The process of turning Laura Lippman’s 2019 novel into an Apple TV+ limited series began more than three years ago and involves the series’ late executive producer, Jean-Marc Vallée, who . Vallée and producing partner Nathan Ross had read the book, with Ross checking it out quickly after its release thanks to a . Ross told Vallée about the novel, quickly thinking of for the role of Maddie Schwartz, and Vallée wanted Alma Har’el for the project due to her work on the film , Shia LaBeouf’s semiautobiographical drama.
Portman too saw and was impressed by . “Jean-Marc and Nathan brought me the book and told me that I should work with Alma, that she was so incredibly talented, and when I saw I was blown away by her vision, her visual prowess, her character work and I saw that she was just a force to be reckoned with,” Portman told at ‘s New York premiere last month. Ross added to of Har’el, “I was familiar with a doc or two of hers and Jean-Marc was really like, ‘We have to work with this person,’ so he made the initial push for Alma, and then it was up to me to figure it out while he was busy writing and I was busy with producorial things.
” Vallée died during the writing of the show, with Ross recalling how one of the last parts of the project they worked on together was discussing cinematographers, but “his spirit stayed with the project from beginning to end,” Ross said, with Vallée receiving an executive producer credit on the series. �.