Bad Monkey Cast Talks Adapting a Book, Wildlife Cameos, and Line Improvisations
Bad Monkey is this summer’s hottest murder mystery with charismatic Vince Vaughn as the lead. The series is based on the bestselling novel written by Carl Hiaasen and is directed by Bill Lawrence whose daughter Charlotte Lawrence also stars in the series. Pop Culture Planet’s Jordan Bohan talked with Michelle Monaghan, Meredith Hagner, and Charlotte Lawrence about adapting a book, wildlife cameos, and line improvisations.
Michelle Monaghan plays Bonnie, an eccentric and erratic woman who throws herself from man to man in pursuit of an unattainable happiness. In the book, Bonnie had a minor role that was expanded greatly in the show. Monaghan shares that she wasn’t familiar with Hiaasen’s work before auditioning. “Bill had offered me the role, I read the script, and he was like, ‘It's been a dream of mine to adapt this specific book.’ I read the book and I just saw the appeal,” she said. “I was really taken with the book, of course, but also how impressed I was with Bill's adaptation of Carl's novel.”
In adapting the novel, Bill Lawrence took some creative liberties to create compelling and well rounded characters like Bonnie. “Bill took it upon himself and really wrote a character that was much bigger in scope than what Carl had originally written. He did stay true to all the complexities, and Bonnie she's a bit of an enigma,” Monaghan shared. “Bonnie is a little bit tricky and complex. I just, I love her so much.”
Bonnie as a character has a lot of quirks and internal struggles that seem to come out in unconventional ways. “What I loved about her are all of her kind of quick turns that she makes. I loved how kind of playful, sexy, and confident she is at the beginning of the series and then we start to reveal that she's actually hiding a lot of secrets. She's actually quite sly, manipulative, and slightly treacherous and for me she felt a little dangerous,” Monaghan shared about what drew her to the character. “I loved that because I've not tapped into that and I think what made me excited and I knew it would be fun to play, would be the tonal changes. Being able to do that with someone like Bill Lawrence who is a genius at tone would be really exciting and a fun challenge to do.”
For a show called Bad Monkey, there is quite the variety of wildlife. Deer, monkeys, turtles, roosters, fish, and even manatees all make appearances in the show. “I really liked the scene where I got to swim with a manatee. It was a really special experience. We rocked up to this place called Crystal River where you're hoping to see manatees, we didn't know if we'd get one that wanted to play or act with us that day,” Monaghan shared about working with an unconventional scene partner. “We all went under the water and it was this beautiful creature that was just overwhelming and mesmerizing. We played with and swam with this manatee for about an hour and it was really one of the most special things I've ever done. It's a great turning point for the character as well, it was quite revelatory for her and it sets her up for the third act.”
Meredith Hagner plays Eve, a seemingly naive gold digger looking for a better life. As the events of the series unfold, audiences come to know that she isn’t as ignorant as she looks and may have been the master manipulator the entire time. “She's just somebody who, wherever she goes, it's just, ‘How do I get what I need out of the situation? I'll do that at any cost,’” Hagner shared on what made her character so fun to play. '“Episode 104, when you see my flashback stuff, it really helped inform the rest of the season and helped me find the character. It's always a gift when you get to learn the back story.”
Charlotte Lawrence plays Caitlin, a young devout Christian wife with a spotty background of drugs and a fizzled out modeling career. Lawrence details how she got to the core of Caitlin. “Reading the book, I already knew the extremities of Caitlyn and the depth of her, but, as a viewer, you don't know that just from first meeting her. I love getting to know backstory because you got to see Caitlyn as this really innocent, sweet, and pure child. Then you see how she slowly turned into what she became which was really dark, sad, and messed up in a lot of ways although still lovely. I love her so much, I have so much empathy for her. I think backstory is so important, it makes you have empathy for a character. Seeing what she came from makes you understand her a little bit more than you would have.”
Working with family can be complicated, but when it comes to working on a comedy it alleviates some of the stress. Lawrence shared moments where she saw her father in a new light when it came to improvising lines. “I love the funeral scene. That was the first scene I've ever done in acting period. It was so nice to be so nervous and then have my dad of all people, which is hilarious, scream out, ‘Hey, tell her you can see her vagina!’” laughed Lawrence. “After that, I let go of the nerves because everything is weird and it's all funny and ridiculous. Meredith delivered in such a funny way I think we had to redo that a few times because I couldn't stop giggling.”
Bad Monkey is streaming on Apple TV+.
