WHY DO WE have such an enduring fascination with Tom Ripley? The character first entered the world in Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which he —a young, underachieving nobody —is sent to Italy on an errand to bring back the rich, spoiled Dickie Greenleaf, after which things go bloodily awry. The story of this wayward conman-turned-murderer abroad instantly captured readers. It was immediately adapted into a TV episode for anthology series Studio One in 1956. Four more novels followed. Seven actors have portrayed him across film, TV and radio —Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, Jonathan Kent, Matt Damon, John Malkovich, Barry Pepper and Ian Hart — enough that Highsmith herself had her favourites (Hopper wasn’t one of them).
Now, a ’60s-set, eight-part series shot in hyper-stylised black and white is coming to Netflix. Written and directed by The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian, it stars Andrew Scott, fresh off his lauded performance in All Of Us Strangers, as the sinister nomad who finagles his way —ultimately violently —into the lives of Dickie (Johnny Flynn), his girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning) and close friend Freddy (Eliot Sumner). Others might find taking on a literary character with such a history a nerve-racking experience, but Scott —who has played Hamlet on stage, and terrorised audiences as Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock —is no stranger to the task. “You have to be respectful, but not too reverent, because otherwise there’s no point in doing this,” Scott tells Empire. “You’ve got to put your own stamp on it. Some people will like this version, and some people will like other versions, and that’s okay. What you have to do is understand why this character remains so fascinating for people.”
Confidence man Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott)