Naomi Watts Plays A Troubled Character In Netflix's New Drama 'Gypsy'

Netflix premiered a new psychological drama titled ‘Gypsy,’ on Friday. The streaming giant released the first season of the drama that brings actors Naomi Watts and Billy Crudup to the small screen.

You’ll want to think twice before booking a session with this therapist

Naomi Watts is causing trouble in Netflix’s new psychological drama ‘Gypsy.’ You can now enjoy the 10-episode season on the streaming platform.

Watts portrays Jean Holloway, a cognitive behavioral therapist who’s bored life leads to giving in to her temptations. The character’s life quickly spirals into a double life. Watt’s character is married to a lawyer, and mothers a young daughter. Pretty much living a mundane life in suburban Connecticut.

And on the other hand, there’s Diana, who in an attempt to relive the good old days goes trying things she’s never expected to.

As the show’s synopsis reads, “the borders of Jean’s professional life and personal fantasies become blurred, [and] she descends into the world where the forces of desire and reality are disastrously at odds.”

Among other characters, we can find Sophie Cookson, as the mysterious love interest. Sidney; Lucy Boynton as Jean’s troubled patient, Allison; Poorna Jagannathan as Jean’s best friend and co-worker. Larin; Brenda Vaccaro as a worried mother and patient named Claire.

The show also stars the great, under-appreciated talent of Billy Crudup, an actor who’s given the best supporting performances of his career in female-centered films like ’20th Century Women’ and ‘Jackie.

An all female-show

‘Gypsy’ is Naomi Watts’ second television project this year, after her turn in the revival of ‘Twin Peaks’ earlier this spring.

The series’ 10 episodes were directed by three female directors: Sam Taylor-Johnson, Victoria Mahoney, and Coky Giedroyc.

And it has mostly female producers in Lisa Rubin, Naomi Watts, Sean Jablonski, and Liza Chasin.

Watts, whose film ‘The Book of Henry’ was released earlier in June, will next be seen in the film adaptation of Jeanette Walls’ ‘The Glass Castle,’ in August. The actress also just wrapped shooting ‘Ophelia’ in Prague, with Tom Felton, Daisy Ridley, and Clive Owen, she’s taking July and August off to enjoy the summer.

Women’s turn to explore the psychosexual side on TV

Television audiences have watched over and over how flawed middle-aged male characters forfeit their comfortable family lives in favor of the dangers and demons tempting them from the shadows.

But women are not often afforded the same opportunity for ugly onscreen soul-searching, which is why ‘Gypsy ‘is all the more special.

Here, our mid-life crisis-hurdling protagonist is not only a woman but one with a triplicate of complications. A husband, a daughter, and the capper, a career guiding patients through their own squalls of the psyche.

Rubin, whose sister is a cognitive behavioral therapist, said she wanted “to create a strong, flawed, female character who lives full of desire, makes some bad choices, but is human. I have a lot of drive and I wanted to see a female character like that.”

“I thought a lot about people who go into therapy [as a profession], and I know this from my sister, they’re flawed themselves,” said Rubin.

“They’re curious about something in themselves that makes them become a therapist. I liked the idea of turning the tables where it’s the audience looking at Jean as if they are the therapist diagnosing this person and trying to understand them. Trying to put clues together to sort of make sense of her.”

The drama’s outline came together while Rubin was working out of Caffe Vita Coffeehouse in Silver Lake, California. And when Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Gypsy’ started playing overhead, and Rubin listened to the lyrics—about a woman nostalgic for her past life—the series and main character, who reverts to the free-spirited ways of her younger self, synthesized.

A new anti-hero

Jean is something quite rare in pop-culture: a female anti-hero. She’s a deeply flawed character who’s knee-deep in an identity crisis — and we watch that crisis unfold, in shocking detail, over the course of 10 episodes.

Jean’s at the point in her life where she’s not thinking about her actions. She’s just doing, ripping through people and situations with a cavalier disregard for anyone but herself.

Her narrative is unflinching, raw, and real.

‘Gypsy’s show-runners weren’t concerned about making its female lead “likable.” They set out to make an unapologetically human story about regrets, happiness, and desire — the kind of story typically reserved for male characters. They succeeded in that regard.

“This is not a story about a woman with a mental illness . . . we’re all capable of doing dark or bad things. Most people are not good or bad; they fall in the gray and do bad things. And showing women [on screen] who are always nurturing, good, or likable is not being honest.”