Biggest Debates, Changes From Book

[This article contains spoilers from episodes one and two of Imperfect Women.]

Apple TV doesn’t waste time showing audiences why its latest series, which debuted with its first two episodes on March 18, is titled Imperfect Women. In the first scene of the pilot episode featuring the show’s main characters, Eleanor (Kerry Washington), Nancy (Kate Mara) and Mary (Elisabeth Moss), Nancy reveals to Eleanor that she’s been having an affair — a secret she keeps from Mary and one of many more to be exposed among the trio of longtime friends over the course of eight episodes.

It’s Nancy’s murder early in episode one that leads to an unraveling of trust and a sowing of discord between nearly every character, from Mary and Eleanor and Eleanor and her brother Donovan (Leslie Odom Jr.) to Nancy’s husband Robert (Joel Kinnaman) and their daughter Cora (Audrey Zahn), as audiences try to solve the mystery of who killed the former dancer who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks yet found herself married to a wealthy heir among the individuals at the center of the story.

“We want everyone to keep guessing,” showrunner Annie Weisman, who adapted Araminta Hall’s novel of the same name for TV, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “As you’re getting to know and love and be seduced by each of these characters and these fabulous performances, we still, at the end of the episode, want to give you that feeling of, Wait a minute, I’m not sure what’s true anymore.”

The second episode, titled “Crush,” accomplishes that goal when Eleanor sleeps with Robert, a choice less rooted in ill-managed grief but rather a decades-long harboring of romantic feelings for her best friend’s husband, which calls into question not only each of their character but also potential motives for wanting Nancy out of the picture.

Below, Weisman talks about the gamble of having Robert and Eleanor cross the line so early in the series, moving the setting of the show from its initial location of England to L.A., the addition of Odom’s character, which wasn’t in the original book, and why they designed the series as limited: “We wanted it to be a really satisfying ending … we wanted to land in a place where you feel like you know what happens.”

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Araminta Hall is an executive producer on this series. How involved was she in scripting and production?

She really gave us free rein. She said, “Best of luck to you, I can’t wait to see it on the air” — which was a thrilling amount of freedom and a great deal of trust. We were all huge fans of the book, so we wanted to preserve a lot of what she set up: the structure of her storytelling, the different perspectives she laid out, the distinctiveness of the characters. But then we had an opportunity to adapt it to an American setting — a Southern California setting. And in doing that, we really wanted to honor the specificity of the world and the culture we live in here. So we also needed a little freedom to adapt and stretch out.

Where had you been thinking about setting the location as you first began adapting the book, and how early was the decision for Los Angeles made?

When I first started working on it, I thought very creatively of setting it in New England because it’s [originally] England. I was thinking about Boston and the world around there, and I had originally scripted it that way. But when Kerry Washington joined the team, she was really adamant about shooting here in Los Angeles, so we pivoted. And that was really exciting because she felt so strongly about it. She really got us on board and had the clout to make that happen.

I’m a native Southern Californian. I love stories in Southern California. I love talking about and highlighting communities in Los Angeles that people don’t always know about that are not the typical cliché. And we got a chance to do that here. We also got a chance to work in L.A. after the strikes and the fires and put together a big production here at a time when the town really needed it. So it was a great opportunity.

Were there any other big changes with characters? Anyone new who wasn’t in the book or who got fleshed out a bit more from the original text?

In the novel, like most novels, you very easily get access to the interior life of the characters. But for cinematic adaptation, you really need to create relationships go- tos with people who have that intimacy so we can get to know the main characters better. So we gave Eleanor a brother, and that was both an opportunity to cast a fabulous actor — in this case, Leslie Odom Jr., which was also Kerry’s dream. She made that come true because of their relationship, and that was really exciting. That gave you another window into this character.

We meet her through work. Tthrough friendship. We meet her in this reinvented life in California, which a lot of people have. They come to California and reinvent. But this brother comes into town and just busts you on all of your reinvention. It’s a great way to pull the rug out from under such a seemingly together character and show her history and baggage, and give her a worthy adversary.

In episode two, we see Eleanor and Robert cross a line by sleeping together. Did you play around with the timing of that? Did it feel like a risk with the audience possibly hating this main character so early?

Absolutely. It was a big conversation. When does that happen? How do we earn it? This is a terrible thing for her to do. But everyone on this team is really drawn to it. It’s right there in the title. These are imperfect women. They’re making bad choices sometimes. We all do. So how do we still love this character and how do we understand her and go along for the ride with her, even though she’s doing something pretty inexcusable? It was about earning that choice and that moment. And then you have an actress like Kerry Washington inhabiting it. It’s pretty easy to go along the ride with her.

I imagine some viewers might say these women aren’t really friends. What would you say to that?

That point of view is kind of expressed in the show, too. This is a friendship, but we’re challenging it. We’re seeing how the more intimate a friendship is, the more you can hurt or betray each other. But what we’re looking at also is how you can heal, how you can repair. If there is forgiveness, there is understanding. There is growth and healing. We want that for these characters. We want that for ourselves, too.

What was the biggest challenge for you overall in adapting this book for television?

I think it was the fun of having these distinct worlds for each character. Kate’s world is of Pasadena wealth and she’s a ballerina. Then we have Mary’s world of being a mom and scraping to get by and having financial insecurity and a lot of kids, but keeping it all cohesive at the same time. So it’s really about having these disparate points of view, but feeling like it’s still one show and one world.

Did you always picture this as a limited series? Did you play with the idea of a couple of seasons?

We wanted it to be a really satisfying ending — a real beginning, middle and end, so that you go on this ride and then you get gratified by a really great ending. So whether or not we could have more story to tell, I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. But we definitely wanted to land in a place where you feel like you know what happens.

News of your first-look deal with Apple was announced earlier this month. What’s the next kind of storytelling that excites you coming off of this series?

It was really exciting to do a thriller. I haven’t really worked in this pure thriller genre before, but I’m always drawn to complex female characters. I love dark things in sunny places, so I’m always going to gravitate in that direction. I’ve just got a few irons in the fire, having to do with platforming cool female characters and more to come. I’m grateful to get to keep making shows for Apple TV because it’s a pretty great place to get to do it.

The first two episodes of Imperfect Women are currently streaming on Apple TV, with new episodes releasing every Wednesday through April 29.