LOS ANGELES, United States — "Surface,"
Apple TV+'s latest glossy thriller starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as an amnesia
sufferer, tackles "zeitgeist" issues of conservatorships and female autonomy,
its creator and cast told AFP.
اضافة اعلان
Mbatha-Raw, best known for "Belle",
"Loki", and "The Morning Show," plays Sophie, a woman with
severe memory loss from a purported suicide attempt, trying to piece her life
back together.
She is placed under the conservatorship of
her husband — soon suspecting he may be hiding details about her former life,
and questioning if he truly has her best interests at heart.
Conservatorships — a form of legal
guardianship, in which a court hands control of finances and even personal
decisions to a guardian — surged into the public eye last year as pop star
Britney Spears fought to have hers terminated.
"The idea of a conservatorship was very
much in the zeitgeist at the time, but that was almost coincidental," said
Mbatha-Raw.
While "Sophie's trajectory is very
specific to our show ... the idea of control and the idea of women having their
own autonomy I think is such a topical and ever-present theme in the world
today."
By chance, the cast shot a scene in which
Sophie confronts her husband, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, the same day
Spears succeeded in ending her father's control of her finances.
"Those power dynamics between people
are always rife for drama," said Veronica West, the series' creator, and
director, previously known for "High Fidelity" and "Ugly Betty”.
"This show really started out with this
central question of 'what would you do if you woke up one day and didn't know
your own secrets?'" she explained.
Sophie "wakes up and she only knows her
life from what other people tell her," West said.
"Even the people closest to her — her
husband, her friends — everybody has an agenda.”
"So they're all painting this narrative
with their own agenda in mind and molding her to be the Sophie that they want
her to be."
Produced by Reese Witherspoon's Hello
Sunshine company, "Surface" — streaming on Apple TV+ from Friday —
explores the dramatic potential of amnesia, following the likes of
"Memento," "Mulholland Drive," "The Bourne
Identity," and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
But, West said, its San Francisco setting
and psychological twists were inspired more by noir classics, such as the works
of Alfred Hitchcock.
"I would never dare to compare it to
'Vertigo,' but we did try to put a few little winks and nods in there to
it," she said.
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