Lifetime has produced another wave of movies based on novels by the late author V.C. Andrews, this time focusing on the novels featuring the Landry family. The four-movie event will air over two weekends, with the first, Ruby, kicking things off on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. Ruby stars Raecehlle Banno as Ruby Landry, and she plays opposite her real-life twin, Karina Banno. The 27-year-old Banno called it an “absolute blessing” to act alongside her sister.
Ruby begins with Ruby Landry being forced to leave the Louisiana bayou for New Orleans when dark family secrets resurface. Once she reaches New Orleans, Ruby runs into her twin sister, Giselle, played by Karina. The real-life twins have different agents, but Banno told HollywoodLife the two agreed to audition for the parts because they enjoy working with each other. The Banno sisters appear in all four Landry family movies airing on Lifetime this month.
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“We love working with each other, and it was a really cool experience,” Banno told HollywoodLife. “It was a strange way to audition because normally you only have one person on screen, but we were both on the audition together. We figured it out, and it was really fun to put something down together, and then it all just fell into place really quickly. It seemed meant to be.”
Banno, who previously auditioned for Lifetime’s 2014 Andrews adaptation Petals on the Wind, said she is “so proud” of Karina’s acting. She called Karina’s performances in the movies “incredible” and said she had “so much pride” working with her. “She’s so hardworking and so dedicated and electric,” Banno said of Karina. “I had the pleasure of being opposite that. I only have had that a few times in my life, so to do it for this… It has a very special place in my heart.”
After Ruby, the next Andrews film is Pearl in the Mist, which airs on Sunday, March 21, notes Entertainment Tonight. All That Glitters airs on Saturday, March 27, and Hidden Jewel debuts on Sunday, March 28. All four movies begin at 8 p.m. ET. The cast for the films also includes Naomi Judd, Crystal Fox, Gil Bellows, Deborah Cox, Lauralee Bell, Sam Duke, Ty Wood, Kristian Alfonso, Marilu Henner, Richard Harmon, Jennifer Laporte, and Evan Roderick.
Longtime Andrews fans should be happy with the films, Banno told HollywoodLife, although she admitted there were some tweaks made. “We’re quite sex-positive in these films, as opposed to I think Ruby in the books quite doubts her sexuality,” she explained. “I thought that it was quite positive that she is enjoying exploring her sexuality, even if it is just romance or friendship with the opposite sex or anything like that. So [it was] tiny little things, but that’s more inside rather than outside. Otherwise, story plot points, we stay really true to it.”
