ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with The Good Nurse stars, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne. They discussed the inspiring and disturbing elements of the true crime drama. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
“Nurse Amy Loughren is shocked when Charlie Cullen, one of her colleagues, is found responsible for the murder of dozens of patients over a period of sixteen years, across two states and nine hospitals, without being charged,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Jessica, Amy is providing for her family. She’s having to work with a heart condition, and then on top of that, she has her many duties as a nurse. Yet through all this, we see such resiliency and it all comes from this love for her family. What about Amy’s triumph really connected with you?
Jessica Chastain: I think you kind of hit it on the head when you talk about the love for her family. One of the first conversations that I had with her, I asked her why she worked as a night nurse, and she said it was so her daughters would think that they had a stay-at-home mom, because she was a single mom. And so there was a big responsibility in taking care of them, keeping them housed and fed and taken care of, and loved. So she would work all night long while they were asleep, and when they were awake, she was awake with them at home. And so they really got to spend a lot of their lives with her, but it showed that she didn’t have much time to really care for herself. And I found that to be really interesting with someone who’s playing someone who needs a heart transplant, and she’s pushing herself to the very limit of her health and taking care of others, and yet no one’s really taking care of her. And that’s where Charlie comes in and that becomes her blind spot.
There’s a real connection between them and it makes what happens all the more disarming and disturbing. Eddie, when you’re playing such a character, it’s disturbing how well somebody that demented can just fit in and be somebody’s friend. Can you speak to your nuanced approach there because you make him likable?
Eddie Redmayne: Well, as Jess was saying, our massive insight in the making of this film was the real Amy Loughren. And when we spoke before we made the film, she was really strong with talking about how these were two different human beings. That there was her friend Charlie, who saved her life, who was kind, who was a fastidious and quite brilliant nurse. And then there was this serial killer who she met twice, once in the scene in which she was mic’d up and once in the interrogation room. And so that became really important that we really lent into the quality of that friendship and the truth of that friendship. Because Amy’s relationship with Charlie to this day remains incredibly complicated.
Jessica, what I kind of took away from the film was just the importance of compassion in our actions. What really stood out to you about this story?
Chastain: That stood out to me, and also a lot of times in our media and with true crime stories, you see violence being met with violence, and that’s what breaks the cycle. And in other cultures, that’s not the case. Actually, in our culture, it’s not always the case. I mean, Amy was able to break the cycle of violence by looking at this person and reminding him that he’s a human and of his humanity when everyone else is treating him like a monster, reminding him of their friendship and how much the good in him, you know, he saved her life, and she reminds him of his goodness. I believe that you become the energy that someone gives you. That’s how you react and it stopped this violence and this cycle, and I love to be a part of this genre with that kind of message.
Eddie, you actually did some real training to learn nurse skills, how to insert IVs and such. How did that go? Were you a natural?
Redmayne: Natural’s probably not the word, no. I would say I was a useless nurse.
Chastain: No!
Redmayne: I was! I was. You’re generous, Jess.
But I learned a lot. But, it took me back to being at school again, kind of leaning back in your chair, having a short attention span. But it also made me respect what nurses do extraordinarily. The fact that they have to be polymaths, they have to be brilliant at science, at maths, they have to be physically very strong. The pure physicality of moving bodies and moving beds around, mixed with then also having this emotional intelligence, to be able to break news or comfort people at their most vulnerable. That was…I had never really thought that through and that astonished me.
