Based on Richard Flanagan’s acclaimed 2013 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a savagely beautiful five-part series charting the life of Dorrigo Evans (played by Jacob Elordi as a young man and Ciarán Hinds as the older iteration), through his passionate love affair with his uncle’s wife (Odessa Young), his time held captive in a POW camp, and his later years spent as a revered surgeon and reluctant war hero.
Adapted for the screen by director Justin Kurzel and his frequent writing collaborator Shaun Grant, the series is set to coincide with the Easter holidays this year, and to celebrate, our Peter Gray spoke with Grant and the series’ producer Jo Porter as they presented the first two episodes at a special AACTA screening in Queensland, touching on the importance of casting Elordi, the pressure of adapting such a revered book, and what scene absolutely had to be translated correctly.
Was there ever the conversation being had about adapting the book for a film at all? Or was it always intended as a mini-series?
Jo Porter: It’s such a massive story. I think at one point it was (considered), but I think in order to explore all of it, it was just a natural point to break it down.
Shaun Grant: I think the book has got five major sections, it kind of felt like the right thing. During the development process, there’d be bad days where I’d say to Justin (Kurzel), “Let’s just make it a film!” But there was never any real purpose behind that (laughs). I was always excited by the idea of creating a show, and I spent so much time writing those five whole episodes.
And like Jo said, to have that time and space to do all my work, almost as all character pieces. And this was such an epic chart of a man’s whole life. And that’s awfully hard to do. I adapted Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang into a film, and I remember that was tough trying to condense down. I think it runs a bit over two hours, and that was with a lot cut out. This is a prize-winning novel, and I didn’t wan to cut a lot out of this one. So the freedom of five episodes was great. I was at happy at five though, because it was pretty exhausting.
Obviously, casting is key. Was there any non-negotiables for you? Especially when it came to the role of Dorrigo…
Jo Porter: The focus was always on who could play that role. This has been an eight year gestation to get where we are today, and I think in the earlier years we had ideas for who it could be, but it never quite right.
Shaun Grant: We thought that there was no twenty-something that could be the lead. I was living in LA at the time, and Euphoria Season One was blowing up and I was such a huge admirer of it. And of Jacob in particular. I knew he was an Aussie, and I’ll tell this story because Jo is here, but I remember telling Jo and Justin, and none of them really knew who he was at that stage, and one of them asked, “Can he do an Aussie accent?” I thought, “Well, I hope he can, because he’s from Brisbane.”
He just kind of jumped out of a plane and landed in America, and, you know, I think he said two words in Swinging Safari (laughs), and that was the only Aussie accented work we’d heard. But I remember saying to Justin that we needed to watch him. I always thought he was going to blow up. Now, I wish all my bets landed like that one (laughs). But he was really the key…
Jo Porter: And then it just opened up, because it’s a big, ambitious show and so it couldn’t be just financed our of a regular Australian production model. It needed international access points to unlock the sort of finance we needed to do the version we did, but (Jacob) just offered that up. But more than that, he was someone with the stature in the way Richard (Flanagan) describes him in the book. The charisma. The X-factor. He has it. And that doesn’t walk in the door very often. He’s the actor of his generation, and we were so lucky. He was the perfect age at the right time.
As a producer, what made Justin and Shaun the right people to bring this story to the screen?
Jo Porter: I think just their incredible body of work. But also, what they do is so much like Richard’s novel, (where) they turn a blow torch into emotion and you can’t look away. And that is so unique and powerful. I just knew they had the beautiful skills to do this. But it wasn’t just a “Hey, would you want to do this?” I think Shaun can tell the story, but it was a big decision to tackle the book, wasn’t it?
Shaun Grant: Yeah, I just loved the book so much. And not just the book, but my grandfather served on the line, so it was very, very close to me. The historical nature was close to me, and to do it a disservice would have been worse than to not do it at all. I had to give it a long thought. I think I was confident that with Justin and I doing it, that we could find a cast that could find the money, and with the assistance of Jo and Rachel (Gardner). I mean, you’ve seen the show, it’s got a scope to it. It’s not typical to Australian television.
Once Jacob came into play, all the pieces sort of aligned. We were confident that we could make something special and, you know, Justin and I always talked about if we would ever do television. Would we ever cross that path? We’ve made three films together now, and some of my favourite Australian things are, like, Blue Murder and the stuff George Miller was producing in the 80s. And that was really significant. And I said if we do it, it’s got to be as good, if not better than those, otherwise I’m not interested. I feel quite confident that we achieved something special here.
Meant in the best way possible, this isn’t a pleasant watch.
Shaun Grant: If it was a pleasant watch and it’s a prisoner of war show, then I’ve done something wrong. But I do find that a compliment, and whether it’s Nitram or Snowtown, there’s certain things that shouldn’t be comfortable. Serial killers shouldn’t be comfortable. It shouldn’t be popcorn entertainment. And prisoner of war camps shouldn’t be entertaining. Sorry Hogan’s Heroes. We have so much content now that, as an artist, the worst thing is being forgotten and that I was a way to kill two hours. Love or hate what I do, I don’t think you’d forget.
For you, Jo, knowing how well received the book was, does that add a level of pressure to adapt it correctly?
Jo Porter: It’s a huge level of responsibility. This is absolutely a seminal book in the Australian canon of novels. It’s so revered around the world, and because it was such an important Australian story, as well as Richard’s incredible words and the layering of the story that he has there, I think we all felt incredible responsibility to not fuck it up. To really deliver the best version of it that we possibly could.
Was there any moment in the book that absolutely had to be brought across to this adaptation?
Shaun Grant: Several, yeah. In this case, Jo sent me the book and I took the time to read it, and I sit down and I don’t take a note. I just read it as an average punter from start to finish to feel it. And then when I was finished reading, I got a pen and paper and I wrote things down that stuck with me. The key moments. And I reckon 99% of those things have always made the finish product. That’s how it was for Kelly Gang. For Nitram it was the gun shop scene. That was the moment. And there’s a moment late in episode four that deals with the character of Frank (played by Thomas Weatherall) that was so important to the novel and to the series…I don’t know how many versions of that I wrote, but it was detailed and we kept pushing the shooting of it to quite late in the piece.
I remember being on set that day, and Justin and I were very anxious and it was tense on set, but when you get it, it’s magic. And Thomas is so unbelievable. They’re the special moments when you can land pivotal scenes. But there’s always one that everything bridges on. Is there anything for you?
Jo Porter: Yeah, the Frank incident. But one thing I think Richard does so brilliantly, and it was one of the only conditions he really laid to us, was to keep this mosaic of life. This story is about hope and how you can get through the darkest of times, and you sort of playing with ideas of this incredible love story. So the meeting in the bookstore was always such a pivotal moment, too. Just the intensity of Dorrigo and Amy’s love affair. The obsession of that. It helps you get through the book in the same way it helps Dorrigo when he’s in the war.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is now available to stream on Prime Video.
