Katcy Stephan Sophie Turner and Odessa Young took their roles as sisters on HBO Max’s “The Staircase” seriously. “I would feel anxiety if I wasn’t with her on set for a day,” Turner says of her co-star. “Anytime that we were doing a scene together, I’d be like, ‘Oh, thank God.’” Young and Turner star as sisters Martha and Margaret Ratliff, the adopted daughters of Michael Peterson (Colin Firth).
Their biological mother, Elizabeth Ratliff, was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in 1985. Resurfaced evidence from her death played a prominent role in the case against Peterson for the 2001 death of his wife Kathleen (Toni Collette), also discovered at the bottom of a staircase.
The series, created by Antonio Campos with showrunner Maggie Cohn, breathes new life into a highly-publicized true crime case, originally told as a 2004 miniseries that was republished with new episodes by Netflix in 2018.In an interview with Variety ahead of the series premiere, Turner and Young opened up about forming a sisterly bond on set, why they didn’t contact their real-life counterparts and if they think Michael Peterson is guilty. Were you familiar with “The Staircase” documentary series before signing on to this project? Turner: I finished it and became completely obsessed with it like everyone else did at the time.
And then obviously, when I got the role, I did a little bit more research. Young: I had heard about the wild case of ‘The Staircase Killer,’ but I had no idea.
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