Summary

• Weigert shines in We Were the Lucky Ones as Nechuma Kurc, a matriarch caught in the chaos of WWII.
• The show highlights the resilience of a Jewish family separated by war and their journey to reunite.
• Weigert's deep connection to her character and cast members adds layers of emotion to the series.

Robin Weigert returns to television in one of her most powerful roles yet in We Were the Lucky Ones. After scoring an Emmy nominee for her breakout role in HBO's Deadwood as iconic frontierswoman Calamity Jane, Weigert has gone on to appear in a variety of both big and small-screen projects, including the Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice, FX's Sons of Anarchy and Netflix's Jessica Jones. More recently, Weigert has been seen in the viral hit horror movie Smile and as one of the leads of the new CBS action show Tracker.

Weigert stars in We Were the Lucky Ones as Nechuma Kurc, the doting matriarch of a Polish Jewish family always trying to bring them together in spite of their busy lives. Her efforts become all the more harried when Germany invades the country, kicking off World War II, resulting in an emotional journey of survival and love as they all try to reunite over a nine-year span and spread across multiple countries.

In honor of the Hulu show's premiere, Screen Rant interviewed Weigert to discuss We Were the Lucky Ones. The Emmy nominee opened up about the deep connection she formed with her character both in the development and production of the miniseries, while also revealing the special preparation method she underwent in writing letters for each of her cast members.

Weigert Fell Deeply For Nechuma's "Capacity For Love" & Carried That Over Into Bonding With The Cast

Screen Rant: Robin, it is great to get to meet you and talk about this show. It is such a powerful one, but also a very important one to tell. What was it about the project that initially sparked your interest to be a part of it?

Robin Weigert: This mother and her incredible capacity for love was an inspiration to me. It took me on a journey that I wanted to take as a human being, to walk in these shoes. I learned a lot from my character. I feel like she had a lot to teach me, and it's rare in a lifetime to get a part that speaks to you that way. That grabs you that deeply and demands that much of you. So, I'm incredibly grateful for this experience.

I love that you resonated so much with her and her themes. So, with that loving aspect, what was it like developing a rapport with your main cast of family actors in the show?

Robin Weigert: We were taken care of so lovingly by Tommy, and really everyone, that there was such a feeling of being held and allowed process, and allowed time to get to know one another. Something I chose for myself in finding my way into this character was to write letters to all my children before we actually even met each other. So, I wrote letters to each of the five of them, and put a lot of my heart and soul into these letters. That was the first way I met them, because we were doing dialect work.

I mean, we had a brief, "Hello," but when we were doing the dialect work, Deb Hecht, who was working with us, facilitated my reading these letters to my kids in dialect. We used this as an opportunity to practice the dialect. But there was this whole other layer of it, too. So, by the time we met, some deep tracks were already in place. I already felt about them a bit as this mother feels about each individual child. And that was just my instinct for Nechuma. Because so much of the story involves reaching out in this way, even when there's no address to send a letter to, writing letters and trying to reach them.

Wishing to reach them, wishing to have a place where their letters might arrive, an address they might be able to send a letter to. So, that was how I anchored her in the beginning. And the other thing I would say about Nechuma is that a lot of what I draw from for her comes from my maternal line. My grandfather, who I adored, his mother, Sophia, a Polish-Jewish woman with four children. And I heard stories about her from my grandfather that connected so much in so many ways to who this character is, even down to the fact that she loved to embroider, and he had a doily that she made, a beautiful big doily that she made.

We have no time, but I'll tell you one quick anecdote, which is that she had the intuition about her son, who had become a surgeon. He was the youngest, and he was jealous of his older siblings, because they were doing their homework, the three older sisters, and he wasn't old enough to have any. So, she had the intuition that it would be wise to give this boy a little clock he could take apart and see how it worked on the inside. And he brought that story up so many times, and it had to do, I know, because he was a surgeon, a very rational man.

But I know it had to do with the power of being seen as a young child, that he felt seen by her and allowed him to become who he needed to be. And that's what I tried to give to each kid, was to sort of see them into their own process. Really, this is a coming-of-age story. It is a Holocaust story, but deeply, it's a coming-of-age story, and you have the luxury of, over eight episodes, watching every character grow in such a rare beautiful way in this series. They start one place, and they grow, and they grow, and through adversity they grow some more. And they learn things about themselves, and I just think the writing is exquisite in this, so I'm very honored to be part of it.

About We Were the Lucky Ones

Based on Georgia Hunter’s New York Times bestselling novel, the television adaptation of “We Were the Lucky Ones” is a limited series inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of WWII. The series follows them across continents as they do everything in their power to survive, and to reunite. “We Were the Lucky Ones” demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive. The series is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds.

Check out our other We Were the Lucky Ones interviews with:

• Joey King & Sam Woolf
• Logan Lerman, Henry Lloyd-Hughes & Amit Rahav
• Georgia Hunter
• Erica Lipez & Tommy Kail
• Hadas Yaron & Michael Aloni

We Were the Lucky Ones begins streaming on Hulu on March 28.