Wilderness creator Marnie Dickens and director So Yong Kim speak to Yahoo UK about their Prime Video drama, which stars Jenna Coleman as a woman plotting to kill her cheating husband.
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00:00 Think how jealous your colleagues are going to be?
00:03 Wilderness stars Jenna Coleman and it's about a woman named Liv who discovers that her husband
00:08 Will is cheating on her and has been doing so for quite some time.
00:12 So she decides to hatch a plot to kill him and get away with it.
00:15 I think we're really uncomfortable with women being angry and expressing it.
00:19 Like since you're a kid you're told as a girl to be quiet and be good and you see boys'
00:23 behaviour treated in a completely different way.
00:26 So it felt like a very deliberate thing that we were tackling, didn't it?
00:29 Addressing female rage.
00:32 And I think there's a sense of shame with hysteria, especially with women, and it's
00:37 codified in a way that is kind of buried deep underneath in our society.
00:46 And I think it was really important for us to show that women could be vulnerable and
00:51 also filled with anger and rage because we're human.
00:56 So yeah, I think that's a great theme to discover and go on a journey with Liv.
01:01 What's her name?
01:04 Jenna was…
01:05 I mean I was not super familiar with her work but I saw The Cry which was incredible.
01:14 And what's that other…
01:15 The Serpent.
01:16 Oh, the sci-fi.
01:17 Oh, Doctor Who.
01:18 Doctor Who.
01:19 Doctor Who.
01:20 Doctor Who, of course.
01:22 I knew about that show but I saw The Serpent and I was amazed by her work.
01:30 So we got on the Zoom and I think Jenna is just so personable in one way and on the other
01:39 hand on set she's just so dedicated and focused.
01:44 She's an incredible talent.
01:47 I'm just awed.
01:49 I was awed by her work essentially.
01:53 We were very lucky.
01:54 She was top of the list.
01:56 Liz Kilgareff, our fellow executive producer, had worked with her before on The Cry and
02:01 just was singing her praises.
02:03 Obviously as a native Brit I've seen most of her output and loved her.
02:08 And then it's about with all these things like going on a wing and a prayer and hoping
02:12 that she responded to the scripts which fortunately she did.
02:15 She had, they were all six scripts written before we brought the cast on.
02:21 So yeah, I said I had a Zoom conversation.
02:23 I think you had quite an early call with her from LA.
02:28 So then it's just discussing the themes, checking that you're all aligned in what you want to
02:31 be portraying and then boom, you get her.
02:36 Are you planning on holding it over me for the rest of my life?
02:40 No, I think you've got off pretty lightly actually.
02:41 I came here, didn't I?
02:42 I gave us a second chance.
02:43 You never once let me forget it.
02:46 Yes, the accent comes from the book.
02:47 So Bev, the writer of the original book, is Welsh and the character was Welsh and in the
02:53 scripts the character was Welsh and it felt like it did add an extra dimension of otherness
02:58 to this young woman over in New York and within her and Will's relationship.
03:04 But at the same time, you know, when you're lucky enough when Jenna Coleman says yes,
03:07 you say okay, well, you know, it's up to you.
03:09 Like Bev's been really fantastic as a collaborator.
03:12 So it could have changed if we wanted it to change.
03:15 But Jenna is such a sort of truthful performer, I'd say, that she wants to do, you know, she
03:19 wants to honour the original intention.
03:21 And then for her, as with, I mean, I don't want to speak to her craft, but she is just
03:25 so dedicated in what she does.
03:27 She just goes about putting in the hours.
03:28 So she had a brilliant voice coach, Racheen, and they worked together a huge amount before
03:34 the show began and then during the show.
03:37 So it really is just hard work and dedication to her craft, I'd say.
03:42 She also had recordings of certain dialogue, like lines that she listened to before we
03:48 shot.
03:49 So she would check in with her voice coach in the morning before she got on set and before
03:54 the scenes, she would listen to it again.
03:56 It was quite rigorous for her.
04:00 What's your worst fear?
04:03 So Liz, the aforementioned Liz Kilgariff, our fellow executive producer, I was working
04:07 with her.
04:08 I'd worked with her before on 13 and Gold Digger and she said, you know, she literally
04:12 handed me the book and said, "I've read this book.
04:14 Don't ask me any more questions.
04:15 Just go up to this dark room."
04:16 I don't know why it was such a dark room.
04:17 She pointed me to a dark room and said, "You can't leave this dark room until you have
04:21 finished the book."
