“Life’s too short for me to do stuff that I don’t want to, and I don’t have to,” says Annette Bening.
This is why Bening chose to take on her latest project, starring in and executive producing Apples Never Fall.
Based on the bestselling book by Liane Moriarty, the series follows the Delaney family, with Bening as matriarch Jo. When Jo suddenly disappears, her kids begin to reexamine their parents’ so-called perfect marriage and secrets are exposed as the family unravels.
The series also stars Jake Lacy, Alison Brie, and Sam Neill.
It was Moriarty’s imagination and ‘juicy stories’ that drew Bening to the project.
“Once I saw everything, I thought, ‘wow, this is just such an opportunity,’ because I had never done something over so many episodes. It was just a joy for me to play such a rich character,” says Bening.
Melanie Marnich, the showrunner of Apples Never Fall, says that for the format of the series,“It’s a true ensemble show, but each episode frontburners a character to let us go deeper into that person’s history, mystery, their secrets, and their lies.”
Another big part of the narrative is that everyone in the family is plays tennis.
About this aspect, Marnich says, “I love the tennis element. Tennis, I find, is a sexy, wonderful sport and I think what’s so powerful about it is when you’re a family of deeply competitive people raised by deeply competitive people, it’s in their blood, it’s in their DNA and, to me, that amps up what these people could do to each other in the name of competing for love.”
Lacy says that to appear authentic, “We took extensive tennis lessons through the first month or so leading up to filming with remarkable coaches.”
“I’m not ashamed to say it,” adds Brie, “I took lessons but I’m not very good. Never played before this. Never figured it out. They said, ‘you know what, you don’t play very much in the show, and we can put a ball in digitally. Why don’t you just learn choreography?’ And I said yes.”
Bening admits that she participated in one tennis tournament in junior high, playing doubles with classmate Joan Osbourne. “We entered the tournament. We got one bye. The next people didn’t show up. We were in the finals, and we lost, so we got a trophy. That was my tennis experience.”
However, she says that she did get to practice a lot for the show and that she enjoyed it tremendously. “It was really fun.”
Bening, when asked about women of a certain age as depicted on-screen, says, “We need to broaden that narrative. Certainly in life, we see women over 60, 70, 80, living interesting lives, doing all kinds of different things. In my own experience with my women friends, there’s this kind of new chapter of life that has happened [as you age].”
Referring to this specific inquiry, she’s quick to retort, “I don’t know if men who are 65 are asked questions about being a mature man. I don’t know, does that happen?”
On the topic, Bening also says, “I mean, we definitely still live in a patriarchal structure. Things are changing, certainly, but that is still the way of the world. So there is a lot of unconscious prejudice. But in real life there’s all these interesting women out there doing different things.”
Somewhat summing up her thoughts about the topic, she points to a woman she knows well, saying, “My mom is 95 years old. She’s an amazing person. She inspires me.”
All episodes of ‘Apples Never Fall’ will be available for streaming on Peacock on Thursday, March 14th.
Read the full article here