David E. Kelley on his new show Love & Death
The true story of a churchgoing Texas housewife who took an axe and killed her best friend with 41 blows is at the centre of David E Kelley’s latest show.
“I’m routinely accused of being over the top,” says David E. Kelley, the American TV writer and producer responsible for recent riveting entertainment Big Little Lies, Anatomy of a Scandal and The Undoing.
“So I was thrilled that I had a defence baked into this one – that this was the real world and these were the real events.”
He is referring to his latest venture, Love & Death, a limited series based on the true life story of Candace “Candy” Montgomery, a churchgoing Texas housewife who in 1980 took a wood splitting axe and dealt her best friend Betty Gore 41 fatal blows.
“The truth can be a double-edged sword,” says Kelley. “First, you’re stuck with it; but when the truth is as fantastic as it was in this set of facts, and in this community, it was a blessing.”
Kelley made his name with original, fictional television, first as a writer on L.A. Law, then with Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice and Ally McBeal. A former lawyer who made the switch to entertainment, Kelley never left his legal gut instinct behind. When it comes to picking projects, he looks for certain things.
“Is there a great plot and are there rich and compelling characters – and this had both. When the project was first brought to my attention there was a presumption against it because I like to make the facts up. So I thought, if the facts are already coming to me fully baked what’s the point? But when I read the [Texas Monthly] articles and I read the book [Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs], it was just too juicy, too rich, too delicious to turn away from.”
And while Love & Death may feel like it’s capitalising on our increasing fascination with stranger than fiction true crime, Kelley says, “we were initially drawn to the characters … characters that allowed you to explore their complexities, their ethical value judgements – that’s the muck that I love to splash around in. And these characters had it. Candy – I still don’t fully get all of her. She was such a contradiction in so many terms, it was a storyteller’s delight to try to go in and mine that.”
“If this story wasn’t true, you couldn’t make it up,” says director Lesli Linka Glatter, who directed Elizabeth Olsen in the role of Candy.
“We humans are such complicated creatures. This is to me about deep character exploration. And there is humour in it. And then the tone shifts, which for me as a director is a very exciting challenge.”
That tonal shift – from an idyllic, small town Texas life full of church activities and picnics and disco music, to an affair and a gruesome murder – makes Love & Death compelling viewing.
“I think there are some stories that are truly inexplicable about human beings and I think this is one of them,” says Glatter. “How did this happen? Why did this happen? Two housewives in a laundry room. I don’t know if that can ever be answered.”
“This story had never been told before as a series,” says Kelley. “When we started down our path it had never been dramatised before.”
But as it happens, Hulu did make a version, Candy, starring Jessica Biel. They “did it faster and got it out before ours is getting out,” Kelley says, “but in terms of the decision to make this show, this was very original and fresh and surprising material.”
One of the most surprising things about Love & Death is Olsen’s portrayal of Montgomery as a bright eyed, eager, aspirational mum who is looking for a distraction from her picture perfect life. At one point her husband says, “Why is it you always want more?” And in the second to last episode, Montgomery muses, “There’s a time when I thought this was it, you know. Everything. Just to be able to stand underneath the stars. A home. A family. And people go lookin’ for something. I don’t even know what it is. They just want. And they go lookin’. The end of some rainbow maybe.”
“I found the characters very relatable, their yearns and their wants and their fragilities, their desires,” says Kelley. “They’re universal and they still are today. With Candy, what especially drew me to her is that she was a person who aspired and she went to a very dark place, but her nucleus was one of aspiration. She is the least cynical axe murderer that you’re gonna come across,” he laughs.
As the unfortunately named victim of her axe – Betty Gore – Lily Rabe delivers a heartfelt performance as the doomed wife of the man with whom Candy is having an affair. Rabe credits her involvement in the series to Nicole Kidman, who she met on The Undoing, which Kidman starred in and executive produced.
“Nicole called me and said, ‘There is this part and I really think you’re the person to play it and here’s why,’ and so of course I listened because I think she’s so brilliant and I also think she has a real understanding of me as an actress and as a person and what I would be interested in,” says Rabe.
Kidman also worked with Kelley on Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies and he credits the latter for making him realise adapted material could be just as compelling as his own larger than life creations.
“In choosing the projects – whether she’s acting in them or producing them, I think she has such an unbelievable eye for material and for storytelling and she’s so investigative in what she chooses,” says Rabe. “I’m always interested in whatever direction she’s going because the material that she moves towards is always good.”
Love & Death is now streaming on BINGE, with new episodes every Thursday.
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Originally published as David E. Kelley on his new show Love & Death
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