Ripley Creator & Star Break Down The “Menacing” & “Charming” Tom Ripley

Ripley is one of the most gorgeous series Netflix has ever released, and that’s all thanks to Steven Zaillian. The Academy Award-nominated writer-director chose to shoot Ripley in black-and-white, filming the Italian cities where the events of the series take place with an eye for the shadowy alleyways and stone streets that Tom Ripley prowls through.

Andrew Scott stars as the title character, with Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning starring as Dickie Greenleaf and Marge Sherwood, respectively. Hot on Ripley’s tale, though, is Inspector Pietro Ravini, played by Maurizio Lombardi.

The cat-and-mouse game between Ravini and Ripley makes for thrilling television, but the series was almost shelved. Originally created for Showtime, the premium cabler decided they weren’t going to air the series amid corporate restructuring. Netflix swooped in to save the day, but the experience was one that Zallian says left “despondent.” Fortunately, all 8 episodes are now available on Netflix.

Steven Zaillian Shares Why Andrew Scott Is Perfect For Ripley

Screen Rant: Steven, this is your second TV show after The Night Of so I was just curious. What was it about Tom Ripley that pulled you in? And why do you think Andrew was perfect for this role?

Steven Zaillian: Well, the idea of doing it as an eight-hour piece is what appealed to me there. I wouldn’t be interested in doing another movie adaptation of it because what are you going to do? But to have eight hours to tell the story, I feel is what you need to tell the story that’s in Patricia Highsmith novel. Andrew is… He’s not all of the things that Tom is in real life, but he can play them. He has an enormous range and I just felt that somebody who can be as charming as he is in Fleabag and as menacing as he is as Moriarty is somebody that I should consider playing this part. So I did and he did not disappoint. He’s great.

Tom Ripley, in a lot of ways, is kind of the foundation for this scammer phenomenon we’ve seen in film and TV over the last couple of years. Do you both think that Tom Ripley can survive as a scammer in the modern day?

Steven Zaillian: Oh, yeah. I mean, his scams will be different. But the main thing, the main talent that he has, which Marge points out at one point, is he’s a liar. He’s a liar. It’s his profession: he’s a really good liar. That’s all you need to pull off a scam. The technical side of it will be different. But if you can’t lie well, and you can’t keep lying when even the lies pile up so much that you have trouble remembering them, you’re not going to be successful as a con artist or a criminal. And he’s a master at it.

He’d have to switch it up a bit. Obviously, with DNA and cell phones and location, he’d have to do something different. But I do think that people still get away with pretty elaborate scams today. And then he could do it, too.

Maurizio Lombardi Had No Rehearsals For Tom’s Interrogation Scenes

The show was originally set up at Showtime. Netflix, thankfully, saved it, but the streaming era is always full of uncertainty. So what was that like? Was there ever a moment where you thought Ripley might not even see the light of day? Yeah,

Steven Zaillian: Yeah, there was a moment. The moment when we would almost finished it. I don’t know how long ago — maybe was about a year ago — we almost finished the editing. And there was this whole thing about Showtime restructuring and all of that. It was a brief moment, it was only about a week. But there was that week where we say “Oh my god, it might be possible that this is not going to happen.” And then thankfully, Netflix came in and did it but yes, for a week there, I was a bit despondent.

One of the best parts of this eight-episode series is the cat-and-mouse game between Tom and Ravini. What was the dynamic between you and Andrew like? Did you guys try to keep to yourselves or do you familiarize yourself with each other to to flesh out that dynamic?

Maurizio Lombardi: I think like chess play with me and Andrew and the movement is the lines of the script. And because Steve told us “Okay, stay stop the camera around you.” So, like a game. I play a game with Andrew Scott [and] Tom Ripley.

Zaillian: You guys didn’t stay apart necessarily off camera. But one thing I do remember doing intentionally was not rehearsing it to death. It was like, let’s just see how it goes. Let’s shoot on film and just let you guys go. And a lot of the takes that we’re using are those first takes when they’re just meeting each other for the first time.

About Ripley

Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud, and murder. The drama series is based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling Tom Ripley novels.

Check out our other Ripley interviews here:

• Andrew Scott
• Dakota Fanning

Source: Screen Rant Plus