Exclusive: Matt Damon film gets reboot with a gender-swap twist not even series star saw coming
EXCLUSIVE: Almost 20 years after Matt Damon and Mickey Rourke starred in the film The Rainmaker, The Rainmaker has launched a TV series adaptation of the same name.
And there's a serious twist fans, and not even series star Lana Parrilla, saw coming.
You can watch The Rainmaker now, only on Stan.
Lana Parrilla shocks audiences with a gender-bent version of Bruiser. Stan
Based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham, fresh-faced law graduate Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond (John Slatter) as well as his law school girlfriend, Sarah.
Rudy, along with his boss, Bruiser (Lana Parrilla) and her disheveled paralegal, Deck, uncover two connected conspiracies surrounding the mysterious death of their client's son.
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Matt Damon starred as law graduate Rudy Baylor in the 1997 film. Getty
While the plot at its core has remained the same as the novel and the 1997 movie, the Stan series has some major differences that give the story a very fresh feel.
One of those changes is the character of Bruiser Stone.
Mickey Rourke initially brought notorious lawyer Bruiser to life on screens in the '90s while actress Lana Parrilla plays Jocelyn 'Bruiser' Stone a gender-bent version of the character in the Stan series.
Speaking to 9Entertainment, Parrilla said when presented with the role she had "no idea that Bruiser was a man".
After doing some research, Parrilla said it made sense that Bruiser was a woman in the series.
"Yes she's a boss lady, she's rough around the edges, she is one of the boys but she really serves as a mentor figure to Rudy, being his boss and there's a maternal side to that dynamic," Parrilla said.
"Women are a bit more patient, more understanding so our approach can be tough but hopeful and there's a lot of hope with her."
Lana Parrilla stars alongside Milo Callaghan who plays Rudy Baylor in the Stan series. Stan
Parrilla explained that because she didn't initially know Bruiser's character had been a man in the novel and film, that there were "things I was automatically channelling that I didn't even know had existed."
"After I saw the film I realised I already had similar mannerisms to Mickey Rourke, you know with my feet up on the desk or my arm behind the chair. So there were certain things I was already doing."
Parrilla said she found herself imitating original Bruiser actor Mickey Rourke without even realising. Stan
Mickey Rourke played notorious lawyer Bruiser in the 1997 film. Paramount Pictures
Parrilla named Susan Sarandon in The Client and Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill as inspirations for her own performance.
For Parrilla, acting in a legal drama is an entirely new ball game. If there's one part of the job she found most challenging it was "learning all that legal jargon".
"I didn't know what an ambulance-chaser was or white show law firms, so I quickly learned about those," Parrilla said.
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"I got all the legal books, I even got a Law For Dummies," she laughed.
Parrilla was confident viewers will love this "classic David and Goliath story" and promises "it gets increasingly better every episode".
Watch the first episode of The Rainmaker on Stan now, with new episodes dropping weekly.
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