What Is The Miniature Wife Series Based On? About the Story Behind the Peacock Series
Elizabeth Banks and series creators Jennifer Ames and Steve Turner also shed light on the '80s and '90s movies that inspired the show's tone.
On Peacock's The Miniature Wife, small is the name of the game. The central couple, Lindy and Les Littlejohn, are both dealing with big-yet-little problems: The sci-fi technology that sets the plot into motion is a shrinking material made by Les (Matthew Macfadyen), while author Lindy (Elizabeth Banks) finds herself in an ethical quandary over a short story.
Fittingly, the sci-fi comedy-drama was itself inspired by a real short story. Warning: Spoilers for both The Miniature Wife series and the story are below!
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The Miniature Wife short story has some crucial differences
First published in 2013, you can find it in Manuel Gonzales' 2014 debut short story collection, The Miniature Wife and Other Stories. In the story, which you can read here, the husband and wife are unnamed. Told from the point of view of the husband, it opens with, "The truth of the matter is: I have managed to make my wife very, very small." He adds that he did it completely by accident.
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Described as the head of "an entire department of miniaturizers," the husband has shrunk the wife using an invention of his own making. Those who have watched the series will recognize certain details: there's a cat, a bird, and a defiantly killed bug. The character of Richard, played by O-T Fagbenle on the show, goes through a very similar plot trajectory to his onscreen character. But his fate is left a morbid mystery on the page.
Lulu, Vivian, and other characters aren't in the short story
As for the other characters on the show, including their daughter Lulu, they don't exist in the short story. It's just the husband, the wife, and poor Richard. The husband's obsession with the tiny adversary that is his spouse makes him appear visibly out of sorts to his coworkers. And the short story leaves the couple's troubles unresolved, as they're still locked in battle. He admits that his wife is much, much stronger than he is, despite being the size of a coffee mug.
But as the creators of the show and stars/executive producers Banks and Mcfadyen detail below, they added a lot to the characters and the plot.
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How The Miniature Wife went from page to screen
Series creator Jennifer Ames told Peacock Blog, "When we first read the short story... yes, it is very dark. And look, there are elements of that that we really liked." "We" refers to Ames and the series' co-creator, Steve Turner.
"However, it is only from the husband's perspective. So what we loved about the story is that there are some tentpole moments that we kept," Ames continued. "It was this great premise and scaffolding that gave us a really long runway to invent and create. So we could kind of do, to a certain extent, whatever we wanted. It was very exciting."
As for the show's tone versus the story's, "I also think we really wanted to make sure that it was kind of delightful and ridiculous, and a little more optimistic," Ames added.
Macfadyen told Peacock Blog that Gonzales' original story was simply the "jumping off point," with Elizabeth Banks adding that it was "really just a way to think about the themes that we wanted to explore more, than just the characters and story. Because the short story is told almost entirely from the husband's point of view."
"I did fight for that but I was overruled," Macfadyen joked, though that's arguably something Les Littlejohn would actually push for.
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The movies that influenced The Miniature Wife
Elizabeth Banks told Peacock Blog that "I thought the tone [of the show] was the real sell of what Jennifer and Steve had in mind. I thought it was very unique and it harkened back to The War of the Roses or The Money Pit. Some of those great early '90s romantic comedies where the two leads, it's a battle of wits, so you really felt like these were two equals in this relationship with each other. And that to me was the selling point."
As for series co-creator Turner, "I think also for us, I mean we were so in love with those movies from the '80s and' 90s," he told Peacock Blog, also citing The War of the Roses and adding Big and Groundhog Day to the list. "Those ideas that it's a 'big buy.' You buy in that Tom Hanks can be a big kid, but it really gives you that heartwarming story on the back end. You don't really expect it to be that emotional, and that's the kind of story we wanted to tell. So even seeing the setup and the short story, our hearts are in these '80s movies."
All ten episodes of The Miniature Wife are streaming on Peacock now.
Reporting by Tara Bennett.
