INTERVIEW: Rachel Weisz Breaks Down Beverly and Elliot on ‘Dead Ringers’

Dead Ringers gives us two Rachel Weisz’ for the price of a lot of babies. An adaptation of the David Cronenberg film from the 80s, the television series gender swaps the Mantle twins. Beverly and Elliot Mantle are gynecologists dedicated to protecting women’s health during childbirth and what we see in the first episode is their devotion to making a birthing center. It’s just about getting people on their side who will pay for it and also make it accessible to all those who need it.

While the series is a fascinating look at reproductive rights and an exploration of one’s own character, it also does feature two of Rachel Weisz. And that’s what we all want in our lives, right? For the premiere of the series, I was lucky enough to speak with the cast and Weisz and I had our own Rachel-ception as it were.

But I wanted to know about the approach she made for both Beverly and Elliot. Because sure, everyone was probable asking her about doing scenes with herself but the twins have these characteristics that define them. You can almost instantly tell when it is Beverly versus when it is Elliot and so I wanted to know whether or not she approached them in separate ways or how those reactions came to be. “The characters come first from the writing,” Weisz said.

“So I had these scripts from Alice (Birch) where the characters are so complicated and have so many layers to them and have so much psychological complexity in terms of their desire, their relationship to desire, their insecurities, or Elliot’s complete lack of insecurities. And then I went away and I just kind of imagined them both separately. They just had different centers of gravity and when I started to feel them, you know, they just, like Beverly was just much stiller, I suppose, and Elliot’s kind of easily bored and I think she’s just always kind of slightly just looking for the next meal or person to have sex with, or you know, Nobel prize winning idea to come up with or whatever it is. So I didn’t really work from the outside in. I didn’t like put a tick on top of them. They just happened from my imagination, which came from Alice’s writing.”

You can see our full conversation here:

Dead Ringers is on Prime Video and is a must-see. For Two Rachel Weiszs and because it’s just really good.

(Featured image: Prime Video)