The new eight-part Hulu series “The Clearing” (on Disney+ outside of the US) is based on a novel by JP 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.