Thirty-five years after David Cronenberg’s “Dead Ringers” made a pioneering splash in the body horror film genre, Prime Video’s new Rachel Weisz-led series is anything but a “straight remake.”
“It’s such an incredible iconic film, and we never wanted to do a straight remake, or anything other than really just pay homage, but also find our own storyline,” creator Alice Birch told TheWrap. “It’s really all about the twins.”
The thriller series follows Elliot and Beverly Mantle — twins played by Weisz with the same name as the leads in the 1988 flick — whose co-dependence seeps into virtually each segment of their life. In the film, the twins played by Jeremy Irons worked as gynecologists; Weisz’s Beverly and Elliot work as obstetricians.
The more reserved Beverly is content with delivering babies as she tries for her own, while Elliot is focused on pushing the boundaries of maternal health into unethical territory. Similar to its predecessor, the twins’ intimately intertwined relationship blurs lines of privacy and possession, as Beverly’s involvement with a patient grows into a threat to the sisters’ status quo.
“The main arc of the story, in terms of the love story, shares a through line, at first, with the film — that there’s a patient that comes between the twins and threatens to disrupt that codependency,” Weisz told TheWrap. “I think a lot changed when our [lead] doctors became obstetricians … as soon as you have doctors who are bringing babies into the world that opens up a multitude of storylines.”
Though the series nods to Irons’ iconic role, the all-female writers’ room, which included Weisz, unveiled a new element of horror by exposing a myriad of issues stemming from the medical system plaguing women and birth-givers.
“In ours, the system and the way the system can be abused is part of the horror,” added Jennifer Ehle, who plays Rebecca, a wealthy businesswoman who considers funding Elliot and Beverly’s new birthing center.
As the writers’ room started exploring the world of maternal health, a plethora of stories began presenting themselves to Weisz and Birch, so much so that the writers were forced to leave some stories of mothers and patients out of the series despite their best efforts to include a wide variety of real-life experiences in the series.
“Having it be written and played by women just naturally, automatically changes things, especially because in the original, it’s men doing things to women,” said Emily Meade, who plays Rebecca’s partner in the series. “In this, it’s women and other women; some objectifying, some trying to take care of — all the different layers of how women can be and how they can engage.”
As Weisz took on the roles of both Elliot and Beverly, a fair share of movie magic was needed during scenes featuring both twins, which translated into Ehle and Meade speaking to Weisz as one twin in one version of the scene. After Weisz arrived back on set as the other twin after a hair, makeup and costume change, Ehle, Meade and other actors in the scene would hear the prior take’s audio via ear wigs, and mime their previous actions and dialogue as they filmed the same scene with Weisz performing as the other twin.
“[Rachel] literally would just switch clothes and go back and forth and had I don’t even know how many pages of dialogue, and have completely distinctive characters that she never wavered or faltered or [that] she never got confused,” Meade said. “On the technical side, it was very bizarre and fascinating. It definitely made things take longer, but it also allowed us to do things more and grow the scene.”
“Dead Ringers” is now streaming on Prime Video.
