“If she had taken a different path, she might actually have become a nice person. But she’s the girl next door who went completely astray.”
Photo: Apple TV+
Warning spoilers for this week’s episode of Evil monkey.
The fourth episode of Evil Monkey goes all out on beach bums Columbo. Told primarily through a series of flashbacks, “Nothing’s Wrong With It, I Just Don’t Need It Anymore” gives viewers a clue that Eve (Meredith Hagner) is the psychopathic mastermind at the center of this saga, which began years earlier when she met Nick (Rob Delaney) as an inebriated woman in a Miami nightclub. Her dreams of becoming an actress faded, and the undivided attention and wallet of dopey single dad Nick are exactly what she’s always wanted. They live a pretty charmed life thanks to the steady flow of money from Nick’s fraudulent Medicare deal, but when the government starts asking questions, they come out with their claws. And by claws, we mean Eve advising her husband not to cut off two fingers to fake his death, but to take an entire arm instead. “This is so lame,” she advises, “people did this to get a free damn sandwich down at the deli.”
We could perhaps forgive the arm thing, but since her favorite book, If you give a mouse a cookiepredicted, our girl can’t stop. Soon she’s advising Nick to kill any loose ends that might give away her secrets, including his best friend and partner in crime (Zach Braff). Hell, she’d even commit murder herself if she had to, so don’t you dare confront her in a parking garage with some “me, not us” nonsense. And in a perfect world, her stepdaughter would be dead, too. “She’s a typical sociopath. She has no empathy and just wants to protect herself,” Hagner says. “She’s in survival mode.”
I would love to hear your reaction when you read this particular script and realized Damn, I’m the one and only devilish bitch.
It’s so great. When Bill Lawrence considered me for the role, I only got the script for the pilot episode. Eve is much bigger in the series than in the book by Carl Hiaasen. I would have been happy to play a small role in that show, but when I read the pilot episode, I was given a kind of promise that a bigger story was coming. And when I got the script for that episode, I thought: Holy shit. That’s a real gift for an actor – a tremendous opportunity. A script like that doesn’t come around very often. It was a shock how epic it was. It’s kind of scary. I mean, I’m playing a really bad person.
What scared you?
I always love reading something and being a little bit scared about whether I’m going to get it the way I want it to. I wanted to play a villain or a psychopath in a way that felt like: This is a girl who doesn’t see herself as a bad person at all. She would do horrible things with the ease that someone would order a latte. She’s playing against what we think of as a typical psychopath. A lot of documentaries about serial killers focus on how charming these people are. Eve is someone who has figured out exactly how to manipulate people. She thinks of herself as a really good and kind person, but there’s a fuse in her brain that’s not wired correctly.
We get some hints that Eve’s behavior stems from a struggle for survival and that she had a shitty childhood. Does that deserve more sympathy?
The backstory I came up with for her – and yes, this is an annoying acting thing – is that she is someone who has experienced extreme trauma. I pushed for a few extra moments in this episode where she says, “I got out of here and I can’t go back.” I had to sprinkle in this concept that I think she experienced abuse. It was the only way I could justify it to myself. What happens to someone like that? Something haunts her and it’s horrible. Not to justify her actions, but it’s kind of like, Who is so psychotic due to this extreme trauma and at the same time plays the role of a charming and sexual woman?
I spent the entire episode trying to better understand the motivations behind Eve’s behavior, and in the final scene, Nick asks, “What’s wrong with you?” So I want to ask you that question. What’s wrong with this woman?
She’s a broken soul. It comes down to a question of nature or nurture. Are psychopaths created or made? I think of her as a mix of both. It’s a genetic thing mixed with this backstory, and she’s just a squeaky-cheeked blonde who’s cold-blooded. I never saw her as a bad person because in her eyes her actions are completely justified. So to ground her and make her feel real, I thought almost like this: Well, of course we’re going to kill this person, because that’s what you do when you try to survive in the world. It is as a normal person would think, Oh, I spilled a glass of red wine on the carpet of my rental apartment. Of course I won’t get my deposit back. With the ease with which someone could think that, it is the ease with which she thinks, We’re going to kill your best friend. That’s the disrespectful thing about it – she’s deceiving the people around her by making them believe it’s not that bad.
When she and Nick meet at the nightclub, Eve says briefly, “I’ve been waiting to be recognized.” I think that’s a good summary of why she likes Nick, but is there something deeper in their connection that may not be obvious? Does she really love him?
She felt 100 percent seen by him and has an inflated self-image. She is self-important and deeply narcissistic. She probably never got any attention from anyone in her family. There was something about this guy’s kindness and goodness that she recognized. Morality exists on a scale. There are some nuances to that that I wanted to explore in the episode. If she had taken a different path, she might actually have been a nice person. But she is the girl next door who has gone completely astray.
Her pure side initially falls in love with him because he represents this side of goodness – Look at me, I am that nice person! — but it’s so downhill for him. They both just want to be seen, but they act like that’s not the case, and actually being seen by someone is an aphrodisiac for them. Narcissistic people often tend to find people who are easy to control. Eve knew so quickly that she could wrap this man around her finger.
You have the pleasure of working alongside one of the the funniest people who ever signed up to TwitterRob Delaney, but your interactions become increasingly dark as the characters realize their plan is spiraling out of control. How did you two manage to find some levity when the cameras weren’t rolling?
I’m not on Twitter but he’s such a lovely person. He’s a real joy to be around but most of all he’s kind. Evil Monkey has such a unique tone, and I was lucky to have a partner who understood that our characters play the drama and ground themselves in the circumstances. It’s a comedy in the way we put our foot on the gas and throw ourselves into what feels funny, but it’s always played very straight. The script was not to be taken lightly. Rob understands what’s funny about these people at that insane core.
How do you prepare for a scene where you have to watch someone chop off a man’s arm?
It’s true what people say when you make a horror film: it’s not really scary. But that scene was really emotional. The idea of that happening around me was harsh and gross. And Eve only cares about her shirt getting ruined by blood. Oh, honey, this isn’t great for you, but I definitely didn’t wear the right shirt. How soon after this can we order dinner? She just doesn’t care.
Do you personally think it is a romantic gesture to cut off someone’s arm?
No, I don’t. I always joked, having worked as an actor for so many years, that if someone walked into an audition room and was told, “You can get this role, but you have to cut off your little toe,” there are many girls who would do that. But not me. I have standards! If someone tried to chop off my arm, I would run for the mountains.
Her final moment in the episode suggests that Eve would kill her stepdaughter to ensure the plot never gets exposed. How did you interpret that?
She wants to kill Caitlin more than anyone else in the world. She wants to be the only person Nick can see, and the fact that she has to share him with his daughter – and his daughter is a beautiful, seductive girl – is absolutely devastating to Eve. She tries to hide it, but if she could shoot Caitlin right now, she would. She’s a master manipulator. And of course she wants her dead.
We’ve seen Eve manipulate, murder, and be an all-around horrible person. Is there anything you think she would never do? Are there any limits to her?
Honestly, I don’t know if there are any big limits to what she would do to meet her needs. We’ll learn as the series goes on that there isn’t much Eve wouldn’t do. I’ll leave it at that.
I’m worried about your dog now.
No spoilers about the dog.
