Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns Talks ‘The Good Nurse’ & Collaborating With Sam Mendes, Edgar Wright & More [The Fourth Wall]

Getting started in the entertainment industry is difficult. Becoming successful in that same industry — even more so. Being considered by your peers to be one of the best examples of the craft to the point where you are nominated for screenwriting’s highest honor — nearly impossible. And for it to happen to anyone under the age of 40, that individual must be talented, passionate, and in her own words, “incredibly lucky.” 

Glasgow-born Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ career, at first glance, looks as if she was able to find every proverbial four-leaf clover along the path (if you’ll forgive the Irish analogy when speaking about a Scottish writer). One of her first scripts, “Aether,” her first foray into science fiction, made the infamous Black List, where prolific writer/producer John Logan noticed it. Logan almost immediately brought Wilson-Cairns on board his gorgeous gothic drama, “Penny Dreadful,” where Wilson-Cairns quickly learned the ropes of collaboration. “I learned so much from John [Logan] about the process of making TV and about the collaborative medium. You cannot be the kind of writer that says, ‘This is my world, and you’re all just playing in it.’ It has to be our shared world. It has to be our shared dream.” While Wilson-Cairns will admit her growing career is very much “dream-like,” she has already proven herself to be one of the hardest-working writers, collaborating with major Hollywood producers, directors, and stars. 

READ MORE: ‘The Good Nurse’ Review: Eddie Redmayne & Jessica Chastain Star In A Ripped-From-The-Headlines Medical Thriller [TIFF]

Her work as a staff writer on “Penny Dreadful” led to her drafting one of the early treatments for Charles Graeber’s non-fiction book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder. Director Sam Mendes, who was already familiar with her work because of his close relationship with “Penny Dreadful,” took a look at that script and was so impressed he suggested they work together in the future. Eventually, that led to “1917” and her eventual nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 2019. More impressively, while she had written feature-length screenplays before, “1917” was her first that went into production. 

Which brought her back to the true crime story of Charles Cullen in “The Good Nurse,” an American Nurse who was suspected of nearly 400 murders of the patients under his care. That number may never truly be solidified because Cullen, in a bizarre cover-up, was shifted from hospital to hospital in what looks to be a way for Hospital administrators to keep things quiet and avoid lawsuits. Wilson-Cairns addressed the horror behind the horror she wanted to ensure she brought to the light within the film. “With many serial killer movies, after the serial killer goes to jail, the job is done, and you can go home and sleep easy. But with this, I realized there were really two villains. There was Charles Cullen, and then there was the American healthcare system. As soon as you put profits ahead of patients, you invite tragedy, she explained.

It’s interesting to note that in an era where Netflix is producing both “The Good Nurse” and the salacious “Dahmer,” Wilson-Cairns decided that the truth, as understated as it may seem at times, is what is so terrifying and tragic. “In this particular case, the tragedy was that [Cullen] was able to kill so many people over such a long period of time, you’re talking about sixteen years, and nine different hospitals, he was killing at an alarming rate,” she said. “Every single hospital had suspicions that he was murdering patients, and they passed him along. They covered it up, didn’t want to be sued, and didn’t report it, which is singular to America.”

“Singular” is such an apt word, as coincidentally, one of the other secondary stories within “The Good Nurse” is perhaps singular to the upbringing of Wilson-Cairns, giving the film a personal touch and some much-needed heartfelt story beats. “So much of true crime is just like unrelenting darkness,” Wilson-Cairns noted. “And I think when you choose to focus on that, you’ve got to be careful what you put out in the world. When I read the book, you have Amy Lachlan, the real ‘good nurse.’ She’s a working-class, single mom. She looks after her kids, she’s got a health condition, which she’s trying to manage, and she’s just trying to do what’s best for her family. And that reminds me a lot of my mom, who had to work really hard to provide for us and did everything she could to make us feel safe.”

As mentioned, there’s something to be said about Wilson-Cairns’ choice to avoid salaciousness and put the truth back into true crime. “When I came across the story, I thought, Lachlan is someone that you can aspire to be; this is someone who sees injustice in the world and asks, ‘How can we stop it?’ And I thought that was a really human story, and it really spoke to me, and hopefully, it will speak to other people,” she said.

During the conversation with Wilson-Cairns, we also chatted about collaborating with some of the greatest visual storytellers out there in Sam Mendes, the politics of gender in “Last Night in Soho,” and pitching the idea of killer Guinea Pigs for Edgar Wright’s newest project.

“The Good Nurse” is available on Netflix on October 26. You can hear the full interview below.

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