Danielle Macdonald Learned About Different Kinds Of Trauma for Netflix’s ‘Unbelievable’

Unbelievable remains one of the best limited series of the year, and it has a real shot at being a major contender at this year’s Emmy Awards. With a cast led by Merritt Wever, Toni Collette, and Kaitlyn Dever, Unbelievable also features performances of staggering realism from its supporting players like Annaleigh Ashford, Jayne Taini, and Danielle Macdonald. In the pivotal role of Amber Stevenson, Macdonald manages to convey so much with little screen time.

When Wever’s character interviews Amber for the first time, she is standing alone. Her boyfriend isn’t with her and she is asked about her assault while standing outside her home. Amber is courteous while she answers Wever’s questions—the trauma hasn’t hit yet. It’s very important that Unbelievable drives home to its audience that not every trauma is the same and neither is the reaction to that trauma, and that is something Macdonald learned while doing research on the real victims.

Macdonald is an actress whose emotions very easily transfer to the audience. She is someone who is very easy to feel joy with but this is such a carefully rendered portrayal of this young woman’s specific pain. Performances like these are difficult to watch but essential, and Macdonald will make you listen and take action.

Awards Daily: What drew you to this show? Was it the script or was it something to do with the amazing team of women behind it?

Danielle Macdonald: It was sort of a combination of everything. They sent me the pilot script, which I’m not in. I come in in Episode 2. I didn’t know anything about my role. They just told me a little bit of the basis of it. When I read the pilot, and I thought it was incredibly well-written. I had never seen anything that was so clearly from a survivor’s perspective, and the trauma that they go through. I found it very powerful. I heard the rest of the series would be more about the investigation. I then read ProPublica’s article that it was based on and the podcast, so I had a sense where it was going. I felt that was very important because, while I loved the pilot, it also doesn’t focus so heavily on that the entire time so you are able to watch it. With a medium like television, you want people to understand what people are going through, but you also want them to be engaged and rooting for a sense of hope. The show finds the balance really beautifully. It was a no-brainer for me.

AD: This could have been just a standard procedural, but the subject matter is handled with such exquisite care. That partly has to do with how Merritt [Wever] and Toni [Collette] respond to the victims. Do you ever think of what it would have been like for Amber if the investigators were men?

DM: I didn’t think of how she would’ve reacted if her cops were men, but I did think of how Amber would’ve reacted if she had Kaitlyn [Dever]’s character’s cops.

AD: Oh, that’s so interesting.

DM: Eric Lange plays the cop in the first case, and I think of how her case would have been different if he handled it. Obviously, it’s incredibly important subject matter, and with this kind of story, you have to do it right. There are so many ways to do this wrong, in my opinion. How do you make this entertaining but tell a true story, but also give a voice to victims and survivors everywhere. How do you accommodate all of that? That’s the only thing that made me nervous. Once I heard who was behind it and got to talk to them about where they wanted to go with it, I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. I knew they were going to tell these stories the right way.

AD: Yeah.

DM: One of the focuses I found was that they are showing the different kinds of trauma that people experience. That’s important, because when we see someone who is sexually assaulted or raped, we assume they have to react a specific way. Everyone experiences very different reactions, and this show does that beautifully. I found it difficult at first, because she seemed fine. She’s not fine, but she seems fine—how do I figure out what’s going through her head that is making her react this way? That was my big thing. I looked at all different types of trauma. That’s how I found Amber. Part of my research made me think, ‘Is this just how she’s coping? Is it the cop she has and how understanding she is? Is it just this cop?’ Part of it is how we deal with things as a human being and part of it is how it’s handled. I think it’s a mix.

AD: Yeah, that has to play into it.

DM: If we feel safe enough to open up and be heard, we are going to be able to speak our minds and our truths without judgment. A lot of people think they are out to get them and they mistrust them. That’s terrifying and changes the course of your reaction. That’s a long-winded answer. (Laughs)

AD: No, I loved it!

DM: (Laughs)

AD: That reminds of the first time that Amber speaks to Karen Duvall. Amber is very calm and very courteous to her. You’re smiling in a lot of moments when we first see you. I was fascinated by that choice. Did Amber feel like she needed to react in a certain way?

DM: I didn’t get to meet the person that my character is based off of. For that reason, the only thing I knew was what I read or heard in the podcast. For example, there’s a snippet where the real person that Merritt plays says that when she met Amber’s character…she was completely fine. She had an understanding that everyone reacts differently, and that was the most important part. I don’t think we ever know how we react until we are in that situation. In times of stress, I tend to go towards getting things done. I move with ease. I need to do this and this and then this—it’s the only way I know I’ll be on top of my own stress. I kind of used that aspect, as in these are the things I remember because if I remember everything that needs to be said to catch this guy, that’s the right thing to do. That’s how I’m going to survive this. If I can keep this together, maybe they can catch him. That’s where I had to go since I had limited information. I felt like I had suppressed this huge bubble of emotion, and as actors, you want to release it. I know everything this girl has gone through and I can’t release it because she didn’t. It’s a way of coping. I’m holding this bubble inside me and I couldn’t let it go.

