Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘Expats’ follows the story of three women— Margaret, Hillary, and Mercy, who are based in a country different than the one they grew up in and are trying to come to terms with the tragedies and challenges in their lives while trying to find a sense of belonging. The cast is led by Nicole Kidman, who plays Margaret, a mother grieving the loss of her son, holding on to the hope that she might find him again. The show also focuses on her complex friendship with Hillary and her resentment of Mercy, who is held responsible for losing the kid. Kidman portrays Margaret’s vulnerability with an intensity that brings the character alive in a deeper sense, making Margaret seem like a real person. Is she based on a real person?
Margaret Woo in Expats is a Fictional Character
‘Expats’ is based on the novel, ‘The Expatriates’ by Janice Y.K Lee. The story is entirely fictional, and so are the characters at the heart of the story, including Margaret. Talking about the novel, Lee revealed that the idea for the story came to her from an image in her mind. She thought of a woman lying in her bed, unable to gather the strength to get out of it, but knows she has to because there is a dinner party she must attend, even though she dreads it with all her heart. This developed in the character of Margaret, and as Lee explored the roots of her character, the arc of her losing her child and trying to make peace with her reality while living in a foreign country became the crux of her story.
A mother herself, Lee had to put herself in the shoes of Margaret and feel the grief and the torment, one she feels lucky not to have felt herself. What helped her was knowing what it felt like to be an expat. Lee spent a few years of her childhood in Hong Kong and then came to America. She returned to Hong Kong years later with her husband and kids, which led to her having mixed feelings about her belonging there. She didn’t feel like a native, because a lot had changed in the city over the years, but she didn’t feel like a complete outsider either because the streets and places were still familiar to her.
When she sat down to write Margaret’s story, Lee tapped into her own feelings as an expat and a mother and refused to base the character on a real person. She has expressed her lack of interest in autobiographical stories, so instead of interviewing people, she relied on public accounts of people and other sources where they talk about being expats. Mostly, the author relied on her own imagination.
When Lulu Wang was brought on board to direct the show, she brought another layer to the story with her own experience. With Nicole Kidman on board to play the role, there was no dearth of talent to present someone as complex as Margaret. In fact, the show goes so deep into Margaret’s grief and loss that, at times, Kidman asked Wang if they could not do some scenes that she considered too emotionally taxing, not just on herself but also on the audience.
At one point, the actress confessed that being in Margaret’s state of mind was “terrifying” to her, and rightly so. Margaret goes through one of the worst things a mother can go through- losing her child and not knowing what’s happened to them. The writer, the director, and the actress approach the role with a sensibility and sensitivity that makes Margaret a truly tragic character that the audience sympathizes with and connects with immediately, even if she is made up.
Read More: Expats: Is the TV Show Based on a True Story or a Book?
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