The John Ajvide Lindqvist novel, Let the Right One In, already has one downright phenomenal big screen adaptation and a rock solid American remake. Is it really possible for the source material to go three for three on screen? Five episodes into Showtime’s Let the Right One In series, it looks that way.

The show has a number of key characters to track. Most closely associated with the original story is Ian Foreman’s Isaiah and Madison Taylor Baez’s Eleanor. Isaiah’s a young kid who struggles to make friends and often finds himself face-to-face with bullies. However, hope comes in the form of a new neighbor, Eleanor, a girl who appears to be about the same age. But, little does Isaiah know, Eleanor is actually a vampire and her father (Demián Bichir) spends much of his time figuring out how to feed her.

Meanwhile, we’ve got Grace Gummer’s character Claire, a brilliant scientist building a promising career who’s forced to choose between that current work and her family when her estranged and ailing father calls with a very unusual request. Arthur Logan (Željko Ivanek) wants Claire to continue his search for a cure for her brother (Jacob Buster) who has also been turned into a vampire.

With Let the Right One In well into its Season 1 run, Gummer took the time to join us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to revisit the path she took to make her way to the new show.

Gummer is the daughter of Oscar-winning icon, Meryl Streep, but she was determined to find her own path in the industry. Here’s how Gummer put it when discussing the best first steps one can take when trying to break into Hollywood:

“I think I am in a pretty unique, different situation because of who my mom is. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do it, but once I started doing it, I couldn't deny it and I loved it so much so there was sort of nothing that was gonna stop me. But it was really important for me to forge my own path for myself and to make it mine and to not be in reference to her constantly or in her shadow. It was essential for me to make my own name.”

Even though that was a top priority for Gummer when she was first starting out, she found the ideal first gig in a show with a plot that aligned quite closely with her situation, TeenNick’s Gigantic: She explained:

“Ironically, the first job I got [that] sort of thrust me into Hollywood was this show, this little TeenNick show called Gigantic where I played the daughter of a very famous person. But it was so not my life. It was so different from how I grew up, so I was able to remove myself from it and try to really play a character. And it was a really good first job for me. I moved to LA, I got a car, I drove to work, I was on set every day on time. It was like boot camp. I was number one on the call sheet so I had to really learn a lot really fast, really young. It's not the job that I think that I would have seen myself doing necessarily, but I learned a lot technically about how to be a working actor.”

Gummer wants to forge her own path, but she must want to make the most of having a three-time Academy Award winner in her corner, right? Gummer explained, “I seek advice where I feel like I can use it.” One especially important lesson passed down from both of her parents is a broader one, and one that probably could apply to just about any profession out there:

“She does have really great ideas and really great notes for me sometimes, and I definitely listen to her, but I think what I've learned the most from both of my parents is just loving what you do is the sole driver and the engine behind your life. And also, it's not your entire life. There’s so many other things that define you as a person and as a woman."

Jumping into more of Gummer’s earlier credits, there’s one in particular she dubbed a “blueprint” and a “template” for herself moving forward. That project is Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. Gummer revisited what it was like striving to be word-perfect with her dialogue on that set:

“Aaron Sorkin is there at every rehearsal, so you run the lines first with Aaron standing there with you in a huddle. It's almost like a football huddle before you play a sport, and he's there with you and it's like, game time, go! And everyone works with the kind of cadence and the symphony in which he writes to get every beat and word right and perfect for how he intended it to be. And it works. I mean, there's a reason why his stuff is so unique to him and his specific voice resonates and is so recognizable and likable to so many people. He certainly has his own specific style. But it was hard. It was almost like, just say it as fast as you can and you'll get it, you know? Don't ever slow it down. But in some ways, having those rules around the lines was sort of comforting. You didn't drift off and not know what you were doing. You really, really had to know what you were doing.”

Another collaborator who taught Gummer a good deal about studying her scripts? Mr. Robot’s Carly Chaikin.

“Carly Chaikin and I became really close on Mr. Robot, and we ended up actually seeing the same acting coach sometimes, so we would have the same little techniques with each other. We would do these secret things with each other that would help us both get into character, so we felt like we literally had each other's backs. She actually taught me a lot about discipline and studying the script, and she was very organized in that way. I'm not a very organized person.”

Gummer also took a moment to identify another source of inspiration in her The Homesman co-star, Academy Award winner Hilary Swank.

“Hilary Swank was someone I remember I was like, ‘Wow, how do you just show up and do it? How do you just magically appear off a Peloton and like five peanut butter cookies and you look f*cking amazing and you're doing the best work of your life?’ And we're out in the high desert in New Mexico! She was pretty inspiring, and strong as hell.”

All of those positive influences and all of that experience (and then some) have landed Gummer in a place where she can commit herself to a show like Let the Right One In with confidence.

Honestly? I didn’t see a world where yet another adaptation of the source material could compare to not just one, but two excellent films. While Gummer was well aware of the skepticism and lofty expectations with such a series, she knew she had to block that out and focus on the material she was given because that material is more homage than recreation. Here’s how she put it:

“I have to block it out and focus on the script that I'm given because it is so different aesthetically, tonally. The context of the world we were living in and what Andrew [Hinderaker] was wanting to recreate, that was important to me to honor the movie, to see the movie. I didn't sit down with the movie and study it a million times or read the book or see the American version. I think that at some point you have to do your job in front of you and create something different, which is ultimately what we were doing. I find it more difficult when I'm playing real people, like when I played Nora Ephron in Good Girls Revolt, especially someone that's so beloved and means so much to so many people and has for so many years. That feels like a lot of pressure. But you don't try and recreate that person's personality or mimic them or imitate anything. It's just sort of their essence that you try to embody because you're never gonna be the same. No one’s the same person. And this is also not the movie. We're not making a remake of the Swedish movie. We're sort of paying homage to it and writing a love letter to it, but going in a whole different direction.”

Looking for more from Gummer? You can find just that in her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article! Also, be sure to keep an eye out for the uncut version of this conversation in podcast form dropping right after Let the Right One In Episode 5 airs on November 6th.