AP – It’s time to take another trip to Italy, to the charming, cobblestoned streets of the Amalfi Coast, sipping coffee at cafes and looking for the la dolce vita. And it just wouldn’t be fun without our favorite serial killer, right? Tom Ripley is back for another turn at wearing dressing gowns and having Champagne on the terrace in Ripley, a thrilling new Netflix series based on the enduring character created by novelist Patricia Highsmith in The Talented Mr Ripley . It premiered April 4.
“The idea that we know we’re not supposed to like him, but we do want to see him get away with it is very interesting. What’s it say about us?” asked Steven Zaillian, who created, directed and wrote the eight-episode adaptation. Andrew Scott steps up to play Ripley, a scrappy check fraudster in grimy New York who is hired to locate a rich dilettante in Italy, but kills him and then impersonates him, leading to more murders and scams.
“Like with any sort of iconic literary character like that, people have very strong opinions – he’s a psychopath, he’s a serial killer,” said Scott. “Part of the challenge was how do you make an audience feel like what it’s like to be Tom Ripley, rather than what is usually done, which is to want to feel like to be a victim of Tom Ripley.” The eight-hour canvas allows viewers time to watch him figure out how to get out of jams in real time, like a murder he commits in his apartment in the fifth episode.
He needs to find the victim.
