From showrunner Susannah Grant and inspired by real events, the eight-episode mini-series Unbelievable is a story of unspeakable trauma, and the strength and resilience that you can discover within yourself, as a result. When 18-year-old Marie Adler (Kaitlyn Dever, giving a reserved but remarkable performance) reports that she’s been sexually assaulted by an intruder in her home in 2008, everyone from her former foster parents to her friends to the investigating detectives doubt the truth of her story. Meanwhile, in 2011 and hundreds of miles away, Detectives Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) and Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever) find themselves investigating a pair of intruder rapes that are eerily similar to Marie’s experience, and they partner to catch what is clearly a serial rapist.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Merritt Wever talked about why she wanted to be a part of telling this story, approaching her character with care, the complicated nuance in a story like this, that there is no one type of victim, having co-star Toni Collette as a scene partner, and why Grace was so important to Karen. She also talked about her upcoming HBO series Run, from Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and the challenge of the fear she has in never being good enough, as an artist, when it comes to approaching each new role.

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Image via Netflix

Collider: First, I have to say that everyone in this does truly terrific, remarkable work. It’s such a difficult story to watch, but it’s an important one, and I thought it was handled really beautifully and delicately.

MERRITT WEVER: I’m really happy to hear that. We worked really hard on it, so I appreciate that.

When this came your way, how, how much were you told about what it would be, what it would be exploring, and who this character would be?

WEVER: I got the first three episodes. I hadn’t read all of the scripts, but those episodes came with the ProPublica/Marshall Project article that it’s based on, and the This American Life podcast. So, it wasn’t like I read a story that I could only start and not know where it was headed. I did get to see the overall big picture, and I also understood that I would be playing a part based on this detective and certainly inspired by her, but that because of life rights issues and the fact that, with the real Karen and Grace, who are Stacy and Edna, so much of their story is job-related, I wasn’t going to be specifically playing them. So, I ended up reading the expanded book by the same journalists, A False Report, and found a lot of really interesting, valuable and useful stuff about Stacy in there that I used, but I also knew that this wasn’t going to be a traditional character study.

What was most important to you, when it came to telling this story and the representation of this material?

WEVER: In a lot of ways, I didn’t have control over the representation of the material. I had to hope and trust that it was going to be handled in a way that I could get behind and support. Really, the only thing I could control was my approach to the character, and trying to do the best job that I could do. I didn’t really realize it until recently, but I had, in early episodes, gotten a little caught up. Part of this story is showing a rape case gone terribly wrong, handled horrifically, and then part of the story is showing the rape case that is handled correctly. As an actor, it was dangerous to think about having to represent something done right. I did a lot of research, specifically around guidelines for how to work with trauma victims, and how to interview them and investigate sexual assaults. But at the end of the day, what I realized, that I wished I’d realized a little sooner, was that the best way that I could serve these real people and serve the real story was just to act in the moment, do what was on the page, and try to be a real person, as best as possible, and hope that the rest of the telling got sorted out in the wash.

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Image via Netflix

This is a really solid true crime drama, but you also really get to examine that the gap between the male and female experiences, especially when it comes to sex crimes. When it came to that aspect of the story, what made you most heartbroken or sad or angry, with the obvious difference in treatment?

WEVER: What’s interesting is that, although I do think that there is plenty of room for gender being at play here, and because we live in a patriarchal society with men not being aware of things and being at fault, it could have been female detectives who mishandled Marie’s case, as well. It really could have been. There are also male detectives who would have had handled Amber’s correctly, and with thought and care and determination. I think one really interesting nuance about this story, and in the guidelines and in A False Report, there are some people who are more comfortable talking to a male detective than a female detective, for various reasons. There are sexual assault survivors who are male and would prefer to speak to a male detective. I am not so interested in letting men in that profession off the hook that easily, and saying, “Because you’re a man, you can’t understand and you don’t have to learn how to do the job in the correct way.” I also think a really interesting nuance to the story is that the first person who casts doubt on Marie is her foster mother, who was also sexual assault survivor. Now, the police should not have weighted that doubt the way they did, and it led to a huge and horrific cascade of behavior and events, but I think that’s a very interesting part of the story. It’s complicated. Sometimes the lines aren’t as easily drawn as gender and sex, but that’s not that they’re to be discounted though, by any means.

It’s just so hard to watch what Marie is put through, especially in the beginning, when you see just how many times she has to keep repeating what happened to her. That, alone, was just so heartbreaking.

