Miss Flicks

Tobias Lindholm explains why Eddie Redmayne was perfect for The Good Nurse

In the new Netflix true crime thriller The Good Nurse, Eddie Redmayne plays Charles ‘Charlie’ Cullen, who is believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers ever. The story is told through the eyes of his friend and colleague Amy Loughren, played by Jessica Chastain.

It seemed like an odd piece of casting to me since Redmayne usually plays nice characters on screen so I made sure to ask director Tobias Lindholm about this when Miss Flicks caught up with him for a chat. Here’s the full conversation:

I was speaking to Krysty (Wilson-Cairns, screenwriter) just now and she said you’ve been working on this for years. How did Krysty bring it to you in the first place and how did it take so long to happen?

Well, I decided never to make any American film and then I read the screenplay called The Good Nurse. I thought well maybe I should anyway. So I called her right away, we talked about the story and I think the path that Krysty had created already, a path of celebrating Amy’s goodness and not being fascinated by Charlie’s darkness, really spoke to me so that was the job I had. We started slowly, I from Copenhagen, she from London – or maybe she actually lived in Scotland back then, I don’t remember. We would connect online and have conversations every day about the story for years and here we are.

In my mind, Eddie is the nicest guy ever, so what was it about him that made him right for this serial killer role?

As I understood from Amy, when she met Charlie, he was the nicest guy ever so in that way Eddie was perfect. Now for me and especially for Eddie, the job was how do we make the transition into the darkness as the movie unfolds.

What is most special and interesting about Jessica’s performance here?

Let me be honest, Zero Dark Thirty was the first film I ever bought two tickets to – I saw the 3pm show and I saw the 5pm show – basically because Jessica is so stunningly good. There are big movie stars and there are big actors and once in a while, (it’s) very rare, that’s one person and that’s Jessica. On this, she brought a calmness, a coolness and a humanity to the set that I couldn’t have expected. She was so honest and so brilliant and so compassionate in her search for truth in every scene and that was all I could ask for.

The Good Nurse is on Netflix from Wednesday 26th October. Here’s my review, my interview with Wilson-Cairns and highlights from the cast’s Q&A at LFF.