Joshua Zetumer talks to The Contending about adapting the controversial best-selling book Say Nothing as an FX limited series and why he focused on the Price sisters.
“Say Nothing, the book, is a lot,” said the presenter at the Scripter Awards at the USC Libraries back in February, when the FX limited series based on Patricia Radden Keefe’s book won in the episodic series category.
“Yes,” recalls Say Nothing showrunner Joshua Zetumer of the presenter’s apt description. “I felt so seen. It is a lot. It’s a big beautiful doorstop of a book that’s incredibly insightful but incredibly dense.”
When adapting the best-selling book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Zetumer says the biggest challenge was reconciling his own intense ambition with the realities of production.
“FX was amazing. They’re incredible partners, and they were all in for the level of authentic detail and scope. They’re there for all of it, but when you make TV and movies, you never have enough time or money. It was certainly an incredibly complex, unwieldy project.”
While most shows shoot out of order, luckily they were able to film a lot chronologically with the interview pieces coming at the end. They were well into the edit by the time Maxine Peake (older Dolours) stepped onto the stage with her narration proving to be crucial.
“If you’re doing an incredibly, ambitious, unwieldy period piece spanning four decades, voiceover is definitely your friend as far as your ability to wrangle the story. God forbid a sequence doesn’t work, the jumping through time allows you some more wiggle room in the edit to stitch it up and make it cohesive.”
Too Much and Too Little Information to Pull From
Zetumer says he made Dolours and the Price sisters the gravitational center of the show because their lives contain so many chapters that you could easily have gotten three seasons of TV out of them.
“One of the challenges with making it was on the one hand, you have way too much information and you have to distill down. And then because the IRA is an organization that’s shrouded in secrecy, you also don’t have enough information at the same time. You can’t know what was said in so many of the rooms.”
As an American, he performed a profound amount of research into the Troubles and the specifics of the characters, interviewing IRA members and people who would rather not have their names shared, in order to really lock down the reality of Belfast at the time and what the characters could say moment to moment.
“I didn’t want to make them sound like it’s coming from the mouth of a 43-year-old California boy.”
Zetumer’s guiding principle was very much getting under the skin of somebody who would do absolutely anything in service of their beliefs.
“And that person is 20 years old. That felt like a really relevant thing to me. We talked about this with directors; Dolours and Marian have a bubble around them and everything outside of that bubble. If it’s not absolutely salient to the story, you push it away to really get you into the emotional experience of those kids.”
“I Don’t Want Any Children. I Want Everyone To Die.”
In Episode 6’s “Do No Harm,” Dolours (Lola Petticrew) and Marian (Hazel Doupe) go on a 208-day hunger strike while in a British men’s prison after being arrested for a series of London bombings. Delirious from not eating and on the brink of death, Marian exclaims to her sister, “I don’t want any children. I want everyone to die.” Later we learn that Marian is (allegedly) behind a key death from the series. Does this moment fortell that?
“No one has asked me about that moment. It was written by Clare Barron. When the actors read that script, both Lola and Hazel cried at the end. That sequence when Marian is dying, and Dolours says, ‘I’ll get you anyting you want; I’ll get you coffee, Marian.’ It’s such a beautiful monologue. That’s one of those moments — she’s speaking from her unconscious. It’s at death’s door. It’s meant to be unconscious poetry.”
With so many real-life people depicted in this story, including Marian Price, Zetumer says he can’t speak for everyone, but that the feedback regarding the portrayal of the conflict has been positive for its realism.
“It’s been very well-received in Ireland and Belfast. We’ve personally heard from people who’ve been associated with the IRA who thanked us for putting this show into the world and then also IRA victims who told us they were glad this show existed.”
Say Nothing is streaming on FX on Hulu.
