We speak with ASmallLight creators TonyTphelan & Joan Rater, as well as director Susanna Fogel, about telling the story of Miep Gies and her role in hiding Anne Frank's family for the upcoming NatGeoTV and DisneyPlus series:
National Geographic’s powerful limited series A Small Light aims to tell the story of the couple who hid Anne Frank and her family in a new way. The series dives into the humanity of its subjects, with surprising moments of heart and humor that may be found even in the darkest of times.
Joan Rater: That's a good question. It is not hard. It is what we do, right? We had a lot to draw on. Otto Frank was sort of wise and restrained, and so we lead with that, and I think you can see Liev's performance embodies that. Miep was the most important character, in that we wanted to show what it would really be like to be a young woman at that time doing this really scary thing.
This was a really deep way to look at history, but also [a way] to make it accessible through humanity, and moments of fun, and humor, and joy that are part of life and have always been part of life. When I talk to my grandmother who is 101, she has a really wry sense of humor, and she had that in 1939 also. What was she like in 1939? She wasn't serious then, and now she's a funny old lady.
Tony Phelan: That gave us a chance to explore all sorts of things that, once you look at them, you're like, "Oh, of course." That she and Otto were both immigrants, that they shared that. That they shared language. That Otto and his family really used her as a way to understand this new country they were in, [and] not only the language, but the customs. Miep and Jan became, as they refer to them, their Dutch friends.
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