ALISON BOSHOFF: The truth is out there: X-Files progeny West Duchovny lights up drugs drama Painkiller
Watch out for newcomer West Duchovny – the 24-year-old daughter of actors David Duchovny and Tea Leoni – who is one of the innocents destroyed by opioids in new TV drama Painkiller.
Matthew Broderick plays Purdue Pharma boss Richard Sackler; and Duchovny is dumb and dangerous as Shannon Schaeffer, one of his ‘OxyContin Kittens’ whose job is to sell the dangerously addictive painkillers to doctors.
‘You are a drug dealer with a ponytail!’ she is told at one point.
Producer Eric Newman describes Duchovny as ‘amazing’, adding: ‘She blew us away in her audition and is a bright light in our show.
‘Shannon is representative of the many adjacent victims of OxyContin who never even took it, and I think that’s an important story to tell.
Newcomer: West Duchovny, the 24-year-old daughter of actors David Duchovny and Tea Leoni, is one of the innocents destroyed by opioids in new TV drama Painkiller
Father and daughter: West Duchovny pictured with her father David Duchovny
‘To get a true sense of the destructive power of opioid, you have to go beyond just the number of deaths.
‘You must imagine not only all the people whose lives have been touched by those deaths, but also the many unwitting players who took part in the opioid machine and must live with that.’
Painkiller is a fictionalised retelling of the invention of OxyContin, and is now streaming on Netflix.
Set in the midst of the opioid crisis, the drama tells the story of the origins and impacts of the epidemic that has ruined hundreds of thousands of lives across America.
It also reimagines how Richard Sackler’s Purdue Pharma business skyrocketed during the country’s opioid crisis – which continues to this day.
Purdue Pharma’s connection to the epidemic was the subject of multiple lawsuits and fines, including paying $600 million in 2007 having pled guilty to misleading the public about OxyContin’s risk of addiction.
Painkiller drew inspiration from two pieces of writing for its plot, the book Pain Killer by Barry Meier, as well as an article featured in the New Yorker by Patrick Radden Keefe entitled The Family That Built an Empire of Pain, which was published in October 2017.
As a result, Meier is credited as a consulting producer, while Keefe is listed as an executive producer.
Rising Star: At 24, West Duchovny is the show’s youngest main cast member, playing newly recruited saleswoman at Purdue, Shannon Schaeffer
Praise: Producer Eric Newman describes Duchovny as ‘amazing’, adding: ‘She blew us away in her audition and is a bright light in our show
Actress: Duchovny has also featured in Saint X – another series which debuted in 2023
‘The crisis wasn’t something that just happened, like a hurricane or a flood,’ Gibey says in the show’s press notes.
‘It was something that was manufactured; manufactured by companies looking to make an egregious profit.
‘I realized that this opioid crisis I’ve been hearing so much about was not just a crisis, it was really a crime’, producer Alex Gibey stated in the show’s press notes.
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