Netflix‘s gorgeous new black and white thriller Ripley heightens the noir and paranoia of Patricia Highsmith’s original novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, but it also emphasizes something else. That is, about thirty-five minutes into Ripley Episode 1 “I A Hard Man to Find,” Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) emerges from an Atrani dressing room wearing nothing but a teeny tiny speedo. While speedos are nothing scandalous to our modern sensibilities, Tom is taken aback by his reflection — and Ripley creator, writer, and director Steven Zaillian uses the camera to show us exactly why. Essentially, Ripley Episode 1 establishes that conman Tom Ripley has arrived in Europe packing, and we don’t mean a gun.
Andrew Scott’s appearance in a vintage speedo in Netflix’s Ripley Episode 1 is going to get the internet (and water cooler) chattering.
Ripley is the latest live action adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 masterpiece, The Talented Mr. Ripley. The series follows a lowly New York-based conman, Ripley, who is hired by a wealthy shipbuilder (Kenneth Lonergan) to travel to Italy to coax his wayward son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), back home. Herbert Greenleaf is under the misapprehension that Tom Ripley is a friend of his son’s. Ripley, increasingly worried the FBI is tailing him for mail fraud, jumps at the opportunity for a paid trip to Italy via a luxury liner and the literal Orient Express.
When Tom Ripley eventually arrives in Atrani, Italy, he learns that Dickie and girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning) have departed their luxurious villa to spend the day swimming. Immediately Ripley knows he’s got to play the part of a wealthy American tourist at leisure, but how? Tom buys a swimsuit in a local store, only to be confronted with the reality that his only options are skintight speedos.
“Oh, wow,” Tom says when he sees himself. Andrew Scott was even less thrilled with the costume choice. Decider asked the Ripley star what was going through his mind when he put them on, and the Irish actor simply said, “Blind fear.”
“I didn’t love being in the Speedos,” Scott said. “But anyway, the audience will just have to understand that the horror will all be over pretty quickly. So not to, not to worry too much.”
Dakota Fanning confirmed to Decider that it was “vulnerable” for her co-star.
“Yes, he was he was in the Speedo,” Fanning said. “I mean, character-wise, it’s amazing. Just because it just says so much with so little, you know? Like the size of the Speedo. But for the character, I like loved it.”
“For Andrew, I was like, trying not to, you know, we were not drawing attention. We were just moving on with it because it’s vulnerable. It’s vulnerable. You’re on like a big beach, and, you know, we were all we were all vulnerable in our in our swimsuits.”
Although it looks as though Dickie and Marge are far more covered up when Tom meet them, to his horror, Fanning said that she and Johnny Flynn were also sporting bathing suits on set.
“Listen, we were all in bathing suits. Even I don’t I wake up in the morning and like, need to be filmed in a bathing suit. You know what I mean? It’s not like on my highest list of wants and needs. But you know, we all we all were doing that,” she said.
