{"id":18807,"date":"2023-05-31T23:17:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T21:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=18807"},"modified":"2023-05-31T23:17:50","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T21:17:50","slug":"emmy-nominee-elizabeth-olsen-and-oscar-nominee-jesse-plemons-star-in-love-death-on-showmax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2023\/05\/31\/emmy-nominee-elizabeth-olsen-and-oscar-nominee-jesse-plemons-star-in-love-death-on-showmax\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmy Nominee Elizabeth Olsen And Oscar Nominee Jesse Plemons Star In “Love & Death” on Showmax"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Currently the #5 Most Popular Show on IMDb<\/em>, Love & Death<\/em> is based on the-crazy-but-real-story of Texas housewife Candace \u201cCandy\u201d Lynn Montgomery, whose extramarital affair with fellow church member Allan Gore ended in the murder of her lover\u2019s wife, Betty Gore, in Wylie, Texas, on 13 June 1980. During the assault, Betty was struck 41 times with a wood-splitting axe, leaving local authorities to investigate one of the most gory, disturbing cases in the state\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a story that if it wasn\u2019t true, you couldn\u2019t actually make it up,\u201d says Oscar and eight-time Emmy nominee Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland<\/em>, The Newsroom<\/em>, Mad Men<\/em>), who directed the show from a script by series creator and 11-time Emmy winner David E Kelley (Big Little Lies<\/em>). \u201cReal life is always stranger than anything we could try and create.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glatter and Kelley also executive produced alongside the likes of the hit-making team of Oscar winner Nicole Kidman and Emmy winner Per Saari (Big Little Lies<\/em>, The Undoing<\/em>). Going into the project, the team knew they had to get the casting right if the show was to stand out from the other true-crime shows out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted viewers to fall in love with Candy,\u201d Glatter explains. \u201cShe was the life of the party, but she was not all that she appeared to be on the surface, so we needed an actress that could thread that very delicate needle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics Choice Super Award winner and Emmy nominee Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision<\/em>) was her first choice\u2026 and it was spot-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The critics are raving about the show\u2019s central performances. \u201cThere\u2019s just something about Elizabeth Olsen as a housewife with a dark side that is endlessly appealing,\u201d says TheWrap<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Olsen\u2019s co-star is man-of-the-moment Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA nominee Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog<\/em>, Breaking Bad<\/em>, Fargo<\/em>), whose latest movie, Martin Scorcese\u2019s Killers of the Flower Moon<\/em>, premiered at Cannes last week, rocketing him to #9 on IMDb\u2019s<\/em> Starmeter, with Collider<\/em> calling him \u201cone of the greatest actors today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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For Plemons, who grew up less than two hours from where the events took place, the story had an added eeriness. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard to imagine this happening in your backyard. That\u2019s what\u2019s so scary and intriguing about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glatter agrees. \u201cThe story is very much about a perceived version of the classic American dream,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about life in the late-1970s\u2014 a time when people got married at 22, had kids, and church was their social network.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least at its outset, the show leans into that shininess, setting up its characters \u201clike a cappuccino,\u201d Kelley says, \u201cfrothy on top, but underneath, there\u2019s a bitter taste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, the show has a surprising dollop of humour. \u201cI didn\u2019t want the narrative to be without levity,\u201d Glatter says. \u201cLife isn\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plemons shared his co-star\u2019s fascination with their characters\u2019 naivete and almost childlike behaviour. \u201cI think I would have related to Allan a lot when I was younger,\u201d he says. \u201cHis dynamic with Candy is like something you\u2019d normally see between teenagers. There is a repression and shame around sex, a feeling of not fully being able to express themselves, and all the baggage attached to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t your typical affair. \u201cCandy chooses to have an affair, but she doesn\u2019t pick the \u2018hot guy\u2019\u2014she picks the little-bit paunchy nice guy she stands next to in the church choir,\u201d says Glatter. \u201cThey talk about it for months before they act on it. It wasn\u2019t lascivious. It was, \u2018Let\u2019s think about it over lunch.\u2019 It was about being seen and heard rather than just about sex. I wanted to play all of that with respect and realism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while, we\u2019re almost tempted to forget what\u2019s coming. But this is after all a true-crime series …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filming the murder itself was harrowing for everyone involved. \u201cShooting the murder was a horrible experience for all of us,\u201d says Glatter. \u201cAnd we wanted it to be. We didn\u2019t want to glorify anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was f*cking awful,\u201d admits Olsen. \u201cFilming it came with a crazy surge of adrenaline. I was incredibly overwhelmed over those three-plus days. I\u2019ve killed people on-screen before, but this was truly awful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo I think the real Candy Montgomery will watch this show and like it? I don\u2019t know,\u201d muses Glatter. \u201cI really don\u2019t think she intended to kill Betty. If she had just walked out the door when they started arguing, maybe it would have never happened? We will never know. I hope embedded in this story is compassion for the human condition. We are fallible beings and we need to embrace the holes in our heart before damage ever occurs. Secrets are so damaging \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love and Death<\/em> is currently the number one most-watched Max Original limited series globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Binge the full series on Showmax: www.showmax.com\/eng\/tvseries\/bba3kw6x-love-death<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently the #5 Most Popular Show on IMDb, Love & Death is based on the-crazy-but-real-story of Texas housewife Candace \u201cCandy\u201d Lynn Montgomery, whose extramarital affair with fellow church member Allan Gore ended in the murder of her lover\u2019s wife, Betty Gore, in Wylie, Texas, on 13 June 1980. During the assault, Betty was struck 41… Continue reading Emmy Nominee Elizabeth Olsen And Oscar Nominee Jesse Plemons Star In “Love & Death” on Showmax<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,240],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-18807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","category-series","tag-showmax","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}