‘The Staircase’ Went to Real-Life Peterson Home to Create Three Exact Crime Scene Replicas
variety.comSasha Urban editorAs the production designer of “The Staircase,” HBO Max’s adaptation of the seminal true-crime docuseries, Michael Shaw had immense challenges in front of him, chief among them the series’ namesake.The show, which premiered May 5, explores the confounding circumstances of the death of Kathleen Peterson (played by Toni Collette), whose body was found at the bottom of a narrow staircase in the back of the North Carolina home she shared with her novelist husband Michael (Colin Firth) and their five children.
Although the original French documentary series captures the Peterson family and their house in great detail, when Shaw first signed on alongside set decorator Edward McLoughlin, he hadn’t seen the documentary — and didn’t plan to. “I wanted to read the episodes and interpret it as if it wasn’t a real event,” Shaw said. “It was important to create something that wasn’t a replica of the doc.”Eagle-eyed fans of the original series will notice deviations in the new settings, but the home’s back and front staircases required such heightened attention to detail that Shaw eventually had to view the source material.“Those two elements symbolize what the whole story is about,” Shaw said.
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