Exploring Mental Health & Thrills in ‘Fatal Attraction’ Series | Watch

*Paramount+ has reimagined the iconic 1980s psychosexual thriller film, “Fatal Attraction,” as a new series.

Starring a talented cast including Lizzy Caplan, Joshua Jackson, Amanda Peet, Alyssa Jirrels, Toby Huss, Reno Wilson, and Brian Goodman, the series promises to captivate audiences with a modern approach to exploring timeless themes of marriage and infidelity while showcasing the complexities of strong women, personality disorders and coercive control.

Jirrels plays Ellen Gallagher, daughter of Dan and Beth (Jackson and Peet), while Huss portrays Mike Gerard, Dan’s loyal friend and the DA’s chief of investigations.

Wilson and Goodman bring their unique flair to the table as Detective Earl Booker and Arthur Tomlinson, Beth’s business partner, respectively. Alexandra Cunningham wrote the series in collaboration with Kevin J. Hynes.

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EUR talked with Wilson, Cunningham, and Hynes about dealing with modern themes of mental health in a series of this nature and Wilson’s role in the series.

On balancing creating a thriller and showing how a mental breakdown could contribute to some of the behaviors in the series, Cunningham shared, “it’s a fine line to walk, right? When you’re, when you’re telling people that what you’re trying to do is make someone struggling with mental health into as sympathetic and empathetic and relatable a character as possible within the framework of the kind of heightened storytelling that’s required. Not just from something with this source material, but anything called Fatal Attraction, right? There will be examples of behavior that is not indefensible, but well, maybe indefensible, but explainable. But that was the most complicated aspect of the story breaking in the storytelling. We’re trying to answer these questions and bring in these nuances while also many things are happening; people would say, Aren’t you just making the person with a mental health struggle the villain again? That’s very complicated and has a high degree of difficulty, and if people thought we got there, then I’m very grateful.”

Wilson’s character, Det. Earl is a long-standing member of the Los Angeles Police Department with a large personality and an inability to self-edit. We asked him if those qualities prevent Earl from doing an impartial job regarding Dan.

“Earl doesn’t like people because he knows this game. You tend to see the worst in people when you Investigate homicides and crimes of that nature. In this case, it was the perfect combination of empirical evidence and his love of personality traits coming together,” said Wilson. “The evidence that he found at the crime scene shows that Dan was indeed in that apartment, with fingerprints all over the place. And when I got to, that was one of my favorite scenes when I got to sit with him and let him know that, you know, he might have a little problem. So there was joy in making this guy I thought was a bad guy pay for what he did.”

“Fatal Attraction” premieres on Paramount+ on Sunday, April 30, with the first three episodes will be available with new episodes of the eight-episode season available every Sunday.

Jill Munroe is a Los Angeles-bred entertainment journalist, producer, and host. You can follow her on all social media @StilettoJill or check out JillMunroe.com

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