Rachel Weisz's new Amazon Prime series Dead Ringers will have you seeing double. Photo / Amazon Prime
Rachel Weisz's new Amazon Prime series Dead Ringers will have you seeing double. Photo / Amazon Prime
Playing twins is no easy feat. In fact, one could call it a balancing act of sorts. At least, that’s how Rachel Weisz would describe it.
“It was like a high wire act. Well, two high wire acts, jumping from one high wire to the next,” the actress chuckled.
The Oscar award-winner delivers a two-for-the-price-of-one stellar performance, playing both Beverly and Elliot Mantle in the newly-released series Dead Ringers.
If the name rings a bell, it should.
Based on the 1988 psychological thriller of the same namesake, the series follows its twin protagonists as they navigate sex, drugs and breaking down barriers of women’s reproductive health - and it is just as chaotic as it sounds.
The Herald spoke to the series’ creator Alice Burch and the show’s leading lady (or ladies) Rachel Weisz on the reimagined 80s Cronenberg classic and seeing double on the set of the psychosexual drama.
Dead Ringers follows its twin protagonists as they navigate sex, drugs and breaking down barriers of women’s reproductive health - and it is just as chaotic as it sounds. Photo / Amazon Prime
A trapeze act, jumping from one high wire to another, Weisz seamlessly hops between the obstetrician twins - previously played by Jeremy Irons - throughout the series.
Elliot, a confident, sexually-charged doctor who, when not relentlessly fighting for her fertility centre, dabbles in both power play and illicit substances; and Beverly, the slightly-shyer of the two whose budding relationship with Genevieve, played by Britne Oldford, starts to cause the twins’ unsettling-yet-perfectly-balanced relationship to topple.
Playing two juxtaposing personalities for one film project might be a script too much for your average screen performer. But the experienced and undoubtedly-talented Weisz found it “exhilarating”.
The actress intricately conveyed the twins with all their individual flaws, impulses and quirks and brought to the screen a nuanced performance that made even the people in on the joke look twice.
Reflecting on her experience playing the show’s unequivocally diverse protagonists, Weisz’s Beverly and Elliot were an exciting feat for the actress.
Rachel Weisz described playing the two juxtaposing characters as 'exhilarating'. Photo / Amazon Prime
“I thought I’d love to play identical twin sisters who are in that kind of twisted, codependent world who are also professionally brilliant and at the top of their game. It seemed like a really rich terrain for drama.”
Not only the face - or shall I say faces - of the production, Weisz was in fact the driving force behind the reimagined 1988 classic.
“It was Rachel’s idea initially,” revealed the show’s creator Alice Burch. “Rachel was a fan of the Cronenberg film and took it to Anna Perner.”
Similarly to Weisz, Burch found the writing of the twins “exciting”.
“I just felt like there was a really incredible relationship at the centre of that story that had so much potential to play across a series. And I was a huge fan of Rachel’s as well. So the opportunity to kind of write two parts for her definitely felt exciting.”
To mark the show premiering in New Zealand on April 21, Weisz reflected on her time in Aotearoa and her favourite parts of filming in the “natural landscape”.
“Just the warmth and the kindness and the down to earth-ness of Kiwis. Just really great people.”
Dead Ringers is based on the 1988 psychological thriller of the same namesake. Photo / Amazon Prime
The actress gushed over her time spent in Dunedin and her trips to “beautiful” Queenstown.
“I went down to… I want to call it paradise, but is it actually called paradise? Heading towards Queenstown. In my mind it’s called paradise, because it just looks like a mythical mountainous landscape. But it probably has a better name that I can’t remember. But it’s so beautiful.”
Dead Ringers premieres on Amazon Prime on April 21.
