Quinn Shephard and Samir Mehta (‘Under the Bridge’) on casting Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough to star: ‘It was literally kismet’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
A year and a half ago, Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough were still relative unknowns about to hit the big time when they were cast together in the eight-episode Hulu true-crime thriller “Under the Bridge.” Gladstone would steal the show in the Martin Scorsese epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” earning an Oscar nomination and a SAG Award win. Keough, famously the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, landed Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her starring role in the Prime Video limited series “Daisy Jones and the Six.” In a Zoom interview this week for the “Under the Bridge” premiere on Hulu with its writer-creator Quinn Shephard and showrunner Samir Mehta, Mehta described landing Gladstone and Keough in the follow-up project to their big breakthrough as “literally kismet.”
He continues, “I had just moved into a new house about a month before I got this job. Met my new neighbor, and we quickly become close friends. I told him, ‘Oh, I just started this new show, here’s what it’s about, one of the central characters is actually the author of this book we’re adapting.’ He was just like, ‘Oh, I know Riley Keough, she should do it.’ I was like, ‘OK.’ And then it just so happened that Riley and Lily had been corresponding over social media for some time and very eager to work together – and actually the author of the book, Rebecca Godfrey, had recommended Lily to us. So it was just kind of this perfect storm and it all came together beautifully.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“Under the Bridge” tells the harrowing true story of the murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk (played by Vritika Gupta) on the night of November 14, 1997 in Victoria, British Columbia. She left to meet friends at a party and never returned, her body found floating in the Gorge Inlet waterway. Seven teenage girls and a boy were accused of the savage killing. Gladstone plays the composite character Cam Bentland, a local cop who struggles to crack the case, while Keough portrays Godfrey, who joins forces with Bentland to get at the truth and write a novel about what they uncover. Godfrey, reliving her childhood through her investigation, came out with her book on the murder in 2005. It would be 2022 before a deal was struck to adapt it, and Godfrey would tragically die of lung cancer six weeks before filming began.
Shephard, who wrote all six episode of “Under the Bridge,” collaborated with Godfrey – through whose perspective the story is told in the limited series – for nearly three years. “We were very close,” she recalls. “Rebecca was very generous with me. She shared the most personal sides of herself. She gave me her diaries and let me read her innermost thoughts. And she was so generous in being open to us taking some fictional liberties.”
In her recollection, the book had emerged on Shephard’s radar by chance. One of the producers who was attached to the project in its early stages at Hulu read a fictional script that she had written with similar themes and sent her the “Under the Bridge” book. “I had never heard of the crime even though it’s extremely famous in Canada,” Shephard says. “I’m not someone who really enjoys the sensationalism of violence, but the book had so much tenderness and so much empathy, and was such a exploration of coming-of-age and girlhood. It was so unexpected, I just really fell in love with it. It’s such a deeply human story.”
Mehta, for his part, was attracted to the project by his “burning need” to answer the question of how the murder could have happened at the hands of middle school students. “It became an interesting opportunity to look at all the various blind spots that had to exist that could lead to something so easily preventable to have happened,” he emphasizes. “Ultimately, it was a lesson in breaking cycles of violence, which I just felt was really important to portray.” He was also motivated by the opportunity to tell the story of the Indian daughter of an immigrant. “One of the many aspects that led to the tragedy was Reena’s own sense of alienation both inside and outside the house,” he believes. “The day-to-day emotional struggle that she faced was a far more captivating story than her tragic end.”
At the same time, “Under the Bridge” is a cautionary tale about the battlefield that is middle school, which can feel like an episode of “The Sopranos.”
“Oh yeah,” Mehta confirms. “To be honest, there’s no difference. One day, you can’t sit at the lunch table (anymore) and you may as well have been taken out back and popped.”
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