As soon as prolific TV writer David E. Kelley read Rufi Thorpe’s “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” he knew it was prime for the TV adaptation treatment, recalling his immediate connection with the misfit family made up of an aspiring writer-turned-single mother and college dropout, as well as her parents, a former Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler.
“They felt so original, funny and yet emotionally true,” Kelley told TheWrap. “I [was] just crossing my fingers as a writer, and just hoped I got a shot at it.”
Despite his admiration for the characters and playful tone, there was one part of adapting “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” that gave Kelley some pause: the world of OnlyFans, which Elle Fanning’s Margo dives into to solve the mounting pile of baby bills while avoiding the inevitable dilemma of childcare.
“I was actually a bit daunted by that world, so I’m lucky to have Eva by my side,” Kelley said of Executive Producer Eva Anderson. “It was there in the book — Rufi did so much research and treated that world with respect and in a non-judgmental way, but I probably would have been daunted to dive into the OnlyFans world as a … approaching 70-years-old man — it might have been a little bit unseemly, so I’m just relieved to have the young Eva Anderson holding my hand and taking the lead … on that material.”
For Anderson, who came onboard once Kelley had written three episodes and “did everything [she] could to work on the show,” the approach to tackling the world of OnlyFans was right there in Thorpe’s writing.
“What’s so special about Rufi’s book in the first place is that it refuses to judge the characters — it just approaches them all as people and their choices as choices they make,” Anderson said. “Margo makes choices throughout the book, and then she has to deal with the consequences, but they’re her choices, and so I think approaching it that way helped us keep away from being judgy or prescriptive to the characters, and just really examining this world that a lot of people are living in all the time.”
Fanning was attached to the TV adaptation even before Kelley, with Kelley noting “we all sort of charged to get the book at the same time in team forces,” but with her on board, the “Sentimental Value” star — as well as Nicole Kidman — was a “tremendous magnet for drawing talent and establishing the piece right away as pedigreed,” per Kelley.
Kelley had a close connection to the next star that came on board, his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer, who he vowed never to work with, ultimately breaking that promise after finding Pfeiffer perfect for the role of Margo’s mother, Shyanne. “You read a book and you kind of envision someone playing that part, and she was the only one that I could see as Shyanne,” Kelley recalled.
“Luckily, she read the book and came to the same conclusion rather quickly, so we decided, ‘Okay, let’s do this. Let’s work together,’” Kelley said. “She was brilliant, so it’s pretty, pretty easy experience on my end and probably on hers, because I didn’t have many notes for her.”
Next up was Nick Offerman, who joined the cast as Jinx, Margo’s father and Shyanne’s ex. While Kelley and Anderson thought Offerman would be a long shot for them due to his busy schedule, the actor was so connected with Jinx that he was hooked from the start. “His main question, I remember with Nick, was will we really go to the dark places that the book did?” Kelley recalled. “He very much wanted that. So did we.”
“Sometimes a cast will fall together with not a great deal of labor from casting directors and producers, but we were blessed with one great casting director, David Rubin as well,” Kelley said, also calling out Greg Kinnear coming onboard as Kenny. “We had a embarrassment of riches on this one.”
Offerman’s commitment to the dark parts of Jinx’s story involve tackling themes of addiction, with which Jinx struggles following injuries during his time as a pro wrestler. Balancing that darkness and other difficult themes with the humor found in Margo’s story was a “critical point of the storytelling” for Kelley, recalling, “It was there in the book — the pain was very raw, the comedy was very funny, and we wanted to be able to play on all those different levels.”
“Ultimately, I think we’re most grateful that we got a stable of actors that had such a skill set that they could play on both sides of that fence, be it comedic or dramatic or somewhere in between,” Kelley said.
“Hopefully the show handled these really difficult topics with just a lot of humanity,” Anderson added. “I feel like that’s where you can find humor, because we’re all just people at the end of the day, no matter what we’re dealing with … we were able to try to push the humanity everywhere we could.”
Given the duo’s admiration for the project, they confirmed their hopes for the show to continue past its eight-episode first installment. “You can’t read the book without imagining years and years in the lives of these characters — there’s so much there,” Anderson said. “We want people to watch this season so maybe we can do more.”
New episodes of “Margo’s Got Money Trouble” arrive Wednesdays on Apple TV.
The post David E. Kelley and Eva Anderson Talk Bringing ‘Daunting’ OnlyFans World to Life in ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ appeared first on TheWrap.
