‘The Office’ star Amy Ryan lands a major role in Netflix’s new true-story drama
Amy Ryan is set to appear in one of the more unsettling true stories that Netflix has acquired in a while. Ryan has joined ‘The Retrievals,’ Netflix’s limited series created by Molly Smith Metzler, creator of ‘Maid’ and ‘Sirens,’ as reported by Deadline. She will be acting alongside Emilia Jones, who was announced earlier as the lead actress, thus making the third project for Metzler on Netflix. The story is based on a real scandal. It’s based on the Peabody-winning New York Times and Serial Productions podcast of the same name by Susan Burton, in which the events at Yale Fertility Center were examined after a nurse stole fentanyl, which was supposed to be used for providing anesthesia for patients, and replaced it with saline. As a result, almost a hundred women undergoing egg-retrieval procedures had to endure pain without anesthesia.
Ryan will play that nurse. Her character, Carla Russo, is a veteran nurse at Yale Fertility Center who pleaded guilty to stealing large amounts of fentanyl and diluting it with saline. Jones will play Gabby Clemente, a New Haven bartender and student teacher whose traumatic egg retrieval leads her to investigate other victims and ultimately take down Yale University in a court case. ‘The Retrievals’ will be Ryan’s first-ever series regular role, despite her decades-long television career. She has been on screen for years in major recurring roles, such as HBO’s ‘The Wire,’ NBC’s ‘The Office,’ Hulu’s ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ and most recently, Apple TV’s ‘Sugar.’ She is also an Oscar nominee, earning a Best Supporting Actress nomination for ‘Gone Baby Gone.’
Metzler is writing and showrunning the series and executive producing through her Quiet Coyote banner alongside her ‘Maid’ and ‘Sirens’ collaborator Colin McKenna and LuckyChap. Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Dani Gorin are executive producing for LuckyChap, while Caitlin Roper will also executive produce for The New York Times, and Burton is also executive producing. Lila Neugebauer, who helmed an episode of both ‘Maid’ and ‘Sirens,’ is also making a comeback to work with Metzler. She will direct the pilot and executive produce the series.
For Metzler, the project reunites many of the creative team behind her Netflix work, but it draws on an entirely different kind of story. Whereas previously she was involved in a fictional drama, ‘The Retrievals’ draws on a documented scandal at a fertility clinic and the women who found themselves drawn together after finding out what had been done to them. Ryan will appear in Tom McCarthy’s ‘A Statement,’ having its world premiere at the 64th New York Film Festival as part of a Spotlight section. Running from September 25 through October 12, Ryan is among an ensemble cast that also includes Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, Evan Peters, John Turturro and Tatiana Maslany. Meanwhile, Netflix has not yet announced when ‘The Retrievals’ will be released.
