Making kids miserable has never been so much fun – or looked so good – as in an exquisite new television adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The orphan saga, the first season of which debuts on Friday on Netflix with eight hour-long episodes, brings to life an unforgettable visual and emotional universe led by Emmy- and Tony-winning star Neil Patrick Harris.
As the greedy Count Olaf, who dons many disguises in his lust for lucre, Harris performs every dirty deed imaginable to enrich his bank account at the expense of his three young charges, the intelligent and innovative Baudelaire siblings: 14-year-old Violet (Malina Weissman), 12-year-old Klaus (Louis Hynes) and clever, sharp-toothed infant Sunny (Presley Smith). They end up in his shadowy mansion when he adopts them after their wealthy parents perish in a fire.
“One of the main reasons I signed up for this is because what I think Netflix does so well is that it allows the creative process to happen without many constraints,” says Harris. “They let us create this world, which I find just visually exquisite.”
An acclaimed Broadway talent, Harris starred for nine seasons as the rascally Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother (2005 to 2014), more than a decade after childhood success as the titular teen doctor on Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989 to 1993).
“[Olaf] is on a hell-bent crusade to become very wealthy through the Baudelaires’ misfortune,” he says.
“He realises quickly that they have a lot of money [and] if he can only find a way to get of rid the children, or marry the children, or somehow become their guardian, then he has access to that.”
Olaf and the children are surrounded by a wide range of eccentric characters brought to life by memorable guest stars, including Joan Cusack (Shameless), Catherine O'Hara (Schitt's Creek), Alfre Woodard (Luke Cage), Don Johnson (Miami Vice), Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) and Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show). Patrick Warburton (Seinfeld, Rules of Engagement) provides the voice of the narrator, Lemony Snicket.
The TV series is based on the books by American author Daniel Handler, who uses Snicket as his pen name. Making his fictional young heroes miserable has proven to be a gold mine for the writer.
A Series of Unfortunate Events – which debuted in 1999 with The Bad Beginning and now includes 13 books – has sold more than 65 million copies and been translated into 41 languages.
It was previously adapted as a movie in 2004, starring Jim Carrey as Count Olaf. Although well received, a hoped-for film franchise failed to materialise. Now Netflix plans to adapt all of the books.
Harris spent two-and-a-half hours in the make-up chair each day to be transformed into the pointy-nosed, sinister Count, who holds sway in a world that is far richer and more detailed than what was possible in a two-hour film.
“I just really like what Daniel [Handler] wrote, and so I want to honour it as best I can,” says the 43-year-old actor.
“So in coming up with this character, I just wanted to make sure that it looked as similar to the drawings that are in the book as possible, which is very angular and very dark and very tough.”
K Todd Freeman, a veteran actor familiar to fans of the Batman movie The Dark Knight and TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plays Mr Poe, a blundering banker who handles the children's estate. He wants to help them but is often fooled by Count Olaf's disguises and schemes.
“He is the most well-intentioned … and ineffectual person on the planet,” says Freeman. “Everything he does, for the most part, ends up wrong.”
While there was a passion to honour Handler's vision, "we wanted to create our own world that is unique to these books: gloomy, dark, overcast", says executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Pushing Daisies).
“We wanted the sky to be painted. We wanted the light to be beautiful. We didn’t want anything that felt naturalistic,” he adds.
From Olaf’s dismal and decrepit mansion and the vast Lake Lachrymose to the machinery-filled Miserable Mill and Uncle Monty’s snake-filled “Reptile Room”, each lavishly detailed location is a universe unto itself.
“[At first], I imagined I would be mostly acting on green screens with tennis balls, having to be told what that snake will look like,” says Harris. “And then we arrive here every day to a brand new set, and there’s 40 snakes – and they’re real.”
• Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events will be available on Netflix on Friday, January 13
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