HBO releases first photos from its upcoming ‘Staircase’ series on Michael Peterson case
HBO has released the first photos from the new limited series about the death of Kathleen Peterson in Durham, and the murder trial of her husband, Michael Peterson.
The eight-episode series, “The Staircase,” stars Academy Award-winning British actor Colin Firth as Mike Peterson and Oscar-nominated Australian actress Toni Collette as Kathleen.
No release date has been given for the series, but HBO says it will debut “this spring.”
It is adapted primarily from the Netflix documentary series “The Staircase,” but will also draw on other reports and books written about the case.
“The Staircase” documentary told the story of Mike Peterson’s murder trial in the death of his wife, Kathleen, who was found in a pool of blood at the bottom of the back staircase in the couple’s Durham home in December 2001.
Peterson was found guilty in 2003 but granted a new trial after SBI misconduct was revealed. He took an Alford plea in 2017 and was released. He has been living in Durham since then, and in 2019 independently published two books, “Behind the Staircase,” and “Beyond the Staircase,” which chronicle his life since Kathleen’s death, including his time in prison.
Firth did not talk to Michael Peterson about the role, reports entertainment site Deadline.
“I didn’t communicate with Michael Peterson,” Firth told Deadline during an event for television critics last week. “I felt the way the script was structured and just the whole approach of this was its own ecosystem, so to speak. These are created characters but we all know what the source is. We all know that these characters have names of living people, but it’s very carefully calibrated to tell the story in a certain way. I felt that I wanted to keep my inspiration, my motivation, and the sense of the source material, as much as possible contained within the script and the way it was written.”
Firth continued: “I felt that that could have been skewed in some way if I had personal connections, during the shooting of this, with Michael Peterson and other people concerned. If I’d had a personal response to the meeting, it might have prevented me from tuning into this world of varying possibilities that had been created.”
The new drama series will release on HBO’s streaming service HBO Max. It is written and executive produced by showrunners Antonio Campos and Maggie Cohn. Campos also directs six of the eight episodes.
Two photos were released on Tuesday. One shows Firth and Collette in an embrace, and the other shows the Peterson family at the dinner table.
The rest of ‘The Staircase’ cast
- Sophie Brunet, the editor of “The Staircase” documentary who later had a romantic relationship with Peterson, will be played by Juliette Binoche.
- Freda Black, one of the prosecutors in Peterson’s case, will be played by Parker Posey.
- Candace Hunt Zamperini, outspoken sister of Kathleen Peterson, will be played by Rosemarie DeWitt.
- Todd Peterson, son of Michael Peterson, will be played by Patrick Schwarzenegger.
- Clayton Peterson, son of Michael Peterson, will be played by Dane DeHaan.
- David Rudolf, Peterson’s defense attorney, is played by Michael Stuhlbarg.
- Martha Ratliff, raised by Peterson, is played by Odessa Young.
- Margaret Ratliff, raised by Peterson, is played by Sophie Turner.
- Bill Peterson, Mike Peterson’s brother, is played by Tim Guinee.
- Caitlin Atwater, Kathleen Peterson’s daughter, is played by Olivia DeJonge.
- Ron Guerette, investigator for the defense, is played by Robert Crayton.
- Larry Pollard, the Durham lawyer who came up with “the owl theory,” is played by Joel McKinnon Miller.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 12:56 PM with the headline "HBO releases first photos from its upcoming ‘Staircase’ series on Michael Peterson case."
