When John Steinbeck described his 1952 masterpiece East of Eden, he saw it as two stories woven together — one capturing the story of his country, the other reflecting something deeply personal about himself.
That idea became a guiding principle for Zoe Kazan as she brought the novel to a new generation. For Kazan, the adaptation needed to balance two very different scales: something sweeping and epic, yet deeply intimate. Although Steinbeck drew directly from his own family history, Kazan wanted the new version to carry the same sense of personal connection through her own perspective.
Kazan has her own family connection to the material; her grandfather, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Elia Kazan, directed a 1955 film adaptation of the novel, starring James Dean. But she took a much different approach to East of Eden. “The movie isn’t a super faithful adaptation of the small part of the book that it is adapting,” Kazan, who wrote and executive produced all seven episodes of the new series, says. “What I felt was the whole epic story is an opportunity to explore, to fall in love with all these characters.”
That epic story is brought to life in the series by a cast led by Florence Pugh, who plays East of Eden’s scheming antihero, Cathy Ames. “I didn’t have a backup,” Kazan says. “I didn’t have another person that I thought would be just as good. She is the exact right person to play Cathy.”
Kazan’s instincts proved correct as the series moved into production. “Her awareness of the camera is unparalleled,” Kazan says of Pugh. “I don’t use this word lightly: I think she’s a genius. I watched her on set for five months. I have no more insight now as to how she works than I did before. I can see how hard she works, and I can see how much it means to her, but there’s no obvious preparation or process that is visible to me at least.”
That enigmatic quality suits the character of Cathy, whose motivations have been debated by generations of readers since East of Eden’s publication. The series preserves Cathy’s character while also “unfolding” her nature. “I wanted to make sure that she was also a person and not just an archetype,” Kazan says. “I think that really required me to do some unfolding rather than inventing. Basically, everything that’s in the series has at least a root in the book.”
East of Eden spans multiple generations as it weaves together Cathy’s story with the Trask and Hamilton families — whose members are played by actors including Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott, and Ciarán Hinds — as they settle in California’s Salinas Valley.
What those generations pass on to the next is at the heart of both the book and the series. “What gets handed down?” Kazan asks. “What are you carrying? How do we reconcile ourselves with our shadow selves?”
East of Eden hits Netflix on Oct. 1.