WEVER: The process itself is not helpful, is re-traumatizing, and is not even conducive, sometimes, to thorough investigation, and it doesn’t take into consideration the effects of trauma on a person. But I also think that one of the useful things about this story is showing that there is no right way to be a survivor and that things affect people differently. The truth is, depending on who you run into, there is no way to be a perfect victim. And I use that word in quotation marks. You can be rich, you can be white, you can be this or that, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be believed.

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Image via Netflix

I love watching your character and Toni Collette’s character together. They balance each other in such an interesting way because they’re such different women.

WEVER: They are. Although, underneath Grace’s tough exterior, she cares a hell of a lot. I think that is part of why they work well together. They are both in it. It’s interesting that Grace tells Karen, “You can’t go 100%, all the time. You’ve gotta learn not to take the job home with you.” But from watching this series, she certainly takes the job home with her.

What was it like to have Toni Collette to balance that out with, with you?

WEVER: It was a privilege and a half. She is someone whose body of work is woven into the fabric of my artistic history and life, so it was a very big deal to get to work with her. I had to put that aside because to keep that in the forefront of my mind would have gotten in the way of doing the job, but I truly can’t believe I got to work with her. She is, as everybody knows, a phenomenal actress.

It was so great to watch the two of you together. It’s such an interesting relationship because they’re also at such different places in their lives.

WEVER: Yeah, they are, and Grace is so important to Karen. It’s it’s in the series, but it’s a true thing in the book. Before they really knew each other and before they work together, Karen clocked this woman. When I say Karen, I mean Stacy, but Karen was trying to find her way as a woman in the department, and she saw this woman be a fuckin’ bad-ass on the job and said, “Okay, I can do that.” She needed to see the example and the representation, and she was an incredibly important person to her.

It was announced that you’d also be doing an HBO series called Run, from Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who are fantastic. What most excites you about taking that on and collaborating with them?

WEVER: Right now, I only feel incredible anxiety and dread. The excitement has yet to hit because, unfortunately I’m usually just so worried about not being able to deliver, or I can’t believe my good fortune and I’m afraid that I’ll fail, and that it will be my one shot and I’ll never work again. We actually start shooting soon, so I’m in that head space, which isn’t a pleasant one. It would be lovely to find another way to go to work, but I’ve yet to be able to crack that nut, psychologically.

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Image via Netflix

Is that something that happens to you, with every project?

WEVER: Yeah.

Is there a definite point that changes that for you?

WEVER: Sometimes, but sometimes it takes seasons. Sometimes it takes months, and sometimes it takes days, but it always comes back, at some point. There’s this constant fear that I am not good enough, that I won’t be good enough, that I’m failing, and that I’ll never work again, which I don’t think is uncommon for actors. A big part of what I need, in order to do my job in the way I’d like to, is settling my own mind, so that I can just calm the fuck down and trust myself, and live in every moment, as it comes. Stuff like anxiety and fear puts me in my head instead of my body, and does the opposite of what I need to do, in order to then do the work, the way that I want to do it. But listen, everybody’s got their thing. I’m not the first or the last crazy actor you’ll speak to, today even.

As a writer looking at the blank page, I understand the fear.

WEVER: Yeah, it’s the creative process, and the creative process is painful, for most people. I don’t know if you’ve ever spoken to artists, of any kind, who don’t a struggle. It’s there in the word process. In the beginning, it doesn’t feel good ‘cause you haven’t found it yet. It’s painful, and sometimes it’s hard to push through. The truth is that most of the work is that toiling in the mud. It’s not the moments that the work leads you to. The toil guests, and that can be tough to bear sometimes.

What was it then that interested you in that project? Was it the specific character, or was it the words?        

WEVER: On that one, because I have yet to start shooting, I’m not a superstitious person, but my instinct right now is not to talk about it yet. Is that okay?

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Image via Netflix

Of course. Well, when you shot Unbelievable, was there a moment in the shoot that stood out most for you, either because it defined the story or character in a specific way, or just in the way that it made an impression on you? When I spoke to Toni Collette, she told me that it was after her character let your character go make the arrest, and you have that moment when you come back and see her again. Did that feel similar for you?

WEVER: Yeah, that was lovely, and I loved getting to play that with her. I really loved and appreciated all of the scenes with Toni, where I got to experience their relationship and them, as people, together. With so much of the work we’re doing on the show, our job is to provide a certain kind of engine while Kaitlyn [Dever] provides the heart. It got very difficult to constantly be doing material that was this relentless search and relentless push, often fruitlessly and slow going, but it was also very necessary to show that, to show what the work is like, and to show how hard they worked and how detailed it was. That meant, when I got to have scenes where I got to exhale and step away from that aspect of the job, and towards Karen, as a person, and towards Grace, as a person, those were very welcome, and I appreciated them.

Unbelievable is available to stream at Netflix.

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