With Academy Award-nominated director Tobias Lindholm’s new film, The Good Nurse, now streaming on Netflix, I recently got to speak with Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne about making the disturbing true-crime film. If you’re not familiar with the actual story, the movie is based on the 2013 book of the same name by Charles Graeber, which encapsulates the heinous crimes of Charlie Cullen (played by Redmayne), a nurse who killed hundreds of people by serving up lethal amounts of drugs to their systems. The only reason he was stopped was due to the incredible efforts of Amy Loughren (Chastain), a compassionate nurse and single mother struggling with a life-threatening heart condition that risked everything to stop him. Led by two fantastic performances and a smart script written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, The Good Nurse is definitely worth your time. The film also stars Nnamdi Asomugha, Noah Emmerich, and Kim Dickens.

During the interview, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne talked about how the film is different because it focuses on the heroes that stopped a serial killer and not the violence, how shooting the film in order helped with their performances, how they both get ready for a role, and what it was like having Amy Loughren on set watching Chastain work.

Watch what they had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below. For more on The Good Nurse, you can read Ross’ review.

COLLIDER: Sincerely, congrats on this movie.

JESSICA CHASTAIN: Thanks.

It made me very angry. The thing that I really enjoyed about this, is that it doesn't focus on Charlie and what he's doing behind the scenes and being violent. It's instead focusing on the heroes. I really dug that aspect of the film. Can you sort of talk about that?

CHASTAIN: Yeah. I have trouble sometimes with the real-crime genre. I find that it becomes quite fetishistic, in the way that they sensationalize violence. It feels a bit uncomfortable for me to spend so much time focusing on the life of someone who caused so much pain to others. And what was so beautiful about working on this, and it's Tobias Lindholm's humanity, and you see it in all of his work, is that he said, "You know what? I'm going to focus now on the person who stopped the violence." And she didn't stop it with violence. She stopped it with compassion and love and friendship and reminding him of the person he is. And he is not a monster. He did terrible things, but he saved her life, and he's also done good things. By focusing on that kind of compassion and love the cycle of violence then ends. And how great, to be a part of a real-crime genre film that focuses on that, and lets everyone that's watching it at home know that they can also step forward and be the individual that is able to combat a system, when you think that maybe you might have no power in doing so.

A male and female nurse sitting side by side on a hospital floor in The Good Nurse.

Eddie, I'll ask you an individual question. You've never played a dark character like this. Was it something that at the end of the shoot you were completely ready to shed, or were you like, "I think I'm going to be playing some dark characters going forward."

EDDIE REDMAYNE: Oh, well do you know, the interesting thing about the playing of him is we were lucky enough to spend time with the real Amy Loughren in prep for the film. And she spoke about these two different human beings that she knew. One was her best friend, or close friend who was a kind, generous, brilliant nurse who saved her life. Then this other person that she met twice, that was a serial killer who was a completely different human being. She really underlined the importance of the friendship and the truth of that friendship.

So what it meant about the making of the film is that a large amount of it, Jess was having to play Amy's heart condition. She was having to run around the set to build up her heart rate. It was an extraordinary physical feat. And actually, for a lot of the film, my role was really playing her friend. It was only those last few weeks of filming, when my family went home, that it became more intense and rigorous. But even those scenes, which were based on some of the verbatim texts that he said, it was extreme, but it was also getting to do that with Jess, who's an old friend and an actor I've long admired, was kind of thrilling as well.

Jessica, you have played a number of real people, but I believe this is the first time the real person was on set.

CHASTAIN: Oh yeah. That's a nightmare. Just kidding. I mean, it's great to be able to talk to the person that you're playing, and she was so incredibly generous with me, and what a resource. But of course, I'm human, and I get really intimidated. I can do all my prep before and then when I get on set I want to just kind of fall into the story I'm playing. So every time I saw her, I just was like, "Oh yeah, I'm a fraud. That's Amy, not me." I was really intimidated by her being there, but she was so generous with me. We would give each other a hug, and then she'd kind of hide from my sight, so I would almost forget she was there. Yeah, she was great.

Jessica Chastain as the nurse in 'The Good Nurse,' sitting in a chair against a blank, white wall.
Image via Netflix

You guys had the fortune of filming most of this movie in order. I wanted to know, what was that like as an actor, and do you feel that? Does that really help you with your performance?

CHASTAIN: Absolutely.

REDMAYNE: Absolutely.

CHASTAIN: Always.

REDMAYNE: Also in the delicacy of what this friendship was, the bits that we could shoot in order were all the interiors inside the hospital. One of the things I love about Krysty Wilson-Cairns' script is that she doesn't overwrite. There's a sparsity, she has real faith in the actors. But when you are shooting chronologically, you can develop little things that then get paid off later. And also your friendship, your character's friendship progresses naturally, it's such a rare thing, but it's extraordinary when you can have it.

the-good-nurse-eddie-redmayne
Image via Netflix

I always love learning about how you get ready for a shoot, because I really do enjoy both of your work. For a performance like this, how long before your shooting begins are you actually getting in the headspace? Is it months? Is it weeks? How does it actually work?

CHASTAIN: I start getting in the headspace as soon as I know that the movie's going to happen or that the project's going to happen. I mean, I was shooting Scenes From a Marriage, and it kind of really came right up into ... I finished Scenes From a Marriage, and in fact, we had dinner with Tobias Lindholm when he came to town. Oscar and his wife and Jeremy, we all met with Tobias to welcome him to New York. Then we started rehearsals for this. It was kind of like a right-into thing, and it couldn't have been more of a different kind of headspace.

But we had been attached to this project for six years, so we knew it was going to happen for a long time. We had plenty of time to read the book, The Good Nurse, Charles Graeber's book that it's based on, or the true story it's based on. We had that great resource to go to, to talk to Amy. We went to nursing school. We met in Tobias' kitchen for weeks, going through the dialogue line by line. I mean, we really did a lot before we ended up on set.

REDMAYNE: Yeah, and I'm one of those actors that, if I attach myself to something, particularly something like this that shoots abroad or whatever, the second I'm attached to it, it's in my head and I don't attach myself to something ... I find that hard to attach myself to things without going, "Oh yeah, I'm definitely doing this." So weirdly, I live with it ... This one we lived with quite a long, long time. But also, since The Theory of Everything, which was the first time when I was allowed a long runway, I suppose, a long period of time to prep, it's become a thing that I will always push for. Because some actors can jump into accents and physicalities and stuff, and for me, it takes a wee while for those things to ... they can work cosmetically for a while, but to be embedded. So I was very grateful on this, that we had that time.