Miss Flicks

Krysty Wilson-Cairns didn’t want to glamourise Charles Cullen in The Good Nurse

Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns has established a name for herself in the past few years with co-writing credits on 1917 and Last Night in Soho, and she now brings us her first solo feature writing credit, The Good Nurse.

The other two may have come out first, but The Good Nurse was one of Wilson-Cairns’ first projects and she spent around 10 years working on it. She met with Amy Loughren – the real nurse portrayed by Jessica Chastain – and used Charles Graeber’s non-fiction book to tell the story of serial killer Charles Cullen, played by Eddie Redmayne.

In an interview with Miss Flicks at the London Film Festival, Wilson-Cairns explained why the film took so long to make and why she flipped Graeber’s book to focus on Amy rather than Charles.

1917 and Last Night in Soho came out first but this was one of your first scripts way back. How did it take so long?

Well, sometimes films just take a decade I guess! It took so long because it’s a very complicated story, because, I suppose, we were waiting for the right cast and the right director. I think things happen for a reason. Tobias (Lindholm) came on board and everything started to work.

Were you involved with the director and deciding who was cast?

Yeah, I mean, Tobias is a fantastic collaborator so I was very lucky I was on set. Tobias and I worked really intensely – him in Denmark and me in England – for about three years, we’d never met each other but we Zoomed every week or so, and Skype. We had a long working relationship to do with this film and when it finally came time for us to shoot it, he took that forward and I was so privileged… I love going on set.

You must have been thrilled when Eddie and Jessica came on board.

Yeah, Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, Oscar winner Jessica Chastain, yeah that’s awful! No, as a screenwriter, you dream of that cast. You know, you say a little prayer to all the gods for that cast and I think because of Tobias, because of the smart producers, we landed them and it’s really fantastic.

Were you in touch with the real Amy when you wrote your screenplay?

I was. I actually was in touch with her before I started writing so I met her during my research phase, which will be like 10 years ago. I’ve been in touch with her for the last 10 years. I count her as a friend and also I think she’s probably one of the women I most admire in the world.

It’s amazing she’s here with you all tonight.

I know, we just grabbed each other and said, ‘Do you remember we talked about this 10 years ago?’

In the book you based this on, the focus is on Charles Cullen rather than Amy, what made you flip that focus on her and narrow the timeframe?

The book takes place over Charles Cullen’s whole life and it’s meticulously researched. It’s a fantastic book, it’s the reason I wanted to do the project actually. Charles Graeber gave me access to all his research. I wasn’t quite sure how to tell the story as I started to read the book because I don’t want to have a serial killer be a lead because then it glamorises it. I don’t like what that does to the victims. So I was reading kind of thinking, ‘How do you tell this story?’ and then in the last third of the book you hit Amy and then I was like, ‘Of course.’

The Good Nurse is in selected cinemas now and on Netflix from Wednesday 26th October. Here’s my review, my interview with director Tobias Lindholm and highlights from the cast’s Q&A at LFF.