“The Last Thing He Told Me” ends with Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), disguised in a very long beard and baseball cap, finally with his wife Hannah (Jennifer Garner) at one of his wood turning exhibitions. joins into one.
The Apple TV+ drama follows Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) as they try to piece together clues about Owen’s disappearance after Owen’s tech firm The Shop comes under investigation for fraud. Are. As they investigate the complex cause of the disappearance, Hannah and Bailey form a bond beyond their step-relationship, with Bailey’s last words of dialogue calling Hannah “mother”.
In the penultimate scene, Hannah catches a glimpse of Owen’s wooden wedding ring that she had made to match her own. When she realizes it’s in her woodworking exhibit, he drops some paperwork, and she bends down to the ground to pick it up, whispering “Boys could still love you,” indicating that to give that he is well.
“Any beard hides a little of you. It changes your features, and we tested it with Jennifer. She didn’t know we had this beard. She was in the studio, and between takes she was just minding her business, and I sat down next to her, and she saw this guy sitting next to her,” Coster-Waldau told TheWrap. “He Shocked, and then she had a real emotional reaction because Jennifer was so incredibly focused on this journey, and that’s a lot to carry. When we all saw the reaction to it, it sold us on the idea of a beard to hide it in plain sight.
In another life, literally, Owen was known as Ethan, and he named his daughter Kristin Bailey. Coster-Waldau focused Owen’s portrayal on his fatherhood.
Coster-Waldau said, “I think the moment he becomes a father is what defines him and that’s what guides his choices – we find out later – these are very extreme choices.” “Love your daughter and focus on keeping her safe.”
Coster-Waldau wanted to portray the contrast between Ethan and Owen as well as the fact that Owen is portrayed mostly through Hannah’s memory.
“A lot of Owen’s scenes are everyone else’s memories. it was always about connecting those dots, and obviously, [in] These early scenes, he’s the nicest guy. There is no fault in this man at this point,” Coster-Waldau said.[Owen]It is very quiet today. It’s a very grounded guy, where you meet, when you go back to when he was really young, he’s not as confident in himself, but he finds that confidence with Nicolas.
Nicholas Bell (David Morse) is Owen’s father-in-law, but they are estranged because of some criminals, for whom Bell worked as a mob lawyer, who may or may not have killed Owen’s first wife and Bailey’s mother. Owen exposes Nikolas’ illegal work, sending him to prison, so his father-in-law does not forgive him. He eventually switched his and Bailey’s identities in order to protect her.
“Those memories are a kind of skew of the person who has the memory, remembering it in a certain way. It should still feel like we’re tapping into the truth and the essence of who Owen was. It’s supposed to be the kind of authentic piece that it really was,” said director Olivia Newman. “There wasn’t the Hannah version versus the Bailey version [of Owen], They’re both missing the core truth of who this person was and the way he interacted with his daughter and the way he interacted with his wife.
Hannah welcomes the opportunity to work with Bailey and find out where Owen went, but Bailey is very stubborn until she learns that Hannah is the only person who really has a crush on Owen. Totally related to what has happened.
“With a secret you stay with the core of the story, which is a love story between stepmother and stepdaughter. How do they find each other? Do you need a bloodline to have a real love relationship?” Coster-Waldau said. “That’s what the show is saying, and I believe it’s true because it’s original. Everything else is helping to move these two women together.
