'The Midnight Club' on Netflix: Who is Anya Zimmerman? Is Ruth Codd’s character similar to her real life?
'The Midnight Club' written by Christopher Pike has been raved about overall but recently the hype has increased as Netflix adapted the novel's story for its new series under the same name. Pike’s books were notably edgier and more daring than others published for young readers and included elements that could be lurid, vivid, and violent. Thus, the creator of 'The Haunt of Hill House,' and 'The Haunting of Bly Manor,' Mike Flanagan seized the opportunity to make 'The Midnight Club' his next big one.
The story is about a few children in a manor with a mysterious history. They experience some unfortunate event which has made them suffer irreparable losses. Amongst all children, there are eight members of the 'The Midnight Club' who meet each night at midnight to tell sinister stories - and to look for signs of the supernatural from the beyond until one day when someone dies, and since then, everything has changed.
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'The Midnight Club' is not really a horror story at all. Not in the traditional sense anyway, but neither is it a light-hearted read because all the central characters are dying. There are no more treatments for them to try, no miracle cures are imminent, and all hope is gone; so it is quite a sad tale. The story is set in Rotterham Home, a hospice where all the residents are terminally ill teenagers. The main character is a girl called llonka Pawluk. She has cancer, but for much of the book, she remains in denial about the severity of her condition. She has been taking a mixture of herbs and is working very hard to convince herself that they are working. llonka's roommate Anya Zimmerman doesn't bother with herbs, nor does she delude herself that she is going to recover. She has already lost one of her legs to cancer and is living with so much pain the morphine no longer cuts the mustard. Anya's personality is quite different from llonka's in many ways, but the two girls are friendly.
However, the actor who is playing Anya Zimmerman, Ruth Codd is an Irish actress and TikTok star. This is her first big break and according to the official Tudum page of Netflix, she is quite similar to her character and apparently is a no "bulls**t" kind of girl. However, when was Codd asked to elaborate on her character more she said, "Anya is a nihilist and a rebel without a cause. She is a lower-leg amputee wheelchair user who immigrated from Ireland in her early teens. Ultimately, behind her tough and sarcastic exterior is a young woman who cares deeply for the ones around her, even though she doesn’t always show it." She further went on to say, "Getting to play such a well-written disabled character. A lot of the time, in the little representation we do get in film/TV shows, disabled people are often conveyed as either bitter and angry or saints. Anya is so human. The emphasis isn’t on her disability, it’s on her character. As a disabled person, I felt seen. (Oh, and the free food on-set was also good.)"
In the month of Halloween, Netflix brings to you 'The Midnight Club' on October 7th, 2022.