New Delhi: ‘Love and Death’ stars Elisabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons believe that while the overall process of playing a character remains the same, there is ‘added pressure’ when the story is based on true events.
The actor duo currently stars in the miniseries, which is based on the true story of Candy and Pat Montgomery and Betty and Allan Gore, two churchgoing couples enjoying their small-town Texas life until an extramarital affair leads somebody to pick up an axe.
Olsen, who plays Candy in the ‘HBO MAX Original’ series, said the weight of portraying a real person is apparent, but an actor has to let go to be able to perform freely.
“We have to abandon that weight and pressure or we will just feel stuck and too scared to make a choice. There’s also some imagining that we have to do when there’s a real person and when there’s not a real person. Your imagination is just what your job is without the fear of comparison,” the actor, known for the biographical drama ‘Kill Your Darlings’ and playing the superhero Scarlet Witch in ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’, told the top news agency.
It's important for actors to remember that ‘there’s another prism’, she said.
“The other prism is the script from the director’s point of view and we are trying to take up our lane to serve this other story. The other story isn’t necessarily also completely trying to tell every single person’s truth, yet it’s not really fully in our control anyway,” Olsen, 34, added.
Plemons, popular for his performances in ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’, echoed his ‘Love and Death’ co-star’s sentiment: “In a lot of ways, it’s the same. You’re still kind of creating a character based on your impression of what you have. It’s either just a script and you fill in the blanks and connect the dots in your mind and answer whatever questions you need to answer. With a true story, you just have more.”
Billed as a riveting crime drama, ‘Love and Death’ is an 80s-set series directed by Lesli Linka Glatter (‘Mad Men’ and ‘Homeland’) and written by David E Kelley of ‘Big Little Lies’ fame.