Byrne was initially drawn to the steelier qualities of Sam, who, in adulthood, is a big-city patent lawyer with disdain for Charlie’s choice to resid
Byrne was initially drawn to the steelier qualities of Sam, who, in adulthood, is a big-city patent lawyer with disdain for Charlie’s choice to reside in their hometown as a defense attorney working with their father. “It was almost like a character a man would typically play,” Byrne says, “in the end, Charlie is the tougher of the two in many ways and the harder to crack. And Meghann is so extraordinary.” She can’t aid but indulge in some sisterly-feeling praise. “The danger is that this story can become so dark that you don’t want to engage,” says Byrne. “And she just has such a natural effervescent joy in her. She shouldered this story in many ways.”
The fittingly-named crime novelist Karin Slaughter—a moniker she inherited at birth, long before ever picking up a pen—speaks a little like one of her wisecracking Southern characters. Upon receiving a call from megaproducer Bruna Papandrea, who created a TV genre unto itself with Big Little Lies, which she co-produced with former producing partner Reese Witherspoon, Slaughter thought, “Oh fuck, what did I do now?” she recalls with a wry smile. “I’m not enamored of Hollywood. I love the shows that have been done on my stuff,” including police procedural Will Trent and Pieces of Her, a 2018 Netflix narrow series starring Toni Collette. “But I don’t know that I could be that kind of writer.”
But after making Pieces of Her with producing partner Steve Hutensky, Papandrea was convinced that Slaughter could be. The author dismissed the idea of writing an original film, as she “promptly told us she was too busy writing novels,” Papandrea says over email. “Two weeks later she called and said I’ve adapted a book of mine called The Good Daughter.” Slaughter describes a two week “fever dream” that involved completing six full scripts, spending twelve hours a day writing.
Then came the all-dreaded pitch meeting. “It’s very difficult to write about bad things that happen to women from an only-female perspective,” says Slaughter. “It just scares the shit out of men who read it. We got really lucky that Peacock is basically a lot of women and some really well-informed men who weren’t put off by that.”
Consider Oscar nominee Brendan Gleeson one of the enlightened. He and Green initially met for a coffee that turned into a three-hour lunch in Los Angeles to discuss the role of Rusty, a bombastic Southern defense attorney. “Brendan really wanted to understand at each juncture why he had made the decisions he had as a father,” the director remembers. “He wanted to hear about my father and what a female child needs.” There was already actual history between Gleeson and Byrne. “I worked with Brendan when I was 23 on Troy. I’ve worked with his son, Domhnall Gleeson, on the Peter Rabbit movies,” Byrne says. “I have a natural connection with Brendan, so it was really lovely to reunite.”
