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Amazon Prime’s latest limited series is a new twist on a classic—a genuine reimagining. Widely considered to be one of the best Australian novels of all time, Joan Lindsay‘s 1967 Picnic at Hanging Rock is the story of three young women and a teacher from upper-class Appleyard College who mysteriously vanish from a picnic at the titular landmark on Valentine’s Day 1900.

The novel has been adapted multiple times for the stage, and notably for the screen by director Peter Weir in 1975. Weir’s film is critically revered, and its influence has touched creations as varied as the films of Sofia Coppola to Damon Lindelof‘s acclaimed series The Leftovers to the work of fashion designers.

From showrunner Larysa Kondracki and writers Beatrix Christian and Alice Addison, Amazon’s six-hour miniseries has much of what made the Weir film so powerful—nightmarish, quietly horrifying qualities and haunting mystery—but thanks in part to its expansive length and scope, there’s much more on the table this time ’round: this Picnic has provocative, sexy romance, black humor, and an edgy, universal tale of identity and coming into one’s own. It’s suddenly quite timely too—a unique meditation on femininity and girlhood released mere months after the dawn of #MeToo.

The series stars Game of Thrones‘ Natalie Dormer as unremittingly strict headmistress Hester Appleyard. Lily Sullivan (Mental) co-stars as Miranda Reid, and Lola Bessis (Thirst Street) plays young governess Madameoiselle Dianne de Poitiers.

Parade spoke with Dormer and other members of the cast and crew about this new take on a classic, its relevance amidst the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, and equality in the entertainment industry and beyond.

Because the 1975 film is so esteemed, did you feel pressure to live up to it?

Bessis: I love the ’75 film so much, and I said that the first time I talked with Larysa on Skype, but she said, “Don’t worry, this is going to be really different.”

Kondracki: Absolutely, but these scripts are so different. It’s much more about who these girls were. Ours is a little darker, too. The scripts are very truthful to the book.

Dormer: We have six hours to delve into the novel in ways Weird couldn’t in two hours.

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Natalie Dormer knows you want to ask her about Game Of Thrones. Sure, she’s working on other projects, and she’s played a part in many a franchise (The Tudors and The Hunger Games among them), but the Game Of Thronesobsessives always want more (and rightfully so). She can feel the vibration of my question forming, and, even though her character, Margaery Tyrell, has already been killed off the much-loved drama, Dormer is always ready to offer her own opinions as to where the princes, queens, and dragon-slayers on the show will end up.

When we sit down together at Bustle HQ, Dormer admits she’s worried about Sansa (“I love her journey as a character”), she wants Cersei to have a “massive revelation of self,” and she tacks on the exceptionally juicy tidbit that she knows how it all ends. “They’ve been shooting a lot of battle sequences… it’s the fight to the finish,” she says, letting the statement lie, with an unmistakeable emphasis on the word “finish.” Though Dormer loved her time on Game Of Thrones and is happy to have been a part of the series, she’s beyond ready to move on.

No longer satisfied with the stories men have projected onto women in the industry, Dormer is among those actresses and storytellers who is taking matters into her own hands. In one of her post-Game Of Thrones projects, In Darkness (in theaters now), Dormer plays Sofia, a blind musician who, after she hears the murder of a neighbor, is thrown into the gritty underbelly of London, complete with war criminals, fight sequences, and plenty of intrigue. While playing a character like Sofia would be a boon for many actresses, Dormer took it a step further — she wrote In Darkness, too, along with director Anthony Byrne.

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Peter Weir’s 1975 film “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” much like the geologic formation named in its title, casts a very long shadow. Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay, the movie adaptation tells the story of three young women and a teacher from Appleyard College, who go missing during a Valentine’s Day outing in 1900.

Considered a masterpiece of Australian filmmaking and an achievement in Weir’s early career, the movie created a haunting Victorian aesthetic that is still referenced in films, fashion, and other art forms to this day. Because of this impact, the movie looked as if it would be one of the few classics that would remain untouched by the latest wave of remakes and reboots. Then a group of women came along to change that.

Showrunner and director Larysa Kondracki and star Natalie Dormer spoke to IndieWire about why they dared to tackle “Picnic at Hanging Rock” as a limited series for a new generation.

1. The Series Avoids Weir Altogether

Kondracki herself is an ardent fan of the original film, which is why it took some convincing for her to sign up for the series.

“[The script] was sent to me. I said, ‘Absolutely not. I don’t wanna touch Peter Weir,’” she said. “I was like, ‘Are you crazy? No way.’ Everyone said the same thing: That’s such a canonical film, and you’d hate to be disrespectful of it.”

She soon learned, however, that this was not a remake of Weir’s film, but instead went straight to the source material. Writers Beatrix Christian and Alice Addison adapted Lindsay’s novel into a six-part series for television.

“They said, ‘Read it. It’s a reimagining of the book; it’s not the movie,’” said Kondracki. “The second you read the first page and Bea’s writing, you just went, ‘Okay, this is totally different.’”

Dormer added, “The text is there. It seems bizarre that when the original story is so great that it would only have one incarnation. So we take nothing away from the Weir. It has its reverent place. We’re doing something completely different.”

2. The Adaptation Expands on the Girls’ Stories

Of course, adapting Lindsay’s novel is daunting in itself because it’s also considered to be one of the best Australian novels of all time.

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