Red Broadwell
After the success of 2021’s Maid, Molly Smith Metzler added “showrunner” to her list of talents. Once again, Metlzer brings her decisive wit and biting social commentary to lead a new mini-series Sirens, an adaptation of her first highly-regarded stage play Elemeno Pea, for Netflix. Taking place over a weekend on a luxurious Martha’s Vineyard-esque estate, Sirens follows Devon DeWitt (Meghann Fahey) as she tries to reconnect with her younger sister Simone (Milly Alcock). However, Devon’s finds bridging the gap much harder than expected due to Simone’s oddly intimate relationship with her boss: the enigmatic and enchanting billionaire Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore). With Kevin Bacon and Glenn Howerton rounding out the main cast, Sirens deftly balances humor, tension, and social commentary to create a show as enchanting as its title promises.
I had the opportunity to speak with Metzler about the development of Sirens ahead of its May 22nd release. We discussed adapting her own work, building a creative community, and the intriguing interplay between class and gender.
Awards Radar: What inspired you to return to the world of Elemeno Pea?
Molly Smith Metzler: I did Maid with Netflix and that was an incredible experience with very serious subject matter. So, I was trying to figure out what to do next with Netflix. When I first came out to L.A. to do writing for television, Elemeno Pea was sort of my calling card. People frequently asked me about it, and one of those people was Jeanie Hao who remembered it from her days at John Wills Productions. Now she’s at Netflix and we did Maid together, and so she’s known the play for ten years. We were talking about it and she asked if I’d ever considered adapting it, and I was like “maybe”. And here we are and we’re going to drop it next week.
Awards Radar: I mean, I loved Maid. It was one of my favorite shows of 2021.
Molly Smith Metzler: Oh, thank you!
AR: What was the process of adapting a play for television for you?
MSM: Well, like with Maid, when you’re adapting an award-winning incredible memoir I felt very obligated to honor as much of the book as possible. [Stephanie Land] is such a beautiful writer, I wanted to capture as much of the writing as possible. When you’ve written the IP the great thing is that you can just ignore it. I really threw a lot of the play out the window, we did a huge adaptation, it’s very different from the play. The play is one room and happens over one night with five characters. I love the play, but there was so much more to say about these characters and so much more world to show. So, I’d say it was really freeing because I was the author.
AR: I was going to say, the show itself feels so open in a way that the stage can’t replicate.
MSM: Yeah.
AR: For you, what’s the difference between writing or adapting a work for television be it a novel or your own work in terms of pivoting from one medium to another?
MSM: Like the difference between playwriting and television writing?
AR: Yes.
MSM: I think the primary difference is time. When you write a play, I’d say two years is about how long it takes before you’re ready to go on stage between the drafts and the workshops. You did a good job if it takes two years. In screenwriting, particularly for television, it’s a very rigorous schedule. I learned this on Shameless where we’d be breaking an episode in the room and we’d be shooting in less than two months. You’re going to come up with that story, write it, rewrite it, rewrite it, prep it, and shoot it. That all happens in an eighth of the amount of time it would take for a play. So, you have to learn to do it quicker than you do for a play.
AR: A lot of your work, including Sirens, focuses on these imperfect or complicated relationships between women. I was curious what brings you back to these very nuanced and complicated interpersonal dynamics?
MSM: When you write anything, or the reason I write anything begins with a question I have; it’s an investigation. I find women really fascinating and particularly right now I think it’s a brutal time to be a woman. I often end up writing about women now because I’m so curious about what makes them tick and who we are. What’s our identity now? How has it evolved? What do we stand for? These are questions that I tend to bring to FinalDraft when I open it.
AR: The thing that specifically fascinated me about Sirens is the dynamic between old money, new money, and the working-class and specifically the intersection between gender and class and how it’s portrayed in the show. WHat drew you to this very specific intersection?
MSM: I think I’m a bit of a dog with a bone when it comes to class in America. Whether I want to write about it or not, it’s always in my work. It’s fascinating, particularly in America, that you can’t really change your class. Or, I guess that’s the question I have. Can you change where you come from? Can you change your stripes? I just really enjoy characters that live on the line, and what they’re trying to figure out.
I also think it’s places like Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, both of which I’ve spent a lot of time on; Sirens takes place on a fictional island, but it’s very much one of those or in conversation with those. I think those places offer a lot in terms of conflict between working class and upper class. I think the conversations are a little hotter, a little sexier, when there’s so much on the line or there’s such a big divide between your bank accounts. It all gets a little more ripe for a good story.
AR: Now that you’ve brought it up, I do see how the writing [in these settings] does get a lot sexier. I see that there’s a lot more room for comedy too. So, how do you balance the tonality between this very pitch black comedy and the general tension that I cannot quite find an adjective for?
