Entertainment
How Eddie Redmayne’s ‘disturbing’ scenes were crafted for The Good Nurse: ‘A simple action can frighten’-Sab Astley-Entertainment – Metro
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Krysty Wilson-Cairns is certainly one of the hottest screenwriters working right now.
The Oscar-nominated Scot has collaborated with the likes of Sam Mendes as well as Edgar Wright and is currently penning crime series The Mastermind, produced by the Russo Brothers themselves, alongside a new adventure in the Star Wars world with Taika Waititi.
Right now, her latest, The Good Nurse, is hitting screens, and with the UK premiere taking place at London Film Festival, Metro.co.uk joined the screenwriter at The Corinthia Hotel to discuss the long development process of the crime thriller and how real-life Good Nurse Amy Loughren is a superhero to her.
The film is based on the true story of Charles Cullen – who confessed to killing 40 patients while working at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania – and sees a gloomy hospital ICU plagued by a mysterious increase of deaths following the arrival of a charming nurse called Charlie (played by Eddie Redmayne).
We meet his fellow night shift colleague, Amy (Jessica Chastain), who is unwilling to believe her new friend Charlie is behind these deaths, but as a struggling single mum, who also has a heart condition that means she could drop dead at any moment when stressed, Amy has a lot on her plate.
As Wilson-Cairns explains, though, there was a time this tense nail-biter may not have seen the light of day.
‘There was a fair while where I thought it wasn’t going to happen,’ Wilson-Cairns explains, ‘considering I started the script back in 2013.’
Wilson-Cairns started the script for The Good Nurse in 2013 (Picture: Arturo Holmes/WireImage)
Jessica Chastain portrays ‘good nurse’ Amy Loughren (Picture: JoJo Whilden / Netflix)
The Good Nurse is technically the screenwriter’s first-ever feature script as the project originated almost nine years ago – a development process that had a great kickstart from Darren Aronofsky producing that gradually slowed as time went on, alongside a transition from Lionsgate to Netflix as just some of the many complications.
Despite Charles Cullen’s moniker as ‘America’s most prolific serial killer’, Wilson-Cairns mentions that even those who worked with Cullen weren’t aware – and despite being a self-confessed buff of the macabre, she admits that somehow this story even escaped her own fascinations with individuals like Cullen.
Eddie Redmayne is the charming new nurse, Charlie (Picture: JoJo Whilden/Netflix via AP)
In crafting scenes between Redmayne and Chastain, Wilson-Cairns script called for little dialogue (Picture: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Netflix)
She notes: ‘It’s not a widely known story, even to me who has a macabre interest in things like this – my agent’s father actually worked in one of the hospitals and didn’t even know about it.’
The Good Nurse is an adaptation of the Charles Graeber book of the same name, which gave Wilson-Cairns both a deep insight into the possible psychology of Cullen, but also whose point of view resonated most with her.
Wilson-Cairns met collaborator Sam Mendes on series Penny Dreadful (Picture: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for Entone)
‘Charles Graeber’s excellent book canvasses the whole of Charlie Cullen’s life, and Amy’s only really in it for the last third,’ she says. ‘But it was important to me that we uncover this story through her eyes.’
The screenwriter perceived Loughren as a real-life superhero, forced to step up after realising the hospital industrial complex is more interested in insulating itself at the cost of those it supposedly cares for, saying: ‘There aren’t as many real-life heroes on screen as there once were – there’s a lot of billionaires and bat-suits; I don’t know about you, but I’m not a billionaire and I certainly don’t own a bat suit.’
The story of how Loughren was instrumental in capturing Cullen didn’t emerge until long after he had been apprehended in 2013 – in a way, it was as though she had a secret identity that finally emerged: The Good Nurse.
Wilson-Cairns is no stranger to the genre given her Penny Dreadful and Last Night in Soho background – her key to what creates an effectively disturbing scene is simple.
‘To me, writing a disturbing or unsettling scene is about the context around it,’ she says. ‘There’s certain scenes in The Good Nurse where if you went in cold, it feels almost mundane – but because we know why each person in that scene is doing what they’re doing, it’s really quite chilling.’
Likewise, there’s a rhythm to many horrors and where to place that punctuating moment that finally shatters the tension, and makes the audience come alive. Sometimes, it’s as simple as someone slamming their hand on a table.
Wilson-Cairns explains: ‘That takes four-or-five redrafts of the script to really understand where to place that, and even during rehearsals we were refining it – when you have Oscar winners like Eddie and Jessica, you realise you don’t need pages of dialogue, a simple action can frighten the audience into reacting.’
One of her most ambitious projects is undeniably her upcoming Star Wars project with Taika Waititi, now slated to debut in 2025 as the first new Star Wars feature in over five. years.
Of course, her NDAs have NDAS, but she’s having a lot of fun writing it.
What she does tell us: ‘I can’t say much about it at all, but it’s been so fun working with Taika on the script.
‘It’s super exciting to see our writing styles blend together – I really can’t say much more than that!’
The Good Nurse is in cinemas now and available on Netflix October 26.