AD: Wow.

DM: It’s strange. It made me really understand what she was going through.

AD: Holding that in has to be so hard.

DM: It is.

AD: There are so many moments where the emotion comes out, but they are times where the camera isn’t entirely focused on you. Or you aren’t speaking directly to the camera. When you call your friend to see if you can stay with her, we don’t see your face, but we hear your voice breaking. That’s really powerful. And later there is a scene between Amber and Karen, but Eric is there and talking with Karen about the lack of probability that this guy will be caught. Your arm is kind of draped on him, so there’s a physical connection there.

DM: Yeah.

AD: That was so interesting because we don’t get to see a lot of moments between survivors and the partners that they choose to be with. Did you have to paint those conversations yourself with how Eric may have reacted to the assault or did you speak to the writers about that at all?

DM: I feel like when you’re the lead of a film, I feel so all encompassed in that character and I go through every single thing with that person. Coming into a show, you’re snippets. It’s all important information, but you have to fill in all the blanks by yourself. You’re not acting them out so you’re not experiencing that emotion, and that’s entirely new for me. It was crazy because when you’re filming on set, you’re surrounded by the same people every day. You’re in it. My whole life doesn’t exist when I’m on a set. We filmed in LA, so I was at home. That’s rare for me. I’m spending days like I normally would and then I’m called on set for three or so days. It was such a mind trip. You have to remember that the character’s life is continuing. It was difficult. I prefer being able to go away and just dissolve myself into a character. This was harder, in a way. I didn’t expect me. It affected my personal life.

AD: Oh really? Like how?

DM: I’d carry it home with me a lot. A lot of it is really heavy and the next time I’d have a scene, a lot of stuff has happened, and I had to figure out how I’d go from being fine to being at a gun range and hooking up with random guys other than my boyfriend. He wasn’t understanding what I was going through. There’s so much going on. It was an incredible experience. It was interesting to film something like this and just come in for small parts. I think I was prepared to come in every time, and it was just about creating what I could in my own life and coming in with that. There’s less time with television than with film, I feel like. I’ve been told that.

AD: I like how you said that trauma isn’t a blanket experience for everyone.

DM: Yes.

AD: Other than that aspect about the show, what do you want people to take away most from Unbelievable?

DM: That was what I took most from the show. Honestly, learning the different types of trauma—that’s because I did so much research on it. On top of that, watching the show is about these cops finding this guy without having all the clues. They had a belief in doing something right and justice. I thought that was something amazing. If you believe enough and try hard enough and work hard enough, you can find an answer. I loved seeing that aspect of it, because evidence might not be apparent and handed to you—you can still find what you’re looking for. You just have to work a little harder. I love and admire the courage of these women. It made me feel more passionate. I learned a lot about this show. I learned how common this all is and that’s horrifying.

AD: Hmm.

DM: I also looked up a lot of statistics when I was doing research. Now you might have a better understanding of what someone has gone through. Scarily, I think everyone knows someone that has been. I know multiple people that have been, and it gives me a better understanding and maybe that means I don’t understand what they’ve been through, you know what I mean?

AD: Yeah.

DM: Even just acknowledging that is a good thing, because we can’t understand how people are going to react. It helps with having compassion and what people have going on in their lives.

AD: What I think Unbelievable does really well, from the very first episode, is telling the viewer to believe survivors’ stories. Listen to what they have to say. It starts with that.

DM: If you look up the statistics, a lot of the time society might say, ‘Well, these people are lying.’ If you look at the amount of people who are assaulted versus the people that lie about it, it’s less than one percent or something. It’s actually insane. I think everyone should go and look up the statistics, because that’s where I was astounded.

AD: There is that moment where Eric’s character gets a call from another detective and the way that he says, “There’s no victim here” really hit me hard.

DM: That moment crushed me. I don’t think his character is a bad person, but these people aren’t trained—they’re not taught. They don’t know there are various kinds of trauma. That’s where, I think, the system needs to pick up. You can’t have someone who was in narcotics work on that. It was his character’s second-ever rape case. He wasn’t trained. That’s not okay. People have to be trained in this—they can’t automatically know. They need that training and know the statistics. We will all become more compassionate and learn how this can happen.

Unbelievable is streaming now on Netflix.