How David O. Russell's Three Kings Inspired An Aspect Of AMC's Mayfair Witches [Exclusive]
"Mayfair Witches," the new AMC+ series based on the book trilogy "Lives of the Mayfair Witches" by Anne Rice, has been looking well outside the realm of supernatural TV dramas for inspiration in season 1. You wouldn't necessarily expect to hear showrunner Esta Spalding and executive producer Michelle Ashford namecheck a 1999 Gulf War movie, but that's exactly what they did in Vanessa Armstrong's /Film interview with the duo.
"Mayfair Witches" stars Alexandra Daddario as Dr. Rowan Mayfair, a neurosurgeon who uncovers her own family link to a dynasty of witches. She's unaware of her powers at first, and this leads to her looking inside people's brains and "popping arteries like bubble gum," as Danielle Ryan put it in her "Mayfair Witches" review. No need for an endoscopy when you have a witch on the case who can show the audience what a person's dying body looks like inside.
When asked how this demonstration of Rowan's powers came about, Ashford said, "We started going down this really interesting path with this notion that she's a doctor. It seemed like her power needed to be connected to that somehow and couldn't be totally different."
Spalding also referenced the "biological sight imagery" in the novels, saying, "Rice picked that as a power because Rowan is a doctor and because she comes out of this background of 12 generations before her of healers and midwives. That her witchy power comes from the human body is, I think, super fascinating."
Then, came mention of the Gulf War film. "We actually were talking about the movie, 'Three Kings,'" Ashford added. "There are these moments where the bullet goes inside, and you follow it."
"You're watching the bullet go in and explode body parts and stuff," Spalding continued. "And we thought, 'Oh, that's so cool.'"
From Kings to Queens
The first "Three Kings" scene in question sees George Clooney's Army major, Archie Gates, detailing how sepsis is "the worst thing about a gunshot wound, provided that you survive the bullet." As he explains this to a private (played by "Adaptation" director Spike Jonze), he points to Mark Wahlberg's sergeant as if shooting a gun. The viewer then sees inside the sarge's body as Archie continues in voiceover about how the bullet "creates a cavity of dead tissue" and that cavity "fills up with bile, bacteria."
It's almost something a doctor like Rowan would say. "Three Kings" was written and directed by David O. Russell, whose name has become a lightning rod for controversy in recent years due to recurring misconduct allegations. Clooney infamously came to blows with Russell while filming "Three Kings," though they later mended fences and Clooney acknowledged they made a great movie despite the unnecessary physical altercation where his director head-butted him.
Russell's latest film, the star-studded "Amsterdam," was a critical and commercial disappointment last year, but I caught up with it recently on streaming, and while it was stagey and unfocused in parts, I thought it wasn't as bad as the reviews made it out to be. Part of that can be attributed to composer Daniel Pemberton's score, which got me thinking about the redemptive power of music and art, but I digress.
Reviews for "Mayfair Witches" have been mixed as well, but given that Russell has a reputation for bullying actresses like Amy Adams and Lily Tomlin on set, there's a certain poetic justice in having "Three Kings" inspire visuals from a female showrunner and producer in their adaptation of another book series from "Queen of the Damned" author Anne Rice.
"Mayfair Witches is now bursting arteries exclusively on AMC+.