The interview included in this article was conducted in June 2023.
In the limited series Painkiller, Uzo Aduba’s role as federal investigator Edie Flowers became even more personal right before taking the job. Aduba was visiting family, and mentioned the upcoming project about the opioid crisis. Soon after, she happened to be driving past the house of a distant family friend whose child had passed away some years prior and her family shared it was opioid related. “It was never really disclosed what had happened,” Aduba told Krista Smith in a new episode of the podcast Skip Intro. “I remember being so shocked because it seemed so out of the realm of who they are. There was no face to it that I knew of until that moment, and suddenly it was a whole different other story in my head.”
Executive produced by Eric Newman (Narcos) and Pete Berg (Friday Night Lights), who also directs, Painkiller is a fictionalized retelling of the origins and aftermath of the opioid crisis in America. Inspired by true events and people, the series follows the victims and perpetrators whose lives have been altered by Purdue Pharma, the business behind OxyContin. Edie (Aduba) is determined to bring a case against Purdue and hold those responsible for the opioid epidemic accountable.
As the series unfolds, we see how pharmaceutical tycoon Richard Sackler (Matthew Broderick) of Purdue built a fortune from OxyContin. For Aduba, Broderick’s casting was “so brilliant.” “It would’ve been too easy to put this super sinister, dark, looming figure that we all know as a performer into that space, but instead you have somebody who’s really likable — who doesn’t love Matthew Broderick?” she explained, adding that his skill with the nuanced role caused her to fall “in love with him even more” than she had before.
Although Aduba’s Edie isn’t a real person, the actor revealed that she had no trouble creating her character through extensive research and news headlines. “[The filmmakers] do this brilliant thing in the story of having these trains [running parallel] to one another,” said Aduba. “The world of Edie Flowers, who is a fictitious person — but is a composite of a number of investigators, runs alongside the very real Richard Sackler. Having those points of intersection where the two worlds come together was incredibly impactful and powerful.”
Stream Painkiller now.
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