The Case is a brand new cerebral thriller on FX on Hulu from The Americans creators Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg.
The 10-episode series stars Steve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson and follows the events that unfold as a previously undercover killer from the diaries tries to change his murderous ways.
yet this is not a session of illegal psychology. rather, Sam (played by Domhnall Gleeson) kidnaps his therapist, Dr. Alan Strauss (Steve Carell) and holds him against his will in his lifeless home.
Carell suckers, who are used to seeing him in various places, from the rare Michael Scott of The Office to the ridiculous Brick Tamland in Anchorman, will see him take on the important darker, more complicated role of Dr. Alan Strauss in The Case.
Alan Strauss is a troubled therapist who finds himself facing his demons while imprisoned by Sam, his case.
When he has a cult match with Alan, he finds himself grieving the loss of his dear wife
Beth (Laura Niemi). She is also recovering from her dissatisfaction with her deeply Orthodox Jewish son Ezra (Andrew Leeds).
As his prison grows stronger, he is also visited by holocaust fans.
Carell himself is not Jewish, and The Case's creators, Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, told Newsweek his character Dr. Alan Strauss was not originally intended, but the idea came to them during the creative process.
Fields, who is the son of a rabbi, took part.' connection because that's what it does. And we're interested in this character struggling with his own particular flaws and finally facing them in these challenging circumstances.
Weisberg also collaborated with Newsweek on how their Jewish parentage informed the character of Alan Strauss.
He explained, "(The Jewish faith) which was originally just one of those constant sweats that you do when you're creating characters to add quirks and dimension and stuff that makes them more individualized. But I guess once we had that idea for this joe we realized quite readily that as two Jews it gave us a window into certain aspects of his psyche and his personality.
“We knew right off the bat that we were going to bear a lot of fruit and we didn't know exactly which fruit and that's part of what's nice about the memo is you find out what the fruit is and you pick it. But to illustrate, I don't suppose we're going to say outright that it's going to strike at the Holocaust imagery and chords that you have within you if you're Jewish, but it was one of many places that it went. It just got richer and richer.”
The character of Alan is not based on a real person, Fields and Weisberg explained, but emphasized that they wanted to make Sam and Alan "authentic" and "dimensional".
Fields said, "What we tried to do was always make the characters feel authentic and dimensional, and we felt that if we could do that and not fit into them with a cliche feel, we could also have merchandise that we could be interested in and we hoped that if it was of interest to us, maybe it would be of some interest to others."
Weisberg said, “You're dealing with such a problem that one of the characters, Dr. Alan Strauss, he's obviously naturally likable and relatable, and because of the way Joe (Fields) and I like to write, it's not that interesting. to write a good and bad Joe story, so the challenge was how to make Sam likable and friendly."
The Case airs Tuesdays on FX on Hulu.
