Illuminating The Luminaries
The stars of The Luminaries TV series talkto Emily Brookes about adapting Eleanor Catton’s award-winning novel forthe small screen.
The Luminaries, New Zealand author Eleanor Catton’s 2013 Man Booker Prize-winning novel, is many things: A nearly 850-page tour de force organised according to astrological principles with more than a dozen key characters and multiple points of view, a complex Victorian thriller, a murder mystery and an examination of the ruthlessness that governed New Zealand’s gold rush in the 1860s.
So how did Catton adapt a novel of such complexity for the screen?
She pared it back to a love story.
Unlike the novel, which opens on 12 men, the six-part TV series, written by Catton, starts with Anna Wetherell and Emery Staines meeting on a boat from London as it docks in Hokitika at the height of the gold rush in 1866.
The series hinges on Anna, a young Irishwoman who arrives in New Zealand determined to make her fortune in gold, but finds herself embroiled in a sinister plot much bigger than herself.
‘‘There was a lot of different iterations of how they were going to tell the story, and Anna was not at the centre of it for a long time,’’ says actress Eve Hewson, who plays Anna.
‘‘I think what [the producers] did, which is really smart, is they looked at the book and said, ‘OK, what is the way in, what story do we hone in on,’ and that was Anna and Emery’s story, the two of them finding each other.’’
Hewson – full name Memphis Eve Sunny Day Hewson – is perhaps best known for being the daughter of U2 frontman Bono (Paul Hewson), but has shown her chops as an actor in recent years in films such as Bridge of Spies and TV series The Knick.
She’s very good in The Luminaries, playing Anna with a delicate combination of determination and despair, naivety and shrewdness, summed up in the first episode when Anna is asked whether she was sent from London or was sent for.
‘‘I sent myself,’’ she replies. Hewson was drawn to the strength of her character.
‘‘I thought the idea of putting her front and centre and into this world was quite feminist.’’
‘‘She’s siding against so much and, in the end, she comes out strong.’’
The character asking Anna about her arrival in New
Zealand is Lydia Wells, played by Eva Green, a businesswoman of dubious scruples and a mysterious past, who operates a fortune parlour in Hokitika.
‘‘The real money in a gold rush isn’t made in the diggings,’’ she tells Anna. ‘‘It’s made in town.’’
Lydia’s murky morals and objectives won’t be unfamiliar to those who know Green from her role as Vanessa Ives in the series, Penny Dreadful.
‘‘It reminded me a bit of Once Upon a Time in the West – Claudia Cardinale’s character,’’ Green says.
‘‘[Lydia’s] a very smart character, sure of herself – maybe a tiny bit too sure of herself – very independent, a feminist, very power hungry, very driven, and she’s always game, so she’s a lot of fun to play.
‘‘You never know if she is acting,’’ Green adds of her Luminaries character. ‘‘I think sometimes she does both. She probably has a gift for tarot cards and stuff like that, but I think she is kind of an actress as well.’’
It’s through Lydia that the astrology that informs the novel is woven into the series. ‘‘I sometimes saw my own character as a scientist,’’ says Green, ‘‘because it is so complicated.’’
For the actors, Catton’s deep knowledge of astrology and its informative role in the story was eye-opening.
‘‘Coming from a Hindu background, [astrology] is part of that in a way,’’ says Himesh
Patel who, in an inspired piece of colour-blind casting, plays English prospector Emery Staines, ‘‘but that actually made me slightly cynical about it growing up.
‘‘But then when you read something like this, a story like this – whether you believe in it or not, it’s a really compelling part of the story.
‘‘Because you believe that Anna and Emery are meant to be, then you believe in any machinations to get them where they are meant to be.’’
Catton was very present and available on set throughout the shoot, which took place partly on location in Hokitika, but largely on sets in and around Auckland.
Despite her extraordinary pedigree, holding the record as the youngest winner of the Man Booker Prize, and the fact she authored the source material, Catton was entirely approachable, the actors say.
‘‘She’s so humble for someone who has achieved so much,’’ says Patel.
‘‘She was so open in terms of being able to [tell her], ‘these are my thoughts’, so I never felt that I couldn’t collaborate with her in that way.’’
Before The Luminaries, Hewson says, ‘‘I was the person who would read my horoscope in Glamour magazine and be like ‘Ooh, I’m going to fall in love this week,’ and then it wouldn’t happen.’’
But under Catton’s stewardship, she became something of a convert to astrology.
‘‘Ellie is such a brain, obviously, about this that I grilled her about all my planets and my houses, and she was teaching me all about it. The more conversations we had, the more into it I got.’’
But the core of this adaptation is love.
For Green’s character, her love for Francis Carver, played by New Zealand actor Marton Csokas, is what causes the ‘‘cracks in her armour,’’ she says.
‘‘In the first couple of episodes you really think she is so manipulative and she will do absolutely anything to get the gold, but I think what redeems her is her love for Carver. She loves him with all her heart.’’
However, don’t expect The Luminaries to follow a classic romantic structure.
Emery, for example, is not your typical leading man. ‘‘Romanticism can get the better of him,’’ says Patel.
‘‘There is a point in the story – a very key point – where his heart guides him to what he thinks is the right place, but ultimately leads to something altogether more tragic. He has to think about doing it in a completely different way and that I found really interesting. He can’t just save the day, which is what we’re used to.’’
You certainly don’t have to read The Luminaries to enjoy the series, but fans of the book won’t be disappointed either, he says.
‘‘People will be wondering, watching it, why is this nothing like the novel, and then there’ll come a point in the series where they will know exactly where they are in relation to the book. It was kind of the hat trick that Eleanor pulled off.’’
● The Luminaries premieres on May 17 on TVNZ 1.