It seems fated that Miriam Silverman would play a role in Netflix’s new limited series Vladimir. Or, at least, very, very fitting. After all, the Tony Award winner was there during its early days of gestation as a novel, long before the story came to the screen.
“I got to be one of the very early readers of Vladimir because the author, Julia May Jonas, happens to be a very dear friend of mine,” Silverman told BroadwayWorld during a recent video call. The duo met years ago in their New York City neighborhood, connecting first as parents of young children and then later as theater artists.
Like Silverman, Jonas has a background in theater work, both as a playwright and the founder of a theater company. It wasn’t until the pandemic, when theater doors were closed, that she turned to novel-writing. “I just remember being sort of agog at her productivity and her saying, ‘We can’t do theater? I’m going to write a novel,’” Silverman remembers of Jonas during that period.
That novel would become Vladimir, a provocative portrait of female obsession, rage, and insecurity. The story is told through the lens of an unnamed college professor who becomes fixated on her new, young colleague, Vladimir. Meanwhile, her personal life is on full display as her professor-husband (with whom she has an open marriage) remains under investigation after accusations of inappropriate behavior from students. What follows is an unravelling of boundaries and a blurring of reality, fantasy, and morality.
In the series, Rachel Weisz plays the protagonist, with Leo Woodall as the title character. Silverman is Florence, another member of the English department. “Julia had kind of mentioned that she, as she was working on the adaptation, had my voice in her head for one of the supporting characters,” Silverman recalls. “I was flattered, and I know that she was dear to me, but I knew my most important role was as her friend.”
Despite the connection, Silverman was still required to “jump through all the hoops” to land the part, including the standard audition and callback. Her involvement was also complicated by the fact that she was scheduled to film season two of Your Friends and Neighbors with Apple at the time. Even so, the stars (and schedules) aligned, and filming commenced with Silverman as “Flo.”
Throughout the series, Flo generally serves as an antagonist to Weisz’s character. The two are both prominent members of the English department, but they widely differ in personality and demeanor, especially as our protagonist’s moral compass becomes increasingly complex. There’s also the fact that Weisz’s character is an unreliable narrator.
“I think we are experiencing Florence through our lead, but I also felt really excited to explore all the contradictions of Florence,” says Silverman. “She’s really self-righteous and really has a strong sense of what is appropriate. [She is] such a rule follower and overly empathetic to the students. You can see her being somebody who is constantly handholding and just wanting to be the cool professor that everyone loves and probably going too far to be liked…”
She continues: “I suspect it was sort of interesting for me to think that [the protagonist] was always more successful with forging actually deeper and meaningful relationships with students than perhaps Florence was.” Silverman also suspects that there might be some (unhealthy) competition between the two women, at least in Florence’s mind.
“These are two of the main players in the department, and they’re both women who are not spring chickens anymore, but also not into the retirement years at all,” she shares. “We all know there’s room for everyone. But… it was interesting for me to try to figure out, ‘Why does Florence resent her so much?’ It’s not just because she disapproves of her… The kind of flexibility of [her] marriage is known to a lot of people and I think that is probably very threatening…”
When she isn’t on stage or appearing on television, Silverman herself works in academia, though her role within that world differs from Florence’s. As an adjunct professor at NYU, she doesn’t have many responsibilities that extend beyond her regular classroom hours, such as the departmental meetings depicted in the series. But she has heard from longtime professor friends about the unique experiences that can occur in that setting.
“I have had conversations with [a friend] over the years about what she deals with, both from a faculty’s perspective and also students… It’s fascinating. So I had a lot of info from friends to borrow and steal to use.”
For Silverman, making Vladimir was “fun job” through and through— between reuniting with Rachel Weisz (they previously worked together on an episode of Dead Ringers) or improvising with Matt Walsh, with whom she shares most of her scenes. But it was also a meaningful experience, in no small part because she could collaborate directly with her friend Julia May Jonas, who was a presence on set.
“She would sometimes kind of come up and give me a little idea or a little whisper or something. And because we’re so close and because we share an aesthetic, it was like we had a shorthand,” says Silverman. “She knew she could say two words to me and get what she wanted… I think a lot of the little fun moments in there ended up as these really great little collaborative ideas between Julia and me.”
All episodes of Vladimir are now streaming on Netflix.
Photo Credit: Bruce Glikas
