Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is a female-focused season of TV that is largely written and directed by men. “I was afraid [because]…it wasn’t written by a woman,” Krieps admits. “And yes, I could tell, to be honest with you.” The actor says she often became “the adviser for feminist questions” during filming. “I always told them, ‘Okay, guys, from the women’s perspective, this cannot really work. Or a woman, in order to be, let’s say, sexually aroused, they have certain things that need to happen.’”
Winkler, the director son of actor Henry Winkler who has helped helm multiple Murphy projects, is the first to admit his gender’s shortcomings. “Men are idiots. Our understanding of hymens and periods and ovulation is so deeply limited to how it affects us,” he tells VF when asked about Krieps’s remarks in a separate interview. “My secret weapon was being surrounded by really, really smart women, both in front of and behind the camera, and trusting them…. Vicky is my North Star,” Winkler adds. “She can immediately feel if something feels fake or wrong or inauthentic or male-skewed. And she has a lot of opinions, but every single one of them is right.”
For example, Krieps insisted that “some Christian book written by a man” on Bridget’s nightstand be swapped for something the progressive woman might actually read. “You can feel the frustration of everyone—‘Oh, now we have to stop the train, and we all want to go home, and now she questions the whole scene,’” Krieps recalls. “But at the end of the show, everyone loved me for it. So that was a beautiful experience, and it showed me…well, we should speak up for ourselves.”
After all, it was Bridget and Lizzie’s ability to successfully rage against the machine that initially drew Krieps into this season’s tangled web. “One of the first things that got me on the project was when Ryan said, ‘They actually used that against the system to not only get away, but get away with the money,’” Krieps exclaims. “That’s just the best plot!”
In lieu of official answers regarding the Borden murders, Monster posits that money was a motivator for its version of Lizzie. Since no will stating otherwise was ever found, if Lizzie’s father, Andrew, predeceased his wife, then her stepmother was to inherit his fortune, while the two spinster daughters would receive nothing. But who is the Prince Charming waiting for Lizzie’s Cinderella on the other side of her escape? Look no further than Krieps’s freethinking housemaid, Bridget.
