Ruth Wilson is starring in a chilling new crime drama based on a real-life tragedy called The Woman in the Wall.
The series centers on Lorna Brady (Wilson), a woman from the small, fictional Irish town of Kilkinure, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house. Chillingly, Lorna has no idea who the dead woman is or if she, herself, might be responsible for the apparent murder. However, the corpse is just the start of Lorna unfurling the Magdalene Laundries, institutions that subjected young women and children in Ireland to wrongful imprisonment, forced labor and oftentimes physical and sexual abuse.
During The Woman in the Wall premiere, Ruth spoke exclusively with The Mirror and told us she's excited about "the conversation" that the series has already started after it aired in the UK and hopefully will continue as it hits Paramount+ and Showtime in the US.
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Ruth Wilson stars in a movie based on the Magdalene Scandals (BBC/Motive Pictures/Chris Barr)"What excited me most is the conversation around it. What was great about it was when it came out in the UK, every paper did a big deep dive on these Magdalene Laundries and that was very satisfying. That we did our job," she shared.
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Despite the tragic nature of the subject matter, when discussing the genre of the series, Ruth described it as "a" smashing of genres" that ranged from "gothic horror, crime thriller, black comedy and social royalist drama.”
The show's creator Joe Murtagh also spoke with The Mirror and delved into the "unbelievably horrific tragedy."
"It was a story that when you read into it, it’s unbelievably horrific," he shared. "The thing that really made me want to write it is this paradox between the scale of what happened and how few people know about it."
The Magdalene Laundries was a real-life scandal in which the Catholic churches colluded with asylums to in attempt to reform "fallen women", who were often referred to as sex workers, whether they actually were or not. Women were sent to live in these institutions under poor living conditions and made to do unpaid labor They were first formed in the 1922 and the last asylum wasn't shut down until 1996.
Joe revealed that he spoke to the women while creating this series and was shocked at how they were so willing to participate.
"They were so supportive of us doing this. They were just the most incredible women," he said. "The element of shame [around this incident] was so specific. These institutions were designed to instill a sense of shame into these woman. Just by them having a zoom call with me and telling me their story, that itself is an incredible feat."
Ruth Wilson is an executive producer for The Woman in the Wall (Thenews2/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)He also shared that while some elements have been fictionalized, the stories depicting the struggles these survivors went through are one-hundred percent real.
"We have fictionalized all of the characters and the town it was set in. That was always important from the start, to protect real survivors and communities, but also to enable us the freedom to draw on as many of the stories that we came across as possible, he said. "It’s all based in truth. All of the stories that you’re hearing on in the show are all based in reality to simulate the experiences they went through a few decades ago."
Ruth played a large role in shaping the series as an executive producer, Joe explained. He said: "Ruth was an exec producer on this which was fantastic because I was able to deliver the pilot script before any of the five scripts were written. She was there from the start, ready and willing to feed in as much as we wanted. We could write the character around her. It was an incredibly collaborative process."
The Woman in the Wall premieres in the US on January 19, 2024 on Paramount+ and airs on Showtime at 9PM ET.
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