We spoke with actor Brett Gelman amid the release of his new series Lady in the Lake, which is now streaming on Apple TV+. Starring Natalie Portman and created by Alma Har’el, the series is based on an acclaimed novel by Laura Lippmann and centers on 1960s Baltimore, particularly the Jewish and Black communities within the city as tensions rise once a young girl goes missing in the first episode. As the husband of Portman’s character, Gelman plays a devout Jewish man who holds his beliefs close to his heart, even at the expense of his loved ones at times.
“I think that that element was one of the biggest things that I connect to with the project,” Gelman told MovieWeb, thinking about the show’s Jewish foundation. “I think it does illustrate the very compelling complexities of the Jewish experience in the United States. And the way that one marginalized people is different from another marginalized people. It’s not giving you easy answers or making any judgments. It’s presenting complexities, and that’s very important. I think we need that now more than ever, right now, in order to be able to embrace complexities and hold that, and not jump to having this concrete opinion, other than the opinion of empathy.”
Gelman continued regarding his experience on the series, “I connected to my character. I think he’s a very moral guy. I think he’s in somewhat… of a situation, a time when there’s problematic aspects to what his role is and to how he sees women’s roles.” Then, speaking about assimilation he said, “And in terms of the Jewish experience of, like, assimilation and the ups and downs of that, and how this is the thing that the Jew in America has to deal with, both the benefits and the pitfalls of that assimilation… But he’s also somebody who very much holds his identity close to him and takes it very seriously.”
On the importance of depicting Jewish people and culture, Gelman added:
”
The Jewishness is one of the things in the show that is really front and center, and complex in its own way
. And I think I’m glad that [creator] Alma [Har’el] gives people a view into that in this complex way… in the same way she does, you know, with Blackness in the show, you know, that’s it’s very complex as well. And the way that these two groups are dealing with each other, these two communities, it’s very complex.”
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Gelman Wants to Keep Doing Drama and Comedy
Lady in the Lake
- Release Date
- July 19, 2024
- Seasons
- 1
- Creator
- Alma Har’el
- Streaming Service(s)
- Apple TV+
Lady in the Lake showcases the dramatic acting chops of a guy we’re used to laughing at on both the big and small screen, so we were curious if this more serious project has inspired Gelman to continue with drama or perhaps return to comedic material.
“I just love doing great stuff. I’ve been really blessed in my career to work on great material with great artists,” he told us. “I’m an actor, but I’m also very funny… So when you’re as funny as I am… you can get put into a box a little bit. And I’m not even talking about the box that certain comedians who then go do drama get put into. That’s not really my situation because I’m always somebody who has done both… With things like Lemon and Fleabag, those sort of are in the middle.”
He added:
“I would say that there’s a lot of dramatic elements to those to those, to that film and that show. And so that’s my job, you know, and my job is always to hit the tone of the thing that we’re doing… But I want to do both.
I love making people laugh, and I love moving people, and I love disgusting people, for making people feel uncomfortable because they see something in themselves or they see something that they’re afraid of in my performance
.”
Lady in the Lake is now streaming on Apple TV+.