Guest Column: Searching for Answers and Finding Humanity in ‘The Staircase’

For the co-showrunner, the HBO limited series offered a chance to examine a true-crime story through the lens of grief and loss.

Guest Column: Searching for Answers and Finding Humanity in ‘The Staircase’

The StaircaseCourtesy of HBO Max

I initially saw Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s documentary series The Staircase on the Sundance Channel in 2005. It was the first time I had viewed a longform documentary structured episodically — each episode built over three acts with a cliffhanger compelling you to watch the next installment as soon as you could. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by the documentary, as it went on to become a defining work in the true-crime genre. And that could have been where the story ended.

But many years later, the talented writer-director Antonio Campos (an artist I already admired and a friend) approached me with a pilot he had written, inspired by the original French docuseries. It wasn’t an adaptation, but rather an opportunity to revisit the story in a new context — an opportunity to explore and investigate the evolution of true crime as a genre. It was a way to interrogate the idea of “nonfiction,” to think critically about the construction of storytelling when it is supposedly geared toward representing the “truth.”

After viewing the documentary, most everyone has an opinion about the Peterson case — principally regarding the innocence or guilt of Michael Peterson (played on our series by Colin Firth), who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his wife, Kathleen (Toni Collette). What was fascinating was how inconsistent those opinions were. In our series, we wanted to address this pergence. We wanted to examine how the same story and the same facts could come to mean so many different things to different people. Why does a single staircase tell so many stories? In our show, we not only wanted to show this persity of opinion but also offer a thesis — it’s people’s personal experiences that have a profound influence on how they interpret facts and find truth. To put it simply, your backstory affects the way you see the world. And, by extension, the way you’ll view and understand The Staircase.

“Meta” is an overused word, but when we were writing and editing our show, we had many of the same conversations our fictional documentary team had as characters (played by Vincent Vermignon, Frank Feys and Juliette Binoche) on The Staircase. As creators, we also debated the consequences and impact of losing a line of dialogue, moving a scene or using score. We frequently asked ourselves, how were we trying to make the viewer feel and think with our editorial touch? After viewing the series, we hope the viewer has a better understanding of how stories are formed, and how important their personal experiences are in how a story is received. We want them to understand that we all have a role in shaping “truth.”

But why do we seek truth? I think it’s because we have a collective desire to better understand tragedies with ambiguous endings. It’s a relatable, primal need to have control over chaos so a similar tragedy doesn’t befall us or our loved ones. It can be an exercise in futility, but it’s innate and understandable. Antonio and I wanted to play into that desire — the characters on the show searched desperately for the truth, not only to understand what happened that night but to also understand how to approach the rest of their lives. Ultimately, it leads us to a place — perhaps begrudgingly — of acceptance that the only truth is that we’ll never have all the answers.

And from this acceptance, the edict that “justice is blind” takes on new meaning. Like the writers on The Staircase, the prosecution and the defense team used the same facts to come up with different narratives and conclusions as to what occurred that night. In certain regards, both stories fail and both stories succeed, and yet one becomes the winner. We must think critically about how we approach justice as a society. We need to understand it is a problematic system in which bias can enter. Denying this only makes it worse.

But at its core, our show is not just about the case and the trial; it’s also about trauma and grief and how those evolve over time. In order to explore this, we needed to create a fuller version of Kathleen Peterson’s life. We wanted to see the soul that was lost that night, not just a body. To represent Kathleen, we also had to fictionalize her. There are pieces of myself in her and in every character I write. And there are pieces of the other writers, editors, actors and directors as well. Creating fiction from real life isn’t about avoiding this personalization, it’s about recognizing it — especially within the context of “true crime.”

With Kathleen, we created a character that carries a comparable duality; she strives to present a version of herself to the world even as she realizes this version is unsustainable. She wants the “perfect life”: the beautiful family and home in an affluent neighborhood. She is a successful businesswoman, a supportive sister, a caring mother and a vibrant wife. But even after she achieves all of that, she understands something fundamental is missing. And before she can find it, tragedy strikes.

As our character Michael Peterson says in episode eight, masterfully directed by Antonio, we can’t fully know anyone. I would extrapolate from this by saying that we can’t fully know anything. But whether or not you believe this is a tragic accident or a murder, there will always be a woman who did not deserve this ending.

This story first appeared in the June 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.