Andrew Scott will bring Ripley to life in Netflix's new series directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter-director Steven Zaillian, Vanity Fair reported.

Patricia Highsmith's Ripley has been immortalized on film, TV and plays several times. The most recent one was a take from Joanna Murray Smith's 2014 play Switzerland. In the play, Tom Ripley steps out of the pages of the book and visits Highsmith to kill her.

Tom Ripley in the media

However, on film, only three out of the five novels where Ripley has appeared have been adapted. The first book was adapted into the French movie Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) in 1960, which starred Alain Delon. In 1999, Matt Damon played Ripley in the original title opposite Jude Law as Dickie.

The second book, Ripley Underground was adapted into a British-German-French 2005 film, starring Barry Pepper and featured Willem Defoe and Alan Cumming. The third book, Ripley's Game was filmed in 1977 as The American Friend, with Dennis Hopper as Ripley. In its original title, it was adapted in 2002 with John Malkovich.

On TV, the first book was adapted for a 1956 episode of the Studio One series. In 1982, The South Bank Show's Patricia Highsmith: A Gift for Murder episode, dramatized parts of Ripley Underground.

In 2024, it's Scott's turn to play the charming sociopath. The series will have eight episodes. Zaillian told Vanity Fair, “Tom Ripley is a part of our consciousness. Lmoast 70 years after Highsmith created him, contemporary figures are still being compared to him. He won't go away.”

The Talented Mr. Ripley in the modern age

To those unfamiliar with Tom Ripley (despite his many mentions here) and his story, Scott will be playing one of literatures most well-known con artists Tom Ripley. The series is set in early-1960s New York. A wealthy man hired Tom to convince his itinerant son Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to return from Italy.

When Tom meets Dickie, he becomes enthralled with Dickie's lifestyle, as well as his picture-perfect and perfectly suspicious girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning). He goes to great lengths to stay by Dickie's side and the situation ends up devolving into more deceit and eventually, murder.

“I feel like you’re required to love and advocate for your characters, and your job is to go, Why? What’s that? You don’t play the opinions, the previous attitudes that people might have about Tom Ripley,” Scott said.

“You have to throw all those out, try not to listen to them, and go, Okay, well, I have to have the courage to create our own version and my own understanding of the character,” he added.

The Perfect Ripley

Zaillian wrote, directed and produced every episode of the show. He said that letting Tom's deceit play out over several episodes instead of one feature film allowed him to be more faithful to Highsmith's work. He added that he tried to approach his take on the story the way he imagined the author would.

The show is shot in black and white, inspired by Zaillian's copy of the book.

“The edition of the Ripley book I had on my desk had an evocative black-and-white photograph on the cover. As I was writing, I held that image in my mind. Black and white fits this story—and it’s gorgeous,” he explained.

Scott also serves as a producer on the show. The actor admitted that it was a heavy part to play. Probably harder than portraying an orphan caught up in magic realism in the critically acclaimed All of Us Strangers.

“I found it mentally and physically really hard. That's just the truth to it,” he stated.

However, Zaillian believes Scott is the perfect Ripley for this production. He spoke about having heard his voice in 2013's Locke. And, of course, Fleabag.

“With those two roles — Donal and the Priest — I knew he had the range for Tom Ripley,” the director concluded.