When making a show or film about a true story, oftentimes, the real people who were involved get spoken to. Elizabeth Olsen and director Lesli Linka Glatter (Mad Men) revealed to The Hollywood Reporter why they did not talk to Candy Montgomery for HBO’s Love & Death.
The Marvel star plays Candy Montgomery in Love & Death. Taking place in Texas on June 13, 1980, Montgomery was having an affair with a fellow churchgoer, Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons in the series). Things build up to the murder of Allan’s wife, Betty (Lily Rabe in the series), who was hacked with an axe 41 times. Montgomery’s attorney argued it was self-defense and a moment of violence caused by childhood trauma. The jury found her not guilty. Over the years, she did one interview for the book Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs by John Bloom and Jim Atkinson. That silence since the book was the reason behind nobody reaching out to her for the series.
“I knew she didn’t want that,” Olsen said. “And I really have a respect for someone who draws such a hard line after a national story to have never done an interview after the fact. I can appreciate why someone would want their anonymity and privacy, even though we’re invading it by making the show.”
Nobody Talks to Candy Montgomery When Making HBO’s ‘Love & Death’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z778sJGKB3E
HBO released the first three episodes of the true-crime series on April 27 before moving to one episode per week. It gives a taste of the relationships of the various characters while highlighting the show’s stance on the affair that leads to murder. For Olsen, the cast and crew “made the show she [Montgomery] would have wanted.” In her mind, they “defend” the woman “without trying to let her completely off the hook.” The goal was not to “excuse or negate” the murder.
The story has been getting plenty of attention in the last year. Hulu had its own series last year titled Candy, with Jessica Biel in Olsen’s role, Melanie Lynskey as Betty, and Pablo Schreiber as Allan. Beyond Candy and Love & Death, the only fictional depiction of what Candy Montgomery did was the 1990 TV movie A Killing in a Small Town. In that case, it changed names and was more based on the story rather than telling it closely to how it happened.
Love & Death episodes release every Thursday on HBO Max.
