Elizabeth Olsen unfazed that Love & Death’s axe killer story was in a different show in 2022
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Elizabeth Olsen plays Candy, who picks up an axe and fatally strikes her friend Betty 41 times, in the miniseries.
PHOTO: HBO GO
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AUSTIN, Texas – The upcoming miniseries Love & Death recreates the shocking true story of Candy and Pat Montgomery and Betty and Allan Gore, two churchgoing couples who seem to be living the dream in their small Texas town until an affair leads to tragedy.
In 1980, Candy – played by Elizabeth Olsen – picks up an axe and fatally strikes her friend Betty (Lily Rabe) 41 times. And in a sensational trial, she goes on to plead self-defence and is found not guilty of murder.
Written by Emmy winner David E. Kelley, Love & Death – which premieres on HBO Go on Thursday – has had some of its thunder stolen by Candy, a miniseries that streamed in 2022 on Disney+ and told the same story.
Starring Jessica Biel as the titular axe-wielding suburban housewife, it was green-lit when filming on Love & Death was already under way and ended up being released earlier.
But Olsen, 34, is unfazed.
“I don’t have a problem telling this story multiple times – it’s what you do in theatre and it’s what we’ve done for generations,” says the American actress at a media festival in Austin, Texas.
“Stories that are good are just told over and over again. And most stories, as we know, come from very few stories from history, like Greek dramas,” adds Olsen, best known for playing sorceress Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in Marvel superhero films such as Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) and the Disney+ series WandaVision (2021).
And this telling of Candy’s story – which was inspired by Evidence Of Love, a 1984 non-fiction novel by investigative journalist John Bloom, along with articles from Texas Monthly magazine – takes a different tack from other true-crime tales.
“Maybe it’s because none of us thought of it as true crime, we thought we were just telling a story about a time and a place where an absurd circumstance happened to small-town people who meant well,” says Olsen, who is married to American musician Robbie Arnett, 31.
She was equally fascinated by all the players involved, including Betty’s husband Allan (Jesse Plemons), with whom Candy had been having an affair, and Candy’s spouse Pat (Patrick Fugit).
“Any time you have characters who are trying to do the right thing and it all goes wrong, I think that makes us, as an audience, curious about ourselves and the decisions we would make,” says Olsen.
“I think they’re all very relatable characters who are trying to fill deep holes in their lives.”
Elizabeth Olsen stars in Love & Death, a fictional retelling of a true-crime case.
PHOTO: HBO GO
Kelley, the American writer and producer behind Emmy-winning dramas such as Big Little Lies (2017 to 2019) and The Practice (1997 to 2004), says Love & Death also takes the time to explore the idyllic community Candy called home and probe beneath the surface.
“We do immerse ourselves in the town for two or three hours. We are inviting the audience into this warm, almost welcoming world of this churchgoing community,” says the 67-year-old.
“It then completely changes when the pathology of the characters went in the directions they went. It becomes very severe.”
Elizabeth Olsen at the Vanity Fair 95th Oscars Party in Beverly Hills, California, in March.
PHOTO: AFP
As a screenwriter, his goal was to drop breadcrumbs hinting “that this is going some place, so pay attention, these tiny little moments are going to add up to something”.
“At the end of the first episode, we let the audience know this is not all fun and cupcakes and red-hot lovers – this is going to a different place,” Kelley says.
And while many are convinced Candy is a murderer and did not act in self-defence, Olsen continues to reserve judgment when it comes to the woman, who is now 74 and believed to be living in Georgia.
Elizabeth Olsen in Love & Death. She plays Candy, who picks up an axe and fatally strikes her friend Betty 41 times, in the miniseries.
PHOTO: HBO GO
“I would never judge a character I play,” she says.
“You think of the circumstances that led people to that point, you think of their upbringing, their dreams and the resources they have at the moment these things occur. Also, what does it do for society to just judge people’s actions without trying to understand the impetus? So I never go in with judgment, but with lots of empathy.”
Love & Death premieres on HBO Go on Thursday.
