‘Lady in the Lake’: Why Showrunner Alma Har’el Made the Adaptation a 2-Hander With Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram

“Lady in the Lake” series creator and showrunner Alma Har’el had a vision for the the Apple TV+ series that differed from the 2019 Laura Lippman on which it’s based — one that focused not just on main character Maddie Morgenstern but on the “lady” of the title. That’d be murder victim Cleo (Moses Ingram), who narrates the seven-episode drama.

Natalie Portman, who is also a producer on the series, stars as Maddie, while Ingram of “The Queen’s Gambit” fame takes on the expanded role of Cleo amid an enhanced focus on Baltimore’s Black community of the 1960s.

“It’s been incredibly challenging to adapt this book, because it’s a book you can’t let go of. It’s gripping, but it does focus much more on Maddie Morgenstern and a lot of very different characters around Baltimore. My wish was to create a two-hander and recreate the world around Cleo,” Har’ el told TheWrap.

“It was really building the whole side of the story of Cleo Johnson and this side of Baltimore that I wasn’t aware of,” she added. “There was such an incredible amount of culture, music, fashion, politics, an economy, a Black economy, surrounding this idea of the numbers game people were betting on their dreams. And that became a huge metaphor for the whole show.”

Below, Har’el breaks down some of the other ways the series differs from the novel, but is perfectly in line with the vision of late producer Jean-Marc Vallée , who died in December 2021.

Jean-Marc Vallée “always envisioned” Natalie Portman as Maddie and wanted Alma Har’ el to direct

“Vallée, who optioned the novel along with producing partner Nathan Ross and Julie Gardner, of Bad Wolf America, always envisioned Natalie as Maddie Morgenstern. And then Jean-Marc had seen ‘Honey Boy’ and just became obsessed with the idea that I would write and also direct all episodes, which, at the time, was nothing that I wanted to do. But it ended up being exactly what he envisioned.”

Cleo’s husband Slappy and mob enforcer Reggie aren’t in the book

“We wrote a lot of characters that weren’t in the book, one of them being Slappy Johnson, who I wrote with the actor who plays him, Byron Bowers. And Reggie, [a major player in the illegal numbers game in Baltimore] who was written for Josiah Cross. Well, it wasn’t written for him, but he did an audition that left me breathless.”

Ingram brought her own experiences growing up in Baltimore to the show

“Moses made it real. She doesn’t just come from Baltimore. She believed that she had to leave Baltimore to have a career, and then coming back home there to actually have what she refers to as her biggest opportunity was a very emotional moment  for her and her family. She came with a lot of commitment, but also a lot of insight into who Cleo Johnson is. She knew that woman.”

The jazz club was based on Baltimore’s real-life Sphinx Club

“There’s a club in the book called the Flamingo, which is more of a gentleman’s strip club. But there is no jazz club in the book. That’s something that I wrote based on a lot of research about Pennsylvania Avenue, which was the mecca of jazz for many Black musicians. There was a members only club over on that strip, called the Sphinx Club. And we were inspired. It’s an amalgamation of that club and a few other venues on Penn Avenue.”

Costume designer Shiona Turini just came off Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour

“Our brilliant costume designer, Shiona Turini, was just coming off her Beyoncé ‘Renaissance’ tour. She helped us create these costumes and the  coloring that we were going for, which were inspired by Kodachrome photography from the ’60s. The costume design was always extremely iconic in terms of how we approached it, from the color to the texture, to the way it said something about what it feels like to that moment when Maddie sees Cleo in the window, but she’s looking at the dress and not at her.”

Maddie is a new kind of character for Portman

“I’ve never seen her do anything like it. And she manages to weave so many of her strengths, from being a dramatic actress to being comedic at times, to being a wonderful dancer, which we’ve seen her do in ‘Black Swan.’ It’s every possible strength that I could harness.”

Portman’s character can be kind of clueless, especially in dealing with the Black community

“There’s a tone deafness to Maddie that lends itself to a lot of comedy in this show. And I like to say that it’s one leg in the grave and one on a banana peel. In [our quest for the truth] we often forget other people’s struggles or step on their own freedom. I wanted to capture this very complex human experience while really enjoying the thrill of whodunit. It’s a murder mystery and it’s a noir thriller, and you’re investigating two things at the same time: whodunit and who are you?”

New episodes of “Lady in the Lake” are released Fridays on Apple TV+.

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