Posted in: Hulu, streaming, TV | Tagged: Angela Zhou, death and other details, exclusive, hulu, interview, Mandy Patinkin, murder mystery, Violett Beane

Death and Other Details Star Angela Zhou on Embracing Murder-Mystery

Actor and writer Angela Zhou (Supergirl) spoke with Bleeding Cool about her latest Hulu murder mystery series, Death and Other Details.

Angela Zhou has emerged as one of the most versatile actresses on TV since bursting into the scene in 2014. She's garnered numerous memorable roles in AMC's Hell on Wheels, Freeform's Stitchers, The CW's Supergirl, Focus Features' Promising Young Woman (2020), CBS's MacGyver, and NCIS: Los Angeles. Her latest is the Hulu murder mystery series Death and Other Details, which follows the brilliant and restless Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), who finds herself in the wrong place/wrong time and becomes the prime suspect in a locked room murder mystery. The setting? A lavishly restored Mediterranean ocean liner. Suspects? Every pampered guest and every exhausted crew member. The problem? To prove her innocence, she must partner with a man she despises—Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin), the world's greatest detective. Zhou spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with creators Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss, how she landed the daunting task of co-writing the murder mystery with them, and how filming the series fulfilled a childhood fantasy.

Death and Other Details: How Angela Zhou Got More Than She Bargained For

Bleeding Cool: How did you get involved with 'Death and Other Details?'

Zhou: It started like the regular way, maybe not since it was during the Covid times, so it was self-tape. I got an email like, "Here's a self-tape; give it a read. See if you respond and if you want to put yourself on tape." We did that whole process and our callbacks on Zoom. They hired me as Teddy, one of the series regulars on at the time; it was career opportunities, murder, and mayhem.

How to expand into the writing?

That was also because of Covid in some sense as the nice silver lining during that time; I used it to finish one of the screenplays that I had been working on for quite a while. I don't know if you've heard about China's only female emperor, Wu Zetian, but I wrote a little biopic. I submitted that to the Academy Awards Nicholl's screenwriting competition and didn't think anything about it; completely forgot about it. When we were shooting the pilot for this in September 2021, the Nicholls competition announced the finalists. I was a semifinalist and that was so cool because it was like name-blind and everything with six people reading your script. I didn't want to seem like I was distracted on set and not 100 percent focused on acting and playing Teddy.

I didn't talk to anybody about it on set, but instead, I posted about it on my Instagram, and Mike and Heidi saw it. They read the logline, and turns out they're huge historical epic fans, too. They wanted to read it, but they didn't want to risk telling me that they were reading it because if they hated it, then they would have to tell one of their lead actors that they hated their writing, right? That's not a smart thing to do, and they're smart detective sleuth brains. What they ended up doing was asking the assistants to sneakily get the script from me and not tell me that they were going to hand it over to Mike and Heidi to read. That's what happened, and in January of 2022, I got this call from Mike and Heidi, and they're like, "Good news. We got picked up for the series, and they were like, and we did something cheeky. We read 'Empress.'" Then they said, "We don't know what you want to do with your career, but if you want to write in the room, we'd love to have you as a staff writer."

What's it like creatively working with Heidi and Mike on this?

Incredible! I've been so lucky because I've gotten to work with the most wonderful people. Being the first time behind the scenes and seeing all the craziness that is writing room, pre-production, and then during production that also includes a little bit of rewriting here and juggling everything. Since being a part of the WGA, I have learned that it's considered "the" impossible job. Mike and Heidi do that job with such grace, love, and joy. I'm proud to say that I learned from the school of Mike and Heidi and coming out and trying to continue that along. Hopefully, knock on wood; if I ever get to be in that position someday, then I will try to channel their grace with that.

How do you break down working with 'Death and Other Details' ensemble cast?

The ensemble cast was great too. It often starts with Mike and Heidi. They bring a lot of people together, and they care about whether people have good personalities to work with on set. Later, I found out one of my friends and writers from a previous project, 'Hell on Wheels,' somebody had called her like, "What's up with Angela? Is she crazy? Is she horrible to work with?" They tried to figure out how people's personalities were so that there wouldn't be tension on the set and that everybody would be so wonderful, lovely, and like that, we all love each other, and hence why we're like, "You're never guaranteed that." It's lovely when you find people that you love working with, and you want to stick with them.

How does doing the murder mystery compare to what you've done in your wheelhouse? Does it present its form of challenges?

Incredibly challenging, especially on the writing front, when you're talking about something that's so detail-oriented. Even before these interviews, I texted the writer's assistant and asked, "Do you remember where the document was that had broken down all the days with how we show scenes out of order? You're also like, "Wait, but what happened during the first couple of days of this?"

Every little detail, you're all trying to keep it together, and through all the rewrites, the details change, right? You must keep in mind, "What is the detail that ended up in the movie? What is the detail that we talked about that is only in our minds but was not in the movie?" On the flip side, when you get to shooting it, my goodness! With the acting too, I remember the first time I had a wardrobe fitting the wardrobe women; they're smart, but they were like, "We need your help. I know this is your fitting, but can you have a look over the timeline?"

They took me to the wall where they had posted a visual timeline of every scene that happened in chronological order in the days with everyone's costumes in it. You're trying to remember that stuff, and when you're shooting it as an actor, you're also trying to keep on top of all the little details because there are so many. It's like a group effort to keep it all coherent.

Were there other murder mysteries that you read into like the ones from Agatha Christie, Rian Johnson's 'Knives Out' or 'Clue?'

I watched the Rian Johnson ones coming out. When I signed onto [Death and Other Details], I sorted out all the other ones that I hadn't caught, naturally. There are also a lot of other great storytelling, such as mystery-telling. You may not necessarily think about it, but like some of the most popular properties like 'Harry Potter,' in some ways that is a murder mystery, but it's like, "That's how you think. How do they beat that out throughout something as long as seven books, right?" If you were just to watch the Rian Johnson movies, it's not that helpful either because 2.5 hours compared to 10 hours is a huge gap. You must ask, "How are you going to make every episode of that feel relevant and necessary and not feel like, 'You can watch the beginning, skip the whole middle, watch the end, and have it all make sense.'" That's hopefully not what happens here. You need some of the details in the middle episodes, or else if you watch the ending, you will be super confused.

What were your influences growing up in the performing arts?

You have so many people that you love, right? That's part of the reason why it sucks you into the circus in the first place, right? That's why I find it so hard when people ask me what my favorite movies are because I have too many of them. It's easier to talk about, "What are my favorites are every single genre?" I do love good classic movies, but then I also do love a good romance. Shooting on the Queen Mary for [Death and Other Details] felt like child Angela had this weird, magical dream come true because it felt like we were shooting on the Titanic. I was like, "Never in my life would I think I would have shot essentially on the Titanic." Titanic (1997) was the most expensive movie ever made during its time, so it's such a blessing.

New episodes of Death and Other Details, which also stars Lauren Patten, Rahul Kohli, Hugo Diego Garcia, Pardis Saremi, and Linda Emond, stream Tuesdays on Hulu.

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