Olivia Newman ‘s latest film, Netflix’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, has not only been a hit for the streamer but also with the Television Academy, where it is Emmy-nominated for Best Television Movie, along with a Lead Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology or TV Movie for star Sally Field and for its contemporary costume design. Not bad, and it also marks director, executive producer and co-writer Newman’s second hit literary adaptation following her successful 2022 feature film Where the Crawdads Sing, which was a hit for Sony. It came four years after her feature debut with Netflix’s First Match which took two prizes at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival including the top Audience Narrative award.
She seemingly has a hot new film every four years, and this adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt’s best selling novel follows the unique relationship between an aging aquarium cleaning lady and a wise old octopus named Marcellus. That is one relationship the story charts, but there is also another with a rather lost young man named Cameron (played by Lewis Pullman), who winds up with a part-time job at the aquarium as well. It is a funny, emotional film that also gives Field a strong leading role, the first for the two-time Oscar winner and three-time Emmy-winning star since 2015’s Hello, My Name Is Doris.
Newman joins me for this episode of my Deadline video series Behind The Lens to talk about what drew her to making this film, how challenging it was making a movie with an octopus (since they can’t be trained), the special effects involved in pulling it off and how it all started with Field even before she came on board, a gift as a writer since she could pen the script with the star’s voice in her head. We also talk about her past work, notably Crawdads, and the difficulties of adapting novels that are enormously popular and making them cinematic while also retaining the elements that made them successes with readers in the first place. Oh, and then there is that little Taylor Swift story connected to Crawdads.
To watch our conversation and to go “behind the lens” with Olivia Newman, just click on the link above.
