Very Specific and Unusual Perspectives: A Conversation with ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ Filmmaker Olivia Newman

While working nights at a small-town aquarium, a widow bonds with a clever octopus and an adrift young man in this moving drama based on the bestseller.

When I first came across the book Remarkably Bright Creatures, I was immediately taken aback by the world building, the characters, the atmosphere and the comedic tone that author Shelby Van Belt established. As the story unfolded, from multiple character point of views, there was a simplicity to the approach, yet there was more happening between the white space of the text on the page. It was deeply emotional and incredibly visual. And really, a great stepping stone and foundation for a film. But how would you distill all of the great character work and the specificity of time and location? Well, director and co-writer Olivia Newman found her way in.  

Olivia Newman is no stranger to helming adaptations. While this is her first as a writer, she did not shy away from digging deep into the material and what shook her emotionally - she took the job quite seriously.

In this conversation, Olivia Newman shares insight into why the characters drew her in, dialing in unique perspectives, overcoming challenges by taking creative liberties to find the structure of the story, the importance of capturing the book’s tone and humor, and the importance of building her core creative team to enhance the story’s authenticity.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Let’s talk about the adaptation process - what spoke to you when you read the book?

Olivia Newman: I think what spoke to me about the book was the journey that these two characters, Tova and Cameron, who are so seemingly different on the outside, end up having so much in common, because they're both finding themselves in this place where they're a bit stuck and a bit lost as to what the next chapter holds and what they're supposed to do with their lives. And I just found it so wonderful to read about someone in their 30s and someone in their 70s going through the same thing.

And then to have an octopus observing all of this, who is so brilliant and able to look at the human species through this very particular lens as a creature who thinks very highly of themselves and smarter than humans in every way. That was so fun, the idea of being able to get inside a very specific and unusual perspective. I also, like Shelby [Van Pelt], the author, have been fascinated with octopuses since watching My Octopus Teacher, that was a big influence for her on writing from Marcellus' point of view.

So, when I thought about, oh my god, I'd get to photograph an octopus and get inside of an octopus’s point of view, living inside of a tank both what it looks like and sounds like - that to me, was an amazing creative challenge.

Also, the small town of Sowell Bay, and all of these amazing, colorful characters that Shelby wrote just reminded me so much - I grew up in Hoboken, which, at the time that I grew up there, felt very much like a small town. Everybody knew everybody. I grew up on the block with generations of families, and everyone's grandmother was watching us out the window when we were playing in the street. So, I had that same sort of you feel a little bit like you're in a fishbowl, and everybody has their eyes on you. And the fact that it was set in this beautiful part of Washington State, on the Puget Sound, all of those things were really exciting to me to adapt.

Sadie: There’s so much to tackle. And I'm curious, maybe you did or didn't have a say in this, but was there ever a discussion between which medium to make this as – film or TV?

Olivia: It came to me as a book that they were planning to make into a movie. But it did take a while to find how we were going to create a sort of engine for the story and a spine for the movie version, because the way the story unfolds in the book is very different from how we ended up sort of structuring it for the movie. So that was definitely a challenge.

I always knew where I wanted Tova to begin her journey and where I wanted her to end it, and I always knew what was going to happen to Marcellus in the course of that journey. And then it was sort of trying to figure out how to then have all of these other characters impact those journeys. That was definitely a challenge. I would say, it's not a straightforward adaptation by any means. And it took a lot of experimentation and trying different things to kind of end up finding the structure that we landed on.

Sadie: The book definitely goes into much detail about these different characters in this particular world, which gives us a lot of insight. And while watching the movie, you’re immediately drawn to these people from those pages. All their highs and lows, baggage and all is there, without having to say much. It can be carried across with a simple exchange or even a glance. How were you able to dial all that in?

Olivia: Well, that's the joy of filmmaking, right? Through your production design and your costume choices, and your wonderful actors carrying so much behind their eyes, you can capture in one image what it might take a page to describe. So, that is sort of the task, or the job of adaptation...The book becomes the Bible of information about the characters, about the town, and we go back to it over and over and over again, throughout the writing process, throughout the prep process, we go back to passages from the book, and we really treat it as a huge resource.

But then it's kind of like turning prose into poetry, how do you fill all of this information, how can you get it across in the most sort of concise way and show it through action rather than description. I mean, we did have in this movie, we did have the benefit of having a narrator, so Marcellus could also share insights and sort of add color to certain things. And I was able to kind of use some of Shelby's beautiful writing in his voiceover as well.

I think that's sort of the task of the screenwriter is how do you distill it? And knowing the actors that you have to work with, and the creative team that you have to capture all of it is - that's the job of all of us.

Sadie: And speaking of actors. Tova is played by the wonderfully talented Sally Field – she carries this character so well. What was that creative collaboration like?

Olivia: Sally was involved before I even came on. The producers brought the book to her, and she attached based on the book. And I think she, by the time we started shooting, she had so internalized Tova. I mean, she was dreaming as if she were Tova, as she told me… just really understood who this character was... I really put my trust into her interpretation of this character.

I also know Shelby wrote the book imagining Sally, [laughs] even though Tova is based on her own grandmother, she imagined Sally in the character. And then when I was writing the script, I could hear Sally's voice saying the lines, which I've never written anything with an actor already cast. And so that was just, oh my gosh, that was such a gift.

Sally was a really close collaborator on set. We would often take the script and play with it and find new things, add her own voice when it felt natural. She was hugely collaborative in that way. She read every draft of the script and gave notes... Understanding her interpretation of the character was something that happened over a long process, both in the writing and then in prepping the movie and eventually shooting.

Sadie: There are a lot of thematic elements at play, like second chances, resilience – and all three characters connect over this. As both writer and director, what was a guiding principle to keep you and your team on the same page with tone and theme?

