‘Lady in the Lake’ panel: Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram on the TV thriller’s ’embarrassment of riches of talent’
Apple TV+ recently hosted a screening and panel conversation for “Lady in the Lake” at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists in Los Angeles. Upon conclusion of the screening of the seventh and final episode, titled “My Story,” star and executive producer Natalie Portman and star Moses Ingram engaged in a fun Q&A moderated by Variety’s Emily Longeretta. Later on, attendees enjoyed a lively reception, complete with hors d’oeuvres and drinks.
“Lady in the Lake” streamed this summer on Apple TV+, with creator-executive producer-writer-director Alma Har’el adapting the thriller from the book of the same name by Laura Lippman. Besides Portman and Ingram, other cast members include Y’lan Noel, Brett Gelman, Byron Bowers, Noah Jupe, Josiah Cross, Mikey Madison, and Pruitt Taylor Vince. Portman is a Best Actress Oscar winner for “Black Swan” (2010), and Madison is getting major Oscar buzz right now for “Anora.”
Here is how Apple describes the project: “When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger.”
Portman told the audience, “To explore this woman going through her quest for freedom in the 1960s, much the way my grandmother did in the same time period, and sadly blind to a similar quest under very different circumstances that another woman is living right beside her, I thought was really interesting to explore.”
Ingram added about coming into character, “I connected with it so much, it kind of like latched on to my heart. I’m from Baltimore, that’s my hometown. I haven’t lived there in a long time, but yeah, I felt like I could see it and feel it.”
Speaking about her showrunner, Portman said, “It was incredible. I think that’s a big part of Alma’s power is her ability to take care of everyone, bring everyone together, make everyone feel like a team. It was always a joyful collaboration, creative process and it was incredible. We have the most extraordinary cast … it was just an embarrassment of riches of talent.”
Regarding her co-star Ingram, Portman revealed, “It was extraordinary getting to watch Moses and act opposite her. If you haven’t seen the rest of the season you will see, she’s just the most extraordinary actress. It just demands truth when you have to be opposite her.”
“I do feel like Cleo changed me,” Ingram noted about her character. “I feel like there is a Moses before I did Cleo and there is a Moses after. Regardless of anything that has happened or will happen with the show, my person has been changed by doing this. And I feel like it’s made me better, made me a better artist.”
Portman addressed researching Baltimore by saying, “Alma actually gave us incredible research of images of what the city looked, video clips of interviews of people at that time, articles about the Jewish and Black communities in Baltimore at that time. There was so much to draw from, so much to learn about.”
“Lady in the Lake” is streaming now on Apple TV+. It is eligible at the upcoming winter awards shows.
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