Inside Department Store Scene With Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram

If you’ve seen the first episodes of Lady in the Lake, you probably remember that eerie department store window moment. Ahead of the Apple TV+ noir thriller’s debut, TV Insider asked stars Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram to tell us what it was like to shoot the key scene where their characters first cross paths.

In 1965 Baltimore, bored and frustrated Jewish housewife, Maddie Schwarz (Portman) sees Cleo Johnson (Ingram) in a department store window where’s she’s working as a mannequin, one of several jobs she does to make ends meet.

“It’s a very poignant moment,” Portman says. “It tells the future of the series. Maddie’s looking at a human, and just seeing the dress, not seeing the person.” (Watch the video to find out from Portman and Moses how VFX supervisor Jay Worth got the shot, even though the actresses were working on separate days.)

Series writer/director Alma Har’el stresses the importance of the department store window encounter. The story, “really starts with two women sharing a dress – and that dress becomes a clue,” Har’el says. Maddie will use Cleo’s eventual murder to write an investigative journalism piece and launch the writing career she’s always wanted – without much thought to who Cleo really was in life.

The dress is the work of costume designer Shiona Turini (who served as the stylist on Beyoncé’s music video for “Formation” and created many of the outfits for her “Renaissance” tour, as well as wardrobing Insecure for Issa Rae). She took inspiration not from glossy fashion magazines, but, as Har’el requested, from street and documentary photographers who weren’t famous, and were “Black, Jewish or women.”

Portman credits Turini’s creations with helping her build the character of Maddie, saying in a separate interview, “So much emotional character work came out of those costumes.”

We’ll have more from the cast and Har’el soon, so stay tuned!

Lady in the Lake, New Episodes, Fridays, Apple TV+