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Alfonso Cuarón on first Apple TV+ series Disclaimer, Cate Blanchett and how he makes shows

How does Gravity and Roma director Alfonso Cuarón make a TV show? Look to Cate Blanchett vehicle Disclaimer, on Apple TV+, for the answer

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Alfonso Cuarón at the premiere of Disclaimer during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. How does the noted film director make a TV show? The answer is intriguing. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Director Alfonso Cuarón is taking on prestige television with Disclaimer, a seven-part psychological thriller starring fellow Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline, but he said the result is still a film – just a very long one.

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It is not the first time that the Mexican filmmaker has worked on the small screen – he co-created the short-lived series Believe, which aired in the United States on broadcasting channel NBC a decade ago.

But Disclaimer – which was screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival after a world premiere in Venice – is his first major television project since he scooped up Academy Awards for directing Gravity and Roma.

The limited series, the first project in Cuarón’s multi-year deal with streaming service Apple TV+, stars Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft, a journalist whose life is upended when she receives a novel that seemingly recounts the intimate details of her darkest secret.

That buried indiscretion involved the dead son of Stephen Brigstocke (Kline), a widower with a mean streak who is clearly bent on revenge.

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Rounding out the cast are a trio of Oscar nominees – Sacha Baron Cohen as Catherine’s husband, Robert, Lesley Manville as Stephen’s wife, Nancy, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Catherine and Robert’s son Nicholas.
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