The twins at the focus of the horrifying plot in the new TV series have had their genders switched, which is likely one significant alteration that fans of the cult original Dead Ringers from the 1980s have noticed.
In David Cronenberg’s psychological suspenseful 1988 film Elliot and Beverly Mantle, Jeremy Irons played identical twin gynaecologists.
However, Rachel Weisz portrays the couple this time around, and they share everything from drugs and boyfriends to an unrepentant drive to go to any lengths to accomplish their objectives.
In order to question outdated practises and advance the treatment of women, this means stretching the limits of medical ethics.
They encounter several psychological games along the road, as well as some graphic childbirth scenes that are not for the faint of heart.
For those who are familiar with the film’s climactic surprise, it returns at the end of the six-part series with an incredible resolution to the twins’ tug-of-war.
The twins would now be women, according to screenwriter Alice Birch, who previously worked on the adaptations of Sally Rooney’s novels Normal People and Conversation with Friends. She also serves as the project’s executive producer.
‘That was just a given because the project started with Rachel,’ she said.
‘I think she had been a fan of the film a long time and had thought about a gender swapped version and she wanted to play both parts.
‘It was just a fact from the beginning we would be creating these new doctors who were women.’
While the reserved Beverly is the more idealistic of the two and envisions opening maternity facilities where all women, regardless of origin or money, will get individualised maternal care, Elliot is much more rash and crosses moral lines in order to do field research.
‘I think it is so singular and like nothing else. It has the most crazy tone and I had never seen anything like it,’ Birch added.
‘It was also this central relationship between these dangerously co-dependent twins [that captivated me] and it was about trying to tell a thriller, but also a love story.’
Birch and actor Britne Oldford, who portrays Genevieve, a customer who develops a romantic interest for one of the twins, in Skins, American Horror Story: Asylum, and The Umbrella Academy, both claimed that they didn’t see any hesitation on Weisz’s part when she switched between portraying the two roles.
‘It was amazing and masterful and fun [to watch her],’ Oldford said.
‘When in scenes with her, it was amazing to observe, and I learnt a lot from it.’
When asked if Weisz had ever been nervous about portraying such sinister personas at the same time, they continued without pausing.
‘No,’ they answered in tandem.
‘It was such a mammoth task between the cast and crew,’ Birch continued.
‘It was a big machine and she would go into hair and make-up and pragmatism of the task helped.
‘But I remember the first read- through we did was over Zoom and that was when she did both parts…and was amazing.’
Dead Ringers, a film by Sean Durkin, Lauren Wolkstein, and Karyn Kusama, also features Michael Chernus, Poppy Liu, Jeremy Shamos, Jennifer Ehle, and Emily Meade.
Dead Ringers is now streaming on Prime Video.
Source My Celebrity Life.