Colin Firth Reveals Why He Didn't Talk To Michael Peterson Ahead of Playing Him in 'The Staircase'

justjared.com:

Colin Firth is opening up about portraying Michael Peterson on the small screen for HBO Max’s The Staircase.

The 61-year-old actor will step into the prolific author’s shoes as he’s accused of the murder of his wife, Kathleen.

In a recent interview, Colin is explaining why he didn’t reach out to meet with Michael ahead of filming the mini docu-series. Click inside to read more… Speaking to Deadline, Colin says that he “felt the way the script was structured and just the whole approach of this was its own ecosystem, so to speak.” “These are created characters but we all know what the source is,” he added. “We all know that these characters have names of living people, but it’s very carefully calibrated to tell the story in a certain way.” Colin says that he “wanted to keep my inspiration, my motivation, and the sense of the source material, as much as possible contained within the script and the way it was written.” He did say that if he had reached out to Michael, his portrayal of him “could have been skewed in some way if I had personal connections…with Michael Peterson and other people concerned.

If I’d had a personal response to the meeting, it might have prevented me from tuning into this world of varying possibilities that had been created.” The first three episodes of The Staircase are streaming now on HBO Max.