Merritt Wever on Lance Oppenheim’s ‘Primetime’: ‘We Don’t Seem To Learn’

Primetime, Lance Oppenheim’s new drama starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, had its premiere in Venice before its US release on Friday. It tells the story of To Catch a Predator, the early-2000s reality show that caught adult men trying to meet children online. Merritt Wever plays Hansen’s producer, Andie Bender, and she spoke to Deadline about the film’s themes and her character’s surprising arc.

The Show’s Dark History

To Catch a Predator was meant to protect children. Instead, it exposed how many adult men were willing to travel to a bait house to have sex with minors. The show lasted several years before the powder keg of controversy finally exploded. Wever remembers watching it herself as a young person.

“I did actually watch it myself,” she told Deadline. “I’ve often wondered… the differences that would arise between audiences that already knew about the show, because it’s part of our cultural backdrop, and ones that did not.”

A Producer Who Never Chooses Good

Andie Bender is supposed to be the conscience of the film. She is the one character audiences expect to make a different choice. Wever admits the opposite happens.

“That’s what I hoped would come through, and I didn’t know if it would or not — that she’s the character that you think is going to make a different choice,” she said. “And she’s the one that does not.”

Wever drew on a fable of two wolves inside everyone. One is light, one is dark. “An elder tells a child that inside everyone are two wolves, a light one and a dark one,” she said, quoting the story directly. “And the youngster says, ‘Which one wins?’ And the elder says, ‘Whichever one you feed.'” That became the structure for a character who keeps feeding the wrong wolf.

Researching a Job From Another Era

Wever did extensive research for the role, reading memoirs and watching documentaries about TV producers. But she learned to be careful with research that could lead her away from the script.

“I’ve actually found that sometimes when I’m playing people who are based on real-life figures, I start to get attached to the figures in their honest iterations and then use that as my lighthouse instead of the script,” she said.

She spoke to longtime TV producers about what their jobs were like before phones and the internet. She focused on what it means to manage a host, finagle a production, and handle a human being.

Pattinson and the Zoom Sessions

Pattinson plays Hansen, and Wever had not met him before filming. They Zoomed with Oppenheim first, then with Oppenheim and Pattinson together.

Wever’s character is a composite of people, but not in the way audiences might assume. Chris’s character is a dramatization, and Decoy Dan is an amalgamation. Andie, the producer, is entirely made up.

“That’s probably also why there was so much room,” Wever said.

The film premiered in Venice before its US release on Friday. It asks whether anyone has learned from the Predator era.

Source material: “Merritt Wever On The Moral Lessons Of Lance Oppenheim’s ‘Primetime’: “We Don’t Seem To Learn”,” Deadline.

Lance Oppenheim · Merritt Wever · Primetime · Robert Pattinson · TV drama