Andrew Scott reveals the biggest challenge he faced while playing fictional serial killer Tom Ripley in new Netflix adaptation

Andrew Scott has opened up about the biggest challenge he faced playing fictional serial killer Tom Ripley in the new Netflix adaptation.

The Fleabag actor, 47, returns to the small screen in the film fresh take on the enduringly popular novel The Talented Mr. Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 Ripley – a role previously played by Matt Damon and John Malkovich.

Set in the 1960s, Ripley is hired by a wealthy New Yorker to travel to Italy to convince his wayward son Dickie (played by Johnny Flynn) to return home. Ripley makes his way into the opulent world of the elite before resorting to deceit and murder in a desperate attempt to keep his place at the table.

What makes Highsmith’s story so unique is that Ripley is the novel’s protagonist, Scott said, despite being a serial killer, and he encourages readers to see his humanity.

“The challenge of it was, ‘How do you make the audience feel what it’s like to be Tom Ripley, rather than where we normally go, which is the feeling of being a victim of Tom Ripley,’” Scott said.

The Fleabag actor returns to the small screen in the highly anticipated series based on Patricia Highsmith’s enduringly popular 1955 novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley

While promoting the series, Scott said that what makes Highsmith “one of the great crime writers” is that sometimes you are “willing” for Tom to get away with his crimes, rather than simply seeing him as a villain.

He said, “He’s the main character, he’s not the antagonist, so it asks us to look at what’s dark within ourselves.”

Scott went on to say that people are choosing to categorize perpetrators as “monsters” to “make us feel safer.”

“Basically all of these things are committed by humans and in some ways we have to be able to accept the very scary nature that humans can make mistakes and be evil and clumsy and innocent and still do these terrible things,” he added.

“And I think that’s what’s so disturbing about the character. So he’s actually a deeply human character, but maybe not someone we want to look at too much.”

Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) wrote and directed the latest adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, following in the footsteps of the 1999 film starring Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Featuring a noir version, compared to the Hollywood film’s lush visuals, critics have compared the Netflix version to Hitchcock in style and pacing.

Malkovich, who previously played the title role in the 2002 film Ripley’s Game, returns to the world of Tom Ripley in a very different installment, while the star-studded cast also includes Dakota Fanning who plays Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy and begins to suspect Tom’s motives.

What makes Highsmith’s story so unique is that Ripley is the novel’s protagonist, Scott said, despite being a serial killer, encouraging readers to see his humanity.

The eight-part show’s lead actor has been praised for his portrayal of the duplicitous titular con man

Although Scott was praised, some reviewers felt that the supporting cast fell short Evening standard‘s Anna Van Praagh deciding that Dakota Fanning “can’t compete for a second with Gwyneth’s Paltrow’s flawless Marge Sherwood, and Johnny Flynn is left dead on the side of the road compared to Jude Law’s portrayal of Dickie Greenleaf, a character he inhabited perfectly.” ‘

However, Zaillian’s images have left critics in awe of Carol Midgely The times noting that “it’s so cinematic that it feels less like a TV series and more like a really long movie,” calling it “a completely hypnotic experience.”

Christopher Stephens of The Ny Breaking writes: ‘This isn’t just any television, it’s a tribute to great directors of the 1940s like Carol Reed or Alfred Hitchcock.’

Meanwhile, Scott’s pivotal performance has captivated early viewers, with the Irish actor being labeled ‘enchanting’.

Lucy Mangan for The guard writes in her five-star review that “Scott’s Tom is everything and nothing, and hypnotic anyway,” adding, “There’s magic at work here.”

But the IndependentAdam White insists that Scott, who also serves as executive producer, “feels completely wrong” and is comparable to an EastEnders villain, looking “more like a lost Mitchell brother than a high society interloper.”

The star-studded cast also includes Dakota Fanning, who voices Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie

Andrew Scott’s central performance has captivated early viewers, with the Irish actor being labeled ‘enchanting’

Fans have also applauded Scott’s performance, such as tasking about X, before, TweetOn Wednesday evening, mesmerized viewers wrote: ‘Okay so I’ve already worked for two hours and I’m drinking a big cup of tea and watching the first episode of Ripley on Netflix and I’m here to tell you that it and Andrew Scott are both amazingly beautiful and strange and very disturbing and you should watch it;

‘The Ripley series is on Netflix today. Slow but intriguing…Scott is fantastic’;

‘A new Netflix series makes Andrew Scott the definitive Tom Ripley’;

‘Salt burn? Netflix said I present to you Ripley. We love a con man!’

Scott called Ripley “a tough role to play,” tellingly Vanity fair that he ‘found it very difficult mentally and physically’. That’s just the truth.’

“I feel like you have an obligation to love and defend your characters, and it’s your job to say, ‘Why?’ What is that?’ You’re not playing into the opinions, the previous views that people might have about Tom Ripley.

‘You have to throw them all away, try not to listen to them and say, “Okay, I have to have the courage to create our own version and my own understanding of the character.”