I have to admit that Hulu’s Death and Other Details quickly became my newest guilty pleasure series this year. It’s a closed door murder mystery with characters that are as compelling as they are suspicious. Everyone has secrets, and pretty much anyone could be the murderer. Plus, it stars Violett Beane as Imogene, and I’ve been a fan of hers since The Flash. So imagine my excitement at being given a chance to talk with her about my newest television addiction.
Of course, Imogene is vastly different from Beane’s characters in either The Flash or God Friended Me. They’re all very different shows, after all, and the world of Death and Other Details has a lot more grey areas than Beane’s previous series. I wondered if this change in tone was one of the things that drew her to the project.
The fact Imogene is so different from other characters Beane has played was in fact part of the appeal. “It’s what I would love to continue doing in my career…finding these people that are so different. I think Imogene is, in a sense, more relatable because of that. We’re not all saints, I guess.”
Imogene is a very complicated character. She’s a little bit of a lot of things. A little bit victim, a little bit criminal. A good friend, but one who’s willing to spy on the very people she cares about. For Beane, this complexity helped add to the relatability of the character. As she explained, “[Imogene] is somebody that has so many walls up and her defense mechanism is just to keep them there and to not let people in. I think that that’s something that so many people do, or they have a different form of a defense mechanism. For me, it just feels it just feels the most honest. It feels most real. It’s so fun to play.”
Naturally, those shades of grey may make it challenging to keep the character sympathetic to the audience. And as the heroine (of sorts) of the story, we still need to root for Imogene to get the answers she’s seeking. On that subject, Beane admitted, “[T]he trickiest part, is that like, I wouldn’t say she’s quite an anti-hero, but there’s so many films like Worst Person in the World, where you don’t want this person to win but there’s something in that. I think what that thing is, is the relatability.”
As she sees it, our ability to sympathize with the character is based upon the ability to see ourselves in them. Or as she puts it, “I think it’s the mirror being held up, reflecting back onto you. You can see through her eyes like you understand, you understand why when somebody does something, she would be mad about it but also realize that she’s trusting the feeling that she’s having.”
But she also cautions the audience not to trust too much in our ability to relate to her character. She seems to be one of the only characters in the series the audience can trust. But Death and Other Details is the kind of show where you know that, the more you want to trust a character, the less you should. And as one of the only characters we’re set up to find…well, “trustworthy” (with an asterisk), Imogene seems like the least trustworthy of them all.
On that point, Beane agrees. “You can’t [trust anyone], that’s the thing. I think that’s what’s so entertaining about it. … The show creators, they did this fun little thing where they told each of us individually our character’s arc but nothing about anybody else. We didn’t even really trust each other on set. It was like, I don’t know who’s going to have done it in the end, but you knew where your character was going. All I can say is, trust nobody.”
Thanks to my interview with Angela Zhou (“Teddy”), I had heard that the actors had been given secrets about their characters. The atmosphere surrounding the filming to the show – with post-COVID restrictions – helped add to the atmosphere of secrecy and isolation in the series.
As Beane explained, “There definitely was this feeling of being protective of your own space. We had all the good protocols in order, and it wasn’t too bad.”
And what about those character secrets? As Beane and I talked, I couldn’t help but wonder which of the actors was the best at figuring these secrets out. It appears that, in Beane’s estimation at least, Zhou and Lauren Patten (“Anna”) would make pretty good detectives. Or at least had the most fun trying to be.
“[E]very day on set, they’d come in like, ‘…[I]t was this, it was this, this, this, this, this.’ I was like, ‘You guys are crazy. What do you mean? That doesn’t even make any sense.’ Every time, they would have some new story, and I was like, ‘Okay.'”
And who should be avoided at the poker table because they were the best at keeping their character’s secrets? This time, Beane wasn’t as willing to name names, because isn’t keeping your character’s secrets kind of the trick of acting? Instead, she said, “They’re all good because there’s so many secrets at each point. As an actor, there’s this kind of trope, I guess, where it’s like your acting coach tells you every character has a secret that the audience never finds out. That’s good acting.”
Luckily, Death and Other Details is a little kinder to us than acting coaches would be. Beane promises we do discover all the secrets, in the end. “It’s like an experiment or something, but you actually get to see what the thing is. I don’t know, it’s just fascinating to see that,” she promises.
In fact, Beane promised that the audience is given all the clues they need to solve the season’s mystery mysteries. If we pay close enough attention. And you do have to pay attention. This is a murder mystery, after all, and that’s part of the challenge – and the appeal – of the genre, in Beane’s opinion.
