The new eight-part Hulu series “The Clearing” (on Disney+ outside of the U.S.) is based on a novel by J.P Pomare called In the Clearing, which was inspired by a real-life cult named “The Family” that began in Australia in the mid ’60s. The Australian doomsday cult was one of the few led by a woman. It makes a spooky setting for the eight-part psychological thriller shot in Australia, where Miranda Otto plays cult leader Adrienne Beaufort, whose disciples adopt and abduct children who are corralled into camps of prison-like conditions with strict discipline and little food in a misguided mission of making them pure and untainted by outside society. The series, which also stars Guy Pearce, Teresa Palmer, and Kate Mulvany, zig-zags from the past to the current time as a desperate mother tries to keep her young son safe, and secrets from the past and links to the cult are revealed.
In this video report, Katherine Tulich talks with Miranda Otto and Kate Mulvany about making the series.