
Part one of the new series
The Artist comes to The Network this Thanksgiving. The series features a blend of real-life historical figures and a fictional story created by Iram Rappaport, who also directed the murder mystery. Set in New York’s high society during the Gilded Age, the story follows eccentric tycoon Norman Henry (Mandy Patinkin) and his wife, Marian (Janet McTeer) as they host the biggest celebrities of the era at their extravagant home. Their guests include scientist Thomas Edison (Hank Azaria), artist Edgar Degas (Danny Huston), and model and actress Evelyn Nesbit (Ever Anderson) as she becomes known overnight after her husband, Harry Thaw (Clark Gregg), murders the architect Stanford White during an event at Madison Square Gardens. However, truths are revealed, and by the end, Henry is found dead, launching the historical murder mystery.
In developing the series, writer and director Rappaport wanted to capture something that felt unpredictable. “I would say it’s a scorched earth, Gilded Age murder mystery where you don't know who's dead, who's dying, who's doing the killing or what historical facts are accurate until the very end,” he told SciFi Vision. “…You don't know what's real and what isn’t.”
He began shaping the idea during the recent writers’ and actors’ strikes. The tension he saw in the industry became a creative spark. “I just saw the polarization between these creatives and these artists that were fighting for a little bit, these, you know, presumptive kings of the industry who were deeply in debt…but still felt entirely in control of the artists that essentially produced for them,” he told the site. Setting the story during the Gilded Age allowed him to mirror those power imbalances.
Casting the series meant building roles around the actors he brought onboard. Rappaport explained that the process began with Mandy Patinkin, but it took time for the actor to connect with the material. “[H]e sort of didn't understand it and passed on it,” Rappaport said. After meeting again and explaining that the tone wasn’t as dark as he thought, Patinkin signed on with one condition, which helped shape the rest of the series. “He had one condition, that we sort of shoot it like a love story and that even though these two people have sort of fallen out of love and hate each other, they sort of find it again.”