As she explained, “Unfortunately, in our world today…it’s so hard to captivate people and keep them paying attention. I think that maybe that’s why murder mysteries are having a resurgence because it is something that’s so interactive. You cannot be doing something else if you plan to solve the murder. … This is something that makes you pay attention.”
I would certainly agree with that. I started the series with every intention of multi-tasking and had to put my other projects away before we’d even gotten ten minutes in.
But back to that promise that the audience has everything they need to solve the case(s) before them? Beane had this to say:
“[The show runners] wanted it to be something where, when you look back at the very end when you’re done and you look back, you’re like, ‘Oh, it was there all along.’ They don’t want it to be something where it’s like an offscreen thing happened and then you’re like, ‘Oh, what? That’s the solution?’ That’s what I think is different about our show is that everything you need to know is in the Pilot. You just don’t know how to put it all together yet. Then you find things out along the way that help you get there.”
Excuse me. The Pilot??? I now have to rewatch that episode, like, six more times. Not that I’ll have any better luck solving the mystery. I rarely am. But it’s tempting to try.
As anyone who has seen the series knows, Imogene’s relationships with several of the other characters are…complicated, to say the least. Particularly when it comes to Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin), the “world’s greatest detective.” Able to solve any crime but the murder of Imogene’s mom. At least so far.
Imogene and Rufus have very much of a love/hate relationship. As much as Rufus feels a responsibility toward her, she resents him for his failures. And nowhere is that clearer than in the Pilot. When discussing their dynamic, Beane had this to say: “When she talks to Rufus in the Pilot, she realizes that she hasn’t felt this alive, she hasn’t felt a purpose, she’s just been floating. Even though she doesn’t like him or doesn’t trust him, she knows that in order to get to the next step, she has to push through. I think that that’s just life in general. You can’t hide or you can’t stop yourself. You have to keep moving forward.”
The relationship between Imogene and Rufus is really the heart of the show. As complicated – and occasionally adversarial – as it is. How did Beane (and Patinkin) approach the development of that relationship? Organically, as it happens, thanks to Patinkin’s many years of experience as an actor.
As Beane explained, “[D]uring the pilot, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, I guess, would be the right word for it. I remember walking up to Mandy and just being like, can I get some advice? I just feel like a fish out of water right now. He sat me down, and he just told me basically to be myself. He was like, ‘You have to look at yourself at the end of the day in the mirror and be proud of what you’ve done. Take in what people are saying, but also, there’s a reason you are here.’ It was a really sweet moment because it was life imitating art in the sense of him being my mentor. That was really, really helpful during that time.”
Given how naturally Beane and Sophia Reid-Gantzert (who plays Young Imogene) portray the same character, it was a surprise to find that Beane didn’t have the opportunity to bond as much with that actress. At least not in the early part of the show. They act so similarly, one could almost believe they’re related. But they didn’t even get to meet until later in the series. So how did Reid-Gantzert channel Beane so effectively? Even she didn’t know.
“I don’t know if they showed her stuff, like footage, so that she could see that. I’m not exactly sure what her process was, but she’s so spectacular. Then to get to actually work with her later in the season was really, really special.”
These aren’t the only interactions Beane promises the audience can anticipate in the remaining episodes of the season. For her part, she loves Zhou’s character arc as Teddy. “I’m really excited for Angela’s character and where it goes. I think she’s so talented, so, so talented. I love what she’s brought, but I find her arc very interesting and unexpected.”
As our interview came to a close, I had to ask Beane one last question: What would she like to see of her character, if Imogene comes back for a second season? Assuming she’s not a victim later in the season. Or the murderer, for that matter. As it turns out, she’d love to see more of the very things that make Imogene so relatable as a character.
“In this season, you see Imogene break down some of her walls, and let people in, but more often than not, they disappoint, and then the walls go back up. I would love to see her just get a little bit more raw, to see more of her, and to let people in, and to see that even if you let people in and they do disappoint you, that doesn’t mean everybody’s bad. I think that that’s one of the biggest lessons that people learn in their lives as well. It’s letting people in and being vulnerable enough to communicate how you feel without having to deflect.”
Of course, with Imogene, that won’t be easy, she admitted. “Maybe that’s something that might have to happen season 5 because that’s not necessarily [easy]. Yes, I’m hoping. I would love to come back.”
Five seasons of Death and Other Details? Sign me up!
A new episode of Death and Other Details can be found on Hulu on Tuesday.
