'Apples Never Fall': How Annette Bening and Sam Neill Inspired Peacock's New Series (Exclusive)
'Apples Never Fall' is based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, who also wrote 'Big Little Lies' and 'Nine Perfect Strangers.'
There was never any question that Annette Bening was the perfect choice for Peacock's thrilling new limited series Apples Never Fall. Casting the show, which also stars Sam Neill, Jake Lacy, Alison Brie, Conor Merrigan-Turner, and Essie Randles, happened organically while building the perfect imperfect family for the Oscar-nominated actress, writer, showrunner, and executive producer Melanie Marnich told PopCulture.com ahead of the March 14 premiere.
Bening's casting was a no-brainer for Marnich as she was just pages into the novel of the same name by bestselling author Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers), which chronicles the mystery of missing mother Joy Delaney (Bening), the suspicious behavior of her husband Stan (Neill) and the concerns of their four children surrounding a strange woman (Georgia Flood) who recently took refuge with their parents.
"When I was reading the book, literally within the first chapter, I was like, 'Oh, I see this as a show and I see Annette Bening as Joy,'" Marnich recalled. "So she was someone I wanted from the beginning, and we had these initial conversations with her and she and I just clicked. She's so brilliant, such a generous performer."
Marnich continued, "Then it's really the question of who could be her husband? Who can go toe-to-toe with this virtuosic actor? Sam Neill. And then they seemed so perfect together. Then it's like, well, who can believably be their children?" Bringing Lacy, Brie, Merrigan-Turner and Randles in as the four Delaney children was "very important" to land the balance between suspense, "deep character work" and the humorous moments of the mystery ahead.
Brie told PopCulture she was eager to take on the role of Amy Delaney, as she's a departure from any other character she's portrayed. "I've never gotten to play somebody who is so emotionally open and a little bit reckless, and has tattoos and just doesn't really have her life together, but is trying to live in a really emotionally honest way," she explained. "[It] was exciting and also a little bit scary." For Randles, becoming Brooke Delaney meant embracing "some eerie similarities in the character's backstory and mine in my life." She continued, "I just thought, something psychic is going on here. I really need to manifest this one."
Lacy had a similar understanding of his character, Troy Delaney, during an early video call with Marnich and fellow EPs David Heyman and Chris Sweeney. "Chris said he thought that each of the Delaney men thought they were crushing masculinity. And that just cracked me up because I was reading [the script] being like, 'Troy is crushing it. This guy is cool. This guy's got it going on. He's figured it out,'" Lacy remembered.
"There's just something always fun to me and my own blindness to my human frailty to go, 'Actually, you are making the same mistakes he is making. Your false narrative is his false narrative,'" he continued. "I already liked the story and the dialogue, the writing, and then that was kind of the final thing that I was like, 'Oh, I am more in tune with this than I think I am.'" Lacy added, "Plus Annette Bening and Sam Neill being attached is reason enough to go like, 'I'll do it. Whatever it is, I'll do it. Sure. I'm in.'"
Apples Never Fall also stars Jeanine Serralles and Dylan Thuraisingham, with guest stars Katrina Lenk, Timm Sharp, Nate Mann, Paula Andrea Placido, Pooja Shah, and Quentin Plair.
Apples Never Fall premieres on Thursday, March 14 on Peacock.
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