When it came to filming Peacock’s new show “The Good Daughter,” Meghann Fahy and Rose Byrne each had to battle their own set of challenges.
The duo play play estranged sisters in the six-part limited series (now streaming), which is an adaptation of Karin Slaughter’s page-turner novel. When they were younger, Charlotte (Fahy) and Samantha (Byrne) witnessed the brutal killing of their mother Harriet, aka, “Gamma” (Olivia Williams). The attack left Sam with physical disabilities and both reeling from the agonizing ordeal.
For Fahy, filming scenes in the sweltering heat during the middle of Atlanta's summer turned out to be one of the more difficult moments of the show.
“There was a scene at the end of the series, in the finale, where Rose and I are
outside together, and I just remember it was so unbelievably hot that it was actually hard to speak,” Fahy, 36, tells USA TODAY with a laugh. “And we had a lot of dialogue… so we were having a hard time remembering our lines because of how hot it was that day.”
However, Byrne's challenge ended up surfacing after the series had wrapped.
“I have this limp in the show, and I still have a bad back from doing this limp,” Byrne, 47, says. “I worked with a trainer, and we came up with the physicality, which was terrific. But I then, after the show, I couldn't walk for nearly a week because my back went out. And I still have a twitch.
“It's extraordinary, and it was wild,” she adds. “You're just doing this performance every day for eight weeks or whatever it is. It was truly unexpected. I did not think that it would live on. But yeah... I threw my back out, and it still sometimes seizes up.”
In the show, Samantha (Byrne), a New York patent lawyer, returns to their hometown of Pikeville to assist her father, infamous defense attorney Rusty (Brendan Gleeson), when a teenager is charged with murder. Charlotte (Fahy), one of the first to the scene of the crime, is also a criminal defense lawyer.
The sisters “just miss each other a lot in their lives, and I think it's because both of them have trauma that they experienced as children [and it] manifested in them quite differently,” Fahy explains of her and Byrne's characters. “Sam went very, very, very far away, and Charlie stayed exactly where she was. They're coming from very opposite ends of the spectrum, at the beginning of the series.
"But ultimately Charlie, I think, worships Sam," she adds. "She's admired her big sister her whole life, and I think one of the biggest heartbreaks for her, when we meet her, is that she hasn't had her sister in her life.”
Slaughter also agrees. "This is a family who talks all the time, but they never say the things they need to say,” says the author, who has written more than 25 novels, including the Will Trent series, which inspired the ABC crime drama (returning Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT), and “Pieces of Her,” streaming on Netflix.
As creator, writer and executive producer of the Peacock series, Slaughter delighted in seeing her “Good Daughter” leads at the monitors on set, noting that Fahy and Byrne were the perfect actors to bring her characters to life.
“It's the ultimate flattery as a writer to have these brilliant actresses deliver my words so perfectly, but also to use their own creative spirit to elevate them in a certain way,” Slaughter says. “It is remarkable to see, and I feel really so fortunate to have them play these roles.”
Before stepping into the roles, Fahy and Byrne made a conscious effort to get to know each other, especially since they hadn’t met prior to the series.
“We both live near each other in Brooklyn, so we got together before I left to go to Atlanta, just to chat and hang out," Fahy recalls, "and it was the easiest connection ever. It was just easy and great right off the bat.”
“We both use humor as a way of connection,” Byrne says of her costar. “She's so funny, naturally funny. She doesn't take herself too seriously, but she takes the work seriously… And it helps that you're on location, so we're both away from home, and we just would hang out, and it was kind of effortless the way we hit it off.”
The stars' bond not only helped them to convey a resilient sisterly relationship on screen, but to decompress after days of intense scenes.
“We'd have a couple of High Noons [alcoholic seltzers] occasionally, some days, late at night,” Byrne says, chortling at the memory. “She's just a mischief maker, Meghann. She's so fun, and when the material is heavy at times, you just tend to go even lighter in between takes. So there was always levity and jokes going on.”
Similarly, Byrne hopes that when the screen fades to black, sisters Charlie and Sam are able to lighten the mood.
“I hope they both go and get a facial and a massage,” she says playfully. “A holiday on an island somewhere.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rose Byrne couldn't walk for nearly a week after filming 'The Good Daughter'
