Can’t get enough of Melanie Lynskey? Neither can Hulu. After a Critics’ Choice Award winning turn in Yellowjackets, the streamer has swiped the fan favorite actress from Showtime for their upcoming crime-thriller series Candy. Starring alongside Jessica Biel as murderess Candy Montgomery, Lynskey will fall victim to her evil plots as the helpless Betty Gore.
Completely unrecognizable—heavens, that '80s wig!—Biel transforms into Candy as she voices over the entire trailer, with clips jumping all the way to her trial for murder. “I had no angry feelings towards her,” Candy says in the trailer as she’s on the stand. “We were friends.”
After the success of Pam & Tommy and The Dropout and The Girl From Plainville, Hulu appears to be using Candy as their next big drama in a string of thrilling woman-led biopics. What’s going to happen when Biel, Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, and Elle Fanning all go head-to-head at the Emmys? Biel’s certainly putting up a strong fight with her creepy debut in this trailer for Candy, which sees her eyeing knives and prepping for a big murder.
Candy is based on a true story of a desperate housewife gone rogue. Candy and Betty met in 1979 in a small town in Texas. Candy, bored of her husband and home life, invited Betty’s husband into an affair. Betty found out about their affair a few years later, after it had ended, and was found brutally murdered in her home shortly after, struck 41 times by an axe.
Alongside Biel and Lynskey, Candy stars Sharon Conley, Russell Thomas, Bruce McKinnon, and Jesse Gallegos. The five-part miniseries comes from Nick Antosca and Mad Men’s Robin Veith. Antosca, Veith, and Biel executive produce alongside Alex Hedlund, Michelle Purple, and Michael Uppendahl.
While Candy is based on a true story from 1980, the story was previously adapted into an Emmy-award winning TV movie called A Killing in a Small Town back in 1990. The story is so perplexing, in fact, that it’s achieved FYRE Festival levels of intrigue: HBO Max also has a project on the way called Love & Death, with Elizabeth Olsen standing in as Candy.
Candy will begin streaming on Hulu on May 9.
