Last week The Knockturnal attended the premiere of Amazon’s newest series “Z: The Beginning of Everything.”
“Z: The Beginning of Everything” is available exclusively on Amazon and is based on the Therese Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald . The series focuses around Zelda Fitzgerald, played by Christina Ricci, who is also executive producer. We all know of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerlad’s tumultuous romance, but we’ve never heard Zelda’s perspective. “Z: The Beginning of Everything” shows the world the side of Zelda we rarely read about with an amazing cast of women including Kristine Nielsen, Holly Curan, Jamie Anne Allman and Sarah Schenkkan. We had a chance to speak with the cast and author about their roles, including executive producer Christina Ricci.
Author -Therese Anne Fowler
Can you talk about the inspiration behind the book?
Zelda’s life was sort of fascinating and interesting all by itself and so when I discovered that what most of us thought was true about Zelda turned out to be rather malignant representation of her I felt that somebody needed to champion her side of the story and as soon a I started learning more about her I felt that this was a project I had to pursue.
How much of a role did you play in the series?
They consulted me about the information I had dug up when I did my research and asked some advice of how to shape the first season.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -David Hoflin
How was it working with Christina?
To be honest she’s also the executive producer so it was – when we first started I was nervous because when you work with another actress as established as Christina you’re always nervous, but then she’s got the EP hat on, but it was great and I’m not just saying that. We got along really well and there was not one moment in the three months where I wasn’t happy to come to work and we worked extensively with each other for a long period of time. Also I never got the sense that – she doesn’t wear the executive producer hat. She’s a performer at heart.
What was your favorite scene or episode to film?
It’s hard to say. Shooting around New York was really special because a lot of the time when you do shows like this you’re one a set and we did have studio stuff, but there’s a lot of things that we shot that are in old clubs. That was really memorable, to shoot in these locations that have a lot of history.
Zelda Fitzgerald -Christina Ricci
There’s a certain thing in the air right now with feminism and flappers were the first wave of American feminism. What’s something you admire about Zelda Fitzgerald as a strong woman in her time.
One of the things I really loved about – especially reading about strong women in history because they were so limited as to their freedoms and what they could do. I love how women had this shared character trait of making lemonade out of lemons. One thing I loved about Zelda is that they could be in a horrible situation, but Zelda always made Scottie feel life is magical and fun and safe.
What was the biggest similarity between you and Zelda?
I think she and I both have a recklessness that hasn’t always done great things for us so I think I really relate to somebody who just doesn’t seem able to think long-term unfortunately. I was able to get over that and mature, but I don’t think she was ever given that opportunity.
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op5hWLbxQGY