04:23 And I really did read it in one go, not least because I had been sort of forbidden from
04:27 leaving.
04:29 And A, of course, I was drawn in by the very twisty, turny, plottiness of it.
04:35 But actually the thing that excited me, apart from the amazing show-stopping locations that
04:39 Bedford chosen for the characters to visit, was this chance to tell a relationship drama
04:45 but get it like instantly out of the domestic sphere.
04:48 So you're just turbocharging something and it gets natural stakes.
04:53 So those were the things that initially brought me in.
04:56 And it had to have, I mean, personally, I always want it to have a female protagonist.
05:00 So obviously it did with Liv and I knew I could build out the things I wanted to build
05:03 out with her character.
05:06 The biggest challenge, I think, in adaptation, of course, there's always things that work
05:10 brilliantly on page that just won't translate to a visual medium, however brilliant so is.
05:16 I think the hardest challenge, and if we've succeeded in pulling it off, it's actually
05:20 much more thanks to So and Jenna than it is to me, is staying with Liv.
05:25 She goes on a huge journey.
05:27 She does some really questionable things across the whole series, things that are really hard
05:32 to come back from.
05:34 And it's not that you need to be cheering her on every second, but as long as you are
05:38 understanding why she's doing what she's doing, then I think we've overcome the challenge
05:43 of the adaptation.
05:44 And that is, there's something so nuanced about her performance and the amazing camera
05:50 work.
05:51 You really do feel like you're sat on her shoulder.
05:53 So there's never really a moment, I think, to stand outside and question her too much.
05:58 But I mean, that's from my perspective.
06:02 But that's my personal biggest challenge.
06:05 It's not that I find female characters doing unlikable things tough.
06:09 That's where I'm excited to be.
06:11 But it's just treading that line so that we never just sort of appalled and step away
06:15 from her.
06:16 You can't not do something just because you're scared of it.
06:24 Yeah, I think from the beginning, Marnie and I were on the same page about how we wanted
06:29 to approach this journey for Liv.
06:34 In many ways, because we are walking this fine line between right and wrong, and we
06:41 didn't want to get on this, "Oh, we're on the right side or the wrong side."
06:47 So we wanted to be with her constantly and take the point of view of this experiential
06:53 take on each of the scenes.
06:57 I don't know, I think working with Kat Westergaard, our DP, we came together to this point of
07:04 view of intimacy, as well as expansive settings that we are putting our characters in.
07:10 And it was really trying to focus on emotional journey for Liv.
07:23 These gendered notions of the other woman and the Scarlet Woman, all of it is just so…
07:28 You just don't have the equivalent.
07:30 There is no "the other man."
07:31 It's very rare to have that sort of debate.
07:34 And it's always the other woman, it's her fault.
07:36 She's lured somebody away.
07:38 Not really sort of interrogating the relationship and why it's founded and why the man might
07:43 have cheated in this example.
07:45 So it's not that we don't…
07:47 We definitely have fun with that.
07:48 I think at the beginning you think, "Oh, we are going down that kind of more fun, cliched
07:54 route of, 'Oh, she's getting obsessed with this other woman.'"
07:57 And it's got little hints of kind of those brilliantly fun '90s, like, basic, instinct,
08:03 fatal attractions.
08:04 We do lean into the stereotype.
08:06 And then what we tried to do, I hope, and the performances are so strong, is explode
08:11 that.
08:12 Because the truth is, once you get to know each other, you're realizing you're just
08:15 messy individuals, and in this case, both ill-used by this man.
08:19 And there is always, I think, much more common ground between women than we realize.
08:24 But we have been, sorry to say, but by the patriarchy pitted against each other.
08:28 So this felt a really important corrective to that narrative.
08:31 You need help.
08:32 Proper professional help.
08:33 I hope the viewers will watch Liv with a lot of empathy.
08:44 Empathy.
08:45 And connection, in a way.
08:47 And open-mindedness.
08:48 That's my hope.
08:50 Yes.
08:51 And realize, like, I don't think we're ever that far away from these big decisions that
08:55 she makes.
08:56 I think, like, this, that's what So mentioned earlier, like, this primitive, rageful side
09:01 to women, which we've always been told not to express, is there.
09:04 And the more we're told not to express it, the more it kind of tinderboxes out.
09:07 So I think by the end of the, I personally end the series with her and on her side.
09:14 So I hope viewers do, too.
09:16 [laughs]
09:17 [silence]
09:17 [end of transcript]