[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Prime Video’s Dead Ringers.]
The Prime Video remake of Dead Ringers is centered on the story of gynecologist twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played by Rachel Weisz), whose deep bond frays as they work together to innovate the ways in which women give birth today. The Mantle twins live in a complicated world packed with complicated characters, though, including Greta (Poppy Liu, Hacks), the house manager who looks after their domestic needs. Greta has ulterior motives in working for the twins, however, revealed slowly over the course of the six-episode season.
Greta at first seems like she’s up to something extremely nefarious, given how (when the Mantles aren’t looking) she’s collecting seemingly endless biological samples from the twins, including hair and used tampons. “It’s interesting because a lot of the creepy stuff my character does, she does alone,” Liu tells Consequence. “I’m literally the only actor on set for a lot of those shots — when she’s in her kind of Silence of the Lambs-esque basement, it’s just me. The set design that they did for that basement was chilling. Because it feels like she’s a serial killer. It feels like it was going down a totally different route.”
Playing the role was something Liu savored, they say, because “it kind of felt like Greta was her own kind of side canvas, where everyone’s like, ‘We’re going to all put a little bit of our own input into this character.’ There was a lot of co-creation with hair, makeup, wardrobe — I think they really let all the different creative departments run with it.”
This included the creation of Greta’s apartment: “The set design of that basement and what you see on screen is just literally a fraction of it. There are drawers upon drawers all labeled with freaky little body parts, different fluids or things or compartments. It’s so extensive.”
Not to mention the costume design by Keri Langerman: “Keri is an Asian woman, and I remember during our first fitting, she too was like, ‘I find this character really interesting. And also as an Asian person, I also don’t want anyone to ever look at Greta and be like, oh, you’re an Asian maid person. We’re going to do that by making sure she’s the best-dressed person in every room that she’s in.’ And I think she accomplished that to a point where it’s almost confusing why Greta’s chopping apples wearing designer leather pants and an Ariana Grande ponytail, or in a full face of makeup serving tea.”