MSM: Tone is everything, especially when you’re creating a show. With a show like Sirens it does not easily check a box. It’s not a drama, it’s not a comedy, it’s not a muder-mystery, it’s not actually even a “rich people” show. It’s its own thing. A lot of times people struggle to describe Sirens, and I take that as a humongous compliment, but it’s what made the show so hard to make. It’s hard to set a tone like this where we’re doing our own thing and there’s moments that feel like mystery and moments that feel like genre. But, that’s where I like to live as a writer, where those things dance together. That is its own tone, I guess I’d call it a “true dramady”. All my favorite things that I read or watch on TV do that vivisection well between comedy and drama.
AR: Like living in the ambiguity.
MSM: Living in the grey.
AR: Living in the grey, I love that. So, this is your second time showrunning after Maid. What’s changed in your process from writing to having more creative control in this role?
MSM: I always say the best way to have more creative control is to let it go and delegate and hire and bring together a community of artists. On a show like Sirens which is so challenging. There were truly so many people that made this show. I was, obviously, heavily involved but it’s a designer’s challenge to create this world, the writers had a big challenge, the directors had a big challenge. There were so many people involved in coming together. That was the biggest change between my first show and my second and going forward. You get better at creating the community of artists that you need to make the show. And I’m so proud of Maid, and Maid was a wonderful experience, but because it was COVID the team was a very small group of people. It wasn’t a huge project, and there’s good and bad things to that as well. The better you get at showrunning, the better you get at hiring.
AR: That makes a lot of sense. I honestly forgot that Maid would’ve been a COVID production. I can imagine the difference in scale between the projects would’ve been different, especially since Sirens wouldn’t have those restrictions.
MSM: Yes, COVID was an incredibly difficult time to shoot.
AR: I can imagine. I also had a question about the setting specifically. Although Sirens takes place on a fictional island, I read that Elemeno Pea was inspired by your time working on Martha’s Vineyard. What about it makes Martha’s Vineyard such an, and I hate using the term, farmable place to craft these complex dynamics?
MSM: Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket really have the highs and lows. I remember being twenty-two and arriving at Martha’s Vineyard, and I don’t even know what I was doing there. I got a job working at this very exclusive yacht club and was young and stupid enough to think I would have this experience. But, I ran out of money like two weeks into my trip and had to work so many jobs just to be able to afford living there. I remember getting off the boat and seeing a kind of money I didn’t know existed at this yacht club. I was distracted by it. There’s something tribal about them: they all dress the same, they have their gimlets, they’ve lost all track of time. It’s their world and we’re just living in it. I think I keep going back to that theme because I’m so curious about those women, who they are, and what happened to them after I left that summer. I think I’ve been writing about that summer ever since I experienced it because they were a complex stew.
AR: I get it, especially watching the show. Country club culture scares me but endlessly fascinates me too. Like, even though everyone’s so similar it seems to sow more discord.
MSM: It’s not a cult, but it’s also definitely a cult.
AR: THe definition can be stretched.
MSM: I remember it made a lot of sense to me. They’re definitely having a lot of fun, they’re having a better time than me.
AR: That’s something I’ve always wondered. Like, do these women have any problems? Or are the problems that seem so big just things that they can quickly bypass?
MSM: I think that’s one of the biggest things that Sirens is about. We make a lot of assumptions about these characters and I think by the end of the show it’s surprising to the audience and they’ll want to come back and reconfigure what all of it means.
AR: I definitely see a rewatch in my future because now that I’ve gone through it I want to watch it with all of the twists in mind. I want to see what watching it with a full picture will do, which is something I appreciate in a show.
MSM: Oh, absolutely. And to watch those performances a second time as well. I saw those performances every day for months now and I still find something more incredible each time. The cast is so superb.
AR: Yeah, I mean to your point of the more you work in something the better you get at building a creative community. What was it like working with such a varied, very talented cast on Sirens?
MSM: It was dreamy! Everyone in the cast, all unbelievably talented, very kind, very generous people. I will say working with Julianne Moore she’s the archetype of Michaela’s character. She’s got that icey power. I would do anything she’d tell me to do, she’s a definite cult leader. But, when we get to know her in the arc of the show, there’s such humanity and such compassion and such empathy; she can do it on command, it’s available to her all the time. That’s what made it so amazing to watch her. It was inspiring, I’d go home and do rewrites just for her. It was one of the coolest things I got to do. With Meghann Fahey too, Devon is a very hard role. She’s hard to like: she’s mean, sarcastic, and she’s got a lot of problems but she’s got a great sense of humor too. She’s spiraling in her own way, and she’s full of love. When we started to cast we knew we had to hit gold in this role, it’s such a difficult role and she’s also the metronome of the show. Meghann was such a gift because she does that so well. The balance and the humanity of that character could’ve gone in a different direction, and she made her so alive and so real.
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