release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with Alice Birch and Rachel Weisz about reimagining Dead Ringers while paying tribute to Cronenberg and more.

“Dead Ringers” forges its own path while maintaining constant visual cues and Easter eggs that ensure Cronenberg’s work is never forgotten.

Birch shares the tricky challenge of finding a balance. She tells us, “Yeah, it was hard. I mean, the film is so iconic. It’s so extraordinary and its own thing. And it was, ‘How much do we steal from it? How much do we borrow? How much do we pay homage?’ Then also, ‘How are we going to tell our own story with these new twins? And set it today and have its own kind of life.’ So it was a delicate balance.”

Photo Credit: Amazon Studios

Beverly and Elliot couldn’t be further apart in personality, yet their codependency makes them feel like complementary halves. The answer was simple when asked if Weisz felt that way about them and if she found herself drawn to one character over the other.

Weisz responds, “I think that’s a really interesting way of seeing them, how you see them. I didn’t see them like that. I saw them as two completely distinct human beings that Alice had drawn on the page. With different psychological needs, different desires, different work ethics, and dreams in their work. But who are completely codependent on the other. Whoever I was with, I fully gravitated toward them. And then, when I was the other, I gravitated toward her. Yeah. I didn’t have a favorite. Also, as I guess you were alluding to, they somehow don’t exist without the other. So yeah, they were just both always in conversation with each other.”

Birch’s series doesn’t just wring palpable tension from one uncomfortable dinner scene, but multiple.

The series creator explains, “I love writing a dinner scene. I think maybe I’m just hungry, but it’s just so fun. It’s that process where everybody sits down to eat together; I think people come to that with hope, and then the things going wrong in that space and lots of characters and sort of lots of dialogue. That’s my favorite kind of scene to write. I think they’re always complicated to shoot anyway; when you have an actor playing two parts, incredibly complicated. So, I’m not sure that they were the crew’s favorite those days, but they were a lot of fun.”

Weisz adds, “Yeah. Technically challenging, but just very like bananas. They’re bananas to shoot. A lot of fun. The fact that Alice can write on the page and have ten characters all talking to each other at the same time and keep all those balls up in the air, it’s pretty staggering. And I guess you get more drama with more people stuck around the table together. When things go wrong between them, it’s very entertaining. I mean awful as well, of course. I mean, bloody disgusting.”

Photo Credit: Amazon Studios

“Dead Ringers” builds its drama and horror around the Mantle twins’ desire to radicalize women’s healthcare, specifically regarding birth.

Birch reflects on why horror is a perfect vehicle to explore these ideas: “That’s a great question. I mean, there is a lot about the current state of maternal healthcare that is horrifying. We wanted to begin the show in a really grounded place. And meet patients who feel real, are coming in with real dilemmas, and are often hitting difficulties because of the system. Because the structures just aren’t in place to support women. It’s such an individual experience for every woman. So that came pretty easily in terms of the imagined civil exercise and then the writing. Then what was more difficult or more challenging, but a lot of fun, was that these, our twins, have a huge ambition to change that and to imagine something new.

“Those days in the writer’s room were sort of heady and a bit complicated. What’s female architecture? How do you make something that’s bespoke to each woman? How is it also accessible and inclusive? How is it not just about money? Those were complicated but really wonderful conversations.”

You can watch all six episodes of “Dead Ringers” on Prime Video now.

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