Revelations Rattle Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman as Everything Gets Undone in HBO’s THE UNDOING

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Think hard about this: how well do you really know your spouse or partner? Anyone who watches HBO’s six-part limited series THE UNDOING, which debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on Crave, will be asking themselves that question. Starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, THE UNDOING follows Grace and Jonathan Fraser, a seemingly happy, successful, “normal” couple in New York, whose lives are rocked when a violent death leads to a chain of jaw-dropping, almost unfathomable revelations. In a virtual interview with TV reporters, it was suggested to Grant that maybe relationships are like a driver’s licence. Meaning, a driver probably is well aware of all the rules and proper techniques when first obtaining a licence, but 10, 20, 25 years later, they may still have their licence, but they could be absolutely horrible drivers. Along those lines, maybe people know their spouses very well in their younger days, but as 10, 20, 25 years go by, just how out of touch do we become with each other? Should we all be doing background checks on our partners every decade or so? “I guess – but that would suggest people change,” Grant replied. “I don’t think people change. I don’t think the leopard ever changes its spots. I think we just decide we know someone, and very often – and this is sort of what the book (on which THE UNDOING is based) argues – if they’re not exactly what you want, you paint in the rest, and bring them up to standard. I think we are very guilty of that.” Okay, fair enough. But are you the same person you were, 10, 20, 25 years ago? “I have no idea who I am,” Grant said with a grin. “But yeah, I mean, I suspect I’m the same. Pretty much the same. I think the Jesuits had it right when they said, give me a child till he’s seven and I’ll show you the man. Watching my own children, I think by seven they’re pretty much cooked as personalities.” THE UNDOING was directed by EMMY®, OSCAR®, and GOLDEN GLOBE® winner Susanne Bier, and written by EMMY® winner David E. Kelley. Besides Kidman and Grant, the all-star cast also includes Donald Sutherland, Édgar Ramírez, Lily Rabe, Noma Dumezweni, and Matilda De Angelis. “It came with an amazing pedigree, the whole project, with Susanne Bier, whose films I’ve loved in the past, particularly the Danish ones, and David Kelley is the king of American television writing, and Nicole,” Grant said. “I don’t think I spoke to Nicole before I signed on. I did make a bit of a song-and-dance with Susanne Bier. And I went and met David, because I was very keen to know what happens. The trouble with TV, which I’m not accustomed to, is you don’t get all the scripts. They haven’t written them yet. It’s hard to sign on for a job where you don’t know how it ends. So I did grill them on that. And then, in the end, I thought, well, I have to do this. But I kind of knew from the beginning I was going to do it anyway.” Asked if he could share any anecdotes from the set, Grant said, “It was quite intense, to tell the truth. I did mess around a bit with Nicole, but especially with Donald Sutherland. He just lives for child humour, or lavatory humour, which I love. So there was a lot of that going on. Otherwise, it was quite intense and extremely long. I’m not accustomed to six-month shoots. But I did get the feeling that we were making something quite classy and good, so that always helps.” Classy and good are definitely two words that describe THE UNDOING. Mesmerizing is another one, with so much going on beneath the surface of all the characters. Who’s lying? Who’s telling the truth? “I decided in the end that whatever emotion we see in Jonathan, it should be real,” Grant said. “As an audience, it’s more fascinating if it looks real, rather than if you think he’s faking. And also because, there’s a type of liar who believes their own lies. And if Jonathan is a liar, he’s certainly the type that believes his own lies. But these are hard questions to answer without spoilers.” There’s only one way to solve the spoiler dilemma: Watch THE UNDOING! billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv