Natalie Portman’s attempt at a new life takes center stage in Apple TV+’s upcoming limited series, Lady in the Lake.
Created and directed by Alma Har’el, the seven-part noir thriller takes place in 1960s Baltimore and is based on Laura Lippman’s 2019 novel of the same name.
According to a synopsis, the series follows the aftermath of the disappearance of a young girl that “grips” the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966 and causes the lives of two women to “converge on a fatal collision course.”
Portman plays a Jewish housewife named Maddie Schwartz, who is seeking to “shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist.” She stars alongside Moses Ingram as Cleo Johnson, a mother “navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family.”
Apple TV+
“Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger,” a synopsis adds, describing it as an “unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.”
An official trailer released by Apple TV+ on Tuesday, June 18, gives a look at Maddie doing house chores before she breaks a plate, declaring that she “can’t just be someone’s wife.”
After packing a suitcase and leaving her home, she is seen standing in the middle of a floor of newspaper clippings as Cleo says in a voiceover, “Your writing dreams ruined your life. Now, you wanted those same dreams to rewrite it. But why did you need to drag my dead body into it?”
“You wanted to tell everyone’s story but your own,” adds Cleo as clips from both their lives flash on screen.
Apple TV+
As the video comes to an end, Maggie is seen picking up a picture of herself lying inside the pile of newspaper clippings. A voice then says, “Every time someone turns up dead in the lake, it does seem to lead back to you.”
In a previous conversation with PEOPLE, Portman shared Lady in the Lake “appealed” to her for various reasons.
“I think, the basis of just a woman wanting to be free. I think is theme that’s interesting to me. Another is just being a Jewish woman in Baltimore in the 1960s,” said Portman.
Apple TV+
“My grandmother was from Baltimore, and so there was a lot of imagination for me about what that time was like. And then the other thing that was interesting to me was exploring how someone who’s oppressed can also be an oppressor,” she added. “And I think Alma and I really both connected on those themes a lot.”
Portman and Ingram star alongside Y’lan Noel, Brett Gelman, Byron Bowers, Noah Jupe, Josiah Cross, Mikey Madison, and Pruitt Taylor Vince.
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The first two episodes of Lady in the Lake will premiere on Apple TV+ on July 19 followed by new episodes every Friday through August 12.
