Variety We’re living in a true crime boom in both scripted and unscripted television — but “Love & Death” director and exec producer Lesli Linka Glatter said she hopes her new HBO Max series will be seen as much more than that.
Sure, the series involves the true story of accused (but acquitted) axe murderer Candy Montgomery, played by Elizabeth Olsen. “There is a horrible true crime at the core of this, but we didn’t want it to be just a true crime story,” Glatter said Saturday in a panel discussion after the premiere of “Love & Death” at the South by Southwest festival. And the show doesn’t shy away from Montgomery’s actions. But “it’s really, things are not what they appear to be. You have to go deeper to see what’s really going on. We really tried to look at the ‘how’ and ‘why’ rather than the ‘what.’ How could this happen?”
The “Love & Death” premiere, held at Austin’s Paramount Theatre, served as a bit of a homecoming and reunion for the limited series’ cast and crew. “Love & Death” was filmed in the area, and is a story set in Texas (and even partly inspired by stories in Texas Monthly magazine). With an audience filled by actors and artisans who played a part in the production, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.
“This is the perfect place to show our show for the very first time,” Glatter (who was born in Dallas) said before a screening of the premiere episode. “We made it here. It is a Texas story. I am a Texas human. To tell a story that is set here, shot here, I see so much of our Austin cast and crew here…. For me this is about a Texas town and the characters. I fell in love with all of them. But there is also a deep hole inside of those characters.”
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