Olivia: For me, the thing that was really important was capturing the tone of Shelby's book. She does such a beautiful job of walking this line of talking about things that are really emotionally resonant. She's talking about how grief can shape us. She's talking about loneliness and feeling disconnected, about longing for answers that we may never get.

But at the same time, the characters all have this really singular perspectives on the world that are very funny. And I really wanted the humor to come through the individual characters perspectives and point of view on the world, whether it's Marcellus or Cameron or Ethan, like they all have really funny voices in the book.

And so, I wanted to make sure that the film, even if we strayed from the structure of the book, that it still captured that same tone where you could laugh and you could feel big feelings, but that it was a joy to be inside of that world. And so, finding the joy and the fun even when you're sort of facing hard experiences and emotions, that was really important to me that we not lose track of that.

Sadie: And it’s handled so well. Plus, the casting across the board is spot on. I couldn't imagine anyone else as these different characters – and without going to spoiler territory – it makes that ending that more touching. The silence, what’s unsaid, but doesn’t need to be said out loud.

Olivia: It was also important to me that we not overwrite their dialogue. Also knowing these amazing actors that we had to work with. There's so much that you understand about what they're going through without them having to articulate it. And so, preserving that subtext and making sure that we gave them the room to hold back until they really felt comfortable sharing that - we were conscious of allowing it to be as natural as possible.

Also, having this octopus in the movie that does narrate, there's a risk there of it feeling hokey, or sort of taking you out of the grounded world of the movie. It was always important to me that Marcellus feel as much a real part of this world as all of the other characters, and that the one thing that pushes it a little bit into magical realism is the fact that he is narrating and that we can hear his thoughts, but I never wanted it to turn into a talking octopus movie…

And so, designing the octopus, I know this is not really related to the script, but what he says, the dialogue, the specific voice over, needed to feel again, tonally in concert with the rest of the movie. And then it was really important to me that the visual effects be as photo real as possible, which is a huge thing to ask of such a complicated creature [laughs] to design - I don't think anybody on my VFX team will ever do an octopus ever again. [laughs] In fact, they all deserve a year's vacation after what they just went through.

But it's important to me that the film, even though it has this slightly otherworldly aspect to it that you really feel like you are in a real small town in Washington State with these real quirky characters that you can see in people in your life that fit those molds and that you never sort of felt like you were outside of it.

Sadie: This film does such a great job with immediately establishing that tone right off the top. What were those creative conversations like with your key department heads, like your cinematographer to your production designer, in dialing in the tone?

Olivia: My cinematographer is Ashley Connor, who shot my first movie, and she's one of my favorite artists to work with, because she's so committed to story. Anytime we were talking about how we were shooting anything, it always came back to the story.

And my production designer, Jen Morden, it was my first time working with her, but she totally understood from our first meeting that there were elements of slightly heightened otherworldly aspects, especially in the aquarium, which was meant to feel like a space that is really different from the rest of Tova's world, but otherwise we are really grounded in this specific place.

And again, we would go back to the book for what would be in Tova's house. Well, she's from Sweden, and she came here with her parents. And so, we talked a lot about how she's not somebody that would necessarily have lots of photographs. We thought she'd have more things that were textured and handmade, and that she's much more of a tactile person. And so, Jen, she sourced so many amazing Swedish antiques from all over the place, and had her furniture hand painted in the same style, and was really committed to the research.

That was true across the board… everybody would go back to the book - where are these characters from? What's their socioeconomic background? What do they wear to sleep in? What do they wear when they're out and about? It was all with the intention of really staying true to those characters as written in the book, and giving and allowing their personalities to come out through all of those decisions.

Most of our locations were on real locations, and they are not the easiest to shoot. Tova's house I actually saw from a scout van down a hill. And I said, 'Stop the van!' And I ran over and looked down, and I saw this house built out the side of a hill. And just from the outside, I said, 'That looks like Tova's house, that looks exactly how I imagined it in the book.' Long story short, that house was for sale, and they didn't want anything to do with a film crew, so we… scouted dozens of other houses, and I couldn't get that house out of my head.

And then finally, a few weeks before we were supposed to start shooting, the woman agreed to open the doors and show us the house because it hadn't sold yet. So, we finally got in, and lo and behold, that ended up being the house. But it was a nightmare to shoot in. There was nowhere to put lights. [laughs] And this house, literally was a log cabin that the woman's family expanded and expanded and expanded upon. So, it had the bones of the house as described in the book, or at least, it had a kind of history like that house in the book…

Sadie: Any advice for tackling an adaptation, specifically as a writer-director?

Olivia: I can only speak to my experience - I think when you first start adapting, it can feel very tempting to be as true to the book as possible, because you're so worried about disappointing the book fans. And I think what I've learned in going through this process a few times is that as long as you understand what the DNA of the book is and the sort of heart and soul of the book that readers love, you really have to tackle the movie as its own entity and think about what is going to keep an audience engaged with moving pictures for two hours.

When I do my book adaptations, I go crazy with my books. [Olivia shows her extensively annotated copy of Remarkably Bright Creatures book] Every page of it has some kind of note that I want to remember, that I can go back to and recall, but at a certain point, when I start writing the script, I don't look at the book anymore. Maybe I go back to it to see what was that great line of dialogue that Shelby had in that scene, or find a description of the location. But I really try to stop looking at the book at a certain point and really start just dealing with the script.

And hopefully by the end, you've almost forgotten what is just in the script and what is in the book, and that's happening to me now with the movie, where I forget certain things that we left out, that are in the book, and someone will remind me… but I've stepped away from it for so long because I kind of have to detach myself in order to tackle the script as its own thing.

Remarkably Bright Creatures premieres on Netflix May 8, 2026.