If you recall how invigorating it was to be swept away in such compelling true-crime dramas likeThe StaircaseandUnder the Banner Of Heaven, then set your sights onUnder the Bridge.The new Hulu miniseries starring Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & the Six) is based on author Rebecca Godfrey’s true-crime book about 14-year-old Reena Virk, who was found dead in 1997, eight days after she never returned home from a night out with friends.
Virk’s death, and the way this miniseries captures the events surrounding it, forces one to pause — the girl was surrounded and beaten by a group of teenagers. Vritika Gupta delivers a mesmerizing performance here as Reena in a masterful showcase that deals with race issues and the universal need for belonging. That the story arrives during Emmy nomination season is perfect timing as we expect to see multiple nominations for this miniseries.
CreatorQuinn Shephardand executive producerSamir Mehtawork wonders with the script and create a fully absorbing tale. In excerpts from this exclusive MovieWeb interview, the duo opened up about the production and how their main stars, Gladstone and Keough, unpacked the complexities of their characters and the story. Dive in.
Gladstone and Keough Inhabited the Roles perfectly
Under the Bridge
In addition to Gladstone and Keough, one of the most interesting things aboutUnder the Bridgeisits dynamic young cast.Euphoria’sJavon “Wanna” Walton delivers a powerful performance as Warren, a teen boy drawn into the dark web of drama fueled by Reena’s “friends,” Josephine (Chloe Guidry), Kelly (Izzy G), and Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow). These teens give police officer Cam and writer Rebecca much to ponder, but from different sides of an emotional coin — Cam wants the truth, and so does Rebecca, although she has ulterior motives.
EP Samir Mehta calls Gladstone and Keough “brilliant” inUnder the Bridge,adding:
“What’s really amazing about working with them is sometimes you can sit in a writer’s room, and you can come up with all these like hyper-academic, intellectual ideas, and they all make sense with a bunch of nerds in a room. Then you show up to set, and you have Lily and Riley, who are like just so smart, and they immediately just got all of it, and they can put it all on the screen and usually elevate it and give it even more juice than you ever thought was possible.”
He went on to say that sometimes, with actors, “you have to get them to the thing that you want somewhat in a circular way… you’re sort of like, ‘Oh, it’s kind of like this and you’re speaking in analogies. Whereas… it was such a direct path [with Lily and Riley]. They just understood exactly what was there and how to inhabit it so naturally, and they could just adjust with such subtlety and find layers and nuance that is just so much more than you can do. There’s an abstraction that happens when you lift off the words, and they inhabit that beautifully.”
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Finding the Right Tone and Theme
Gladstone and Keough play two very different characters in the series. However, they share a past childhood trauma, which the tragic events in present-day bring to the surface.That B story feedsinto the main story, which so effectively captures Reena Virk’s hunger to belong, all the while fighting her own Indian heritage. When asked about her intentions going into the story, creator Quinn Shephard noted that the pilot of the miniseries is entitledLooking Glass.The name Reena, the main character here, means looking glass. Shephard said she used the idea of holding up a mirror to something, or somebody, as a creative tool to effectively craft the story.
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“I think that, for me, the process of writing the show required a tremendous amount of self-reflection because the story touches on so many themes that are very deeply human, and a part of the human experience,” she said. “All of us who work on the show really had to kind of look at ourselves in the mirror as we were making it. For me, the goal is to ask our audiences to do the same — to grapple with their own sympathies and opinions about what unfolds, and ultimately to be really challenged to make their final decisions on their own rather than the show telling them.”
Everybody Knew How Important the Project Was
Between itscompelling true-crime elementsand standout performances from an all-star cast, which also features Archie Panjabi and Ezra Faroque Khan,Under the Bridgeis this season’s must-see. When asked about how the young stars handled the deep subject, and if they strived to bring justice to Reena Virk in some way, Quinn Shephard said:
“I think every single person who are who walked onto our set really recognized how important it was to honor Reena and to do our very best to do justice by her… especially the young cast. We were so astounded by their emotional maturity. They were all so well researched and really had thoughts and ideas about how they wanted to be a part of that, of honoring Reena.”
“It was definitely emotionally intense for everyone in different ways,” she added. “There was certainly a lot of tears on set, but there was also a lot of laughter. I mean, we both tried to keep the set as light as we could in between the heavy material, just so everyone would feel really comfortable…like kind of going through this journey together. Everyone sort of processed the pressure of portraying a real person differently, but we definitely tried as much as we could to be there and be vulnerable right alongside them so that they would always feel very supported.”
Overall, EP Samir Mehta wantsthe miniseries to spark thought. “I hope that it challenges what they thought a story like this could be,” he said.“And I hope that it inspires people to consider, not directly how they might be complicit in the crime obviously, but how we’re all somewhat complicit in building a world in which things like this can happen and how we’re also the same people who can build a world where it doesn’t.”Under the Bridgeis streaming on Hulu.