MORE : What films are out this week: from My Policeman to the Banshees of Inisherin
MORE : Daniel Craig dazzles alongside Kate Hudson and Janelle Monáe at London Film Festival premiere for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Krysty Wilson-Cairns is certainly one of the hottest screenwriters working right now.
The Oscar-nominated Scot has collaborated with the likes of Sam Mendes as well as Edgar Wright and is currently penning crime series The Mastermind, produced by the Russo Brothers themselves, alongside a new adventure in the Star Wars world with Taika Waititi.
Right now, her latest, The Good Nurse, is hitting screens, and with the UK premiere taking place at London Film Festival, Metro.co.uk joined the screenwriter at The Corinthia Hotel to discuss the long development process of the crime thriller and how real-life Good Nurse Amy Loughren is a superhero to her.
The film is based on the true story of Charles Cullen – who confessed to killing 40 patients while working at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania – and sees a gloomy hospital ICU plagued by a mysterious increase of deaths following the arrival of a charming nurse called Charlie (played by Eddie Redmayne).
We meet his fellow night shift colleague, Amy (Jessica Chastain), who is unwilling to believe her new friend Charlie is behind these deaths, but as a struggling single mum, who also has a heart condition that means she could drop dead at any moment when stressed, Amy has a lot on her plate.
As Wilson-Cairns explains, though, there was a time this tense nail-biter may not have seen the light of day.
‘There was a fair while where I thought it wasn’t going to happen,’ Wilson-Cairns explains, ‘considering I started the script back in 2013.’
Wilson-Cairns started the script for The Good Nurse in 2013 (Picture: Arturo Holmes/WireImage)
Jessica Chastain portrays ‘good nurse’ Amy Loughren (Picture: JoJo Whilden / Netflix)
The Good Nurse is technically the screenwriter’s first-ever feature script as the project originated almost nine years ago – a development process that had a great kickstart from Darren Aronofsky producing that gradually slowed as time went on, alongside a transition from Lionsgate to Netflix as just some of the many complications.
Despite Charles Cullen’s moniker as ‘America’s most prolific serial killer’, Wilson-Cairns mentions that even those who worked with Cullen weren’t aware – and despite being a self-confessed buff of the macabre, she admits that somehow this story even escaped her own fascinations with individuals like Cullen.
Eddie Redmayne is the charming new nurse, Charlie (Picture: JoJo Whilden/Netflix via AP)
In crafting scenes between Redmayne and Chastain, Wilson-Cairns script called for little dialogue (Picture: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Netflix)
She notes: ‘It’s not a widely known story, even to me who has a macabre interest in things like this – my agent’s father actually worked in one of the hospitals and didn’t even know about it.’
The Good Nurse is an adaptation of the Charles Graeber book of the same name, which gave Wilson-Cairns both a deep insight into the possible psychology of Cullen, but also whose point of view resonated most with her.
Wilson-Cairns met collaborator Sam Mendes on series Penny Dreadful (Picture: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for Entone)
‘Charles Graeber’s excellent book canvasses the whole of Charlie Cullen’s life, and Amy’s only really in it for the last third,’ she says. ‘But it was important to me that we uncover this story through her eyes.’
The screenwriter perceived Loughren as a real-life superhero, forced to step up after realising the hospital industrial complex is more interested in insulating itself at the cost of those it supposedly cares for, saying: ‘There aren’t as many real-life heroes on screen as there once were – there’s a lot of billionaires and bat-suits; I don’t know about you, but I’m not a billionaire and I certainly don’t own a bat suit.’
The story of how Loughren was instrumental in capturing Cullen didn’t emerge until long after he had been apprehended in 2013 – in a way, it was as though she had a secret identity that finally emerged: The Good Nurse.
Wilson-Cairns is no stranger to the genre given her Penny Dreadful and Last Night in Soho background – her key to what creates an effectively disturbing scene is simple.
‘To me, writing a disturbing or unsettling scene is about the context around it,’ she says. ‘There’s certain scenes in The Good Nurse where if you went in cold, it feels almost mundane – but because we know why each person in that scene is doing what they’re doing, it’s really quite chilling.’
Likewise, there’s a rhythm to many horrors and where to place that punctuating moment that finally shatters the tension, and makes the audience come alive. Sometimes, it’s as simple as someone slamming their hand on a table.
Wilson-Cairns explains: ‘That takes four-or-five redrafts of the script to really understand where to place that, and even during rehearsals we were refining it – when you have Oscar winners like Eddie and Jessica, you realise you don’t need pages of dialogue, a simple action can frighten the audience into reacting.’
One of her most ambitious projects is undeniably her upcoming Star Wars project with Taika Waititi, now slated to debut in 2025 as the first new Star Wars feature in over five. years.
Of course, her NDAs have NDAS, but she’s having a lot of fun writing it.
What she does tell us: ‘I can’t say much about it at all, but it’s been so fun working with Taika on the script.
‘It’s super exciting to see our writing styles blend together – I really can’t say much more than that!’
The Good Nurse is in cinemas now and available on Netflix October 26.
MORE : What films are out this week: from My Policeman to the Banshees of Inisherin
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