Both actresses portray author Patricia Cornwell's heroine in the new Prime Video series. Scarpetta star Nicole Kidman taught costar Rosy McEwen an important lesson: 'Power is quiet' Both actresses portray author Patricia Cornwell's heroine in the new Prime Video series. By Raechal Shewfelt :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/RaechalShewfeltauthorphotoc49d3a3b6aa442f588f2bbc0de804e09.jpg) Raechal Shewfelt Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at . She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American Journalism Review and The Shreveport Times.

Both actresses portray author Patricia Cornwell's heroine in the new Prime Video series.

Scarpetta star Nicole Kidman taught costar Rosy McEwen an important lesson: 'Power is quiet'

Both actresses portray author Patricia Cornwell's heroine in the new Prime Video series.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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March 13, 2026 7:00 a.m. ET

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Nicole Kidman and Rosy McEwen on 'Scarpetta,' Prime Video's new crime drama. Credit:

Connie Chornuk/Prime

*Scarpetta *star Rosy McEwen, who plays the younger version of Nicole Kidman's titular character on the new series, soaked up all she could from the Oscar winner. One thing she learned is that bigger is not always better.

"Sometimes you feel like to be powerful you want to puff up and be louder," McEwen told the *Los Angeles Times*. "But actually, as I was watching Nicole, I was like, 'No, power is quiet. Power is stillness.' I think [Kay Scarpetta] grows into that. I'm quick to react and be emotional, but actually having the strength to take a second to think how you're going to respond and then respond — that's how she's learned to make her way through this world."

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The character both women portray is the central one in Prime Video's new adaptation of Patricia Cornwell's forensic thriller books, which number 29 official volumes. The series depicts two of them in the fictional past and present, experiencing the trials in the life of Virginia's chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta.

Costarring Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker, and Ariana DeBose, the story exists on two timeliness. Both were filmed at the same time.

"We're operating in different spheres, realms of her life," Kidman said, "so it's more about: What are the things that you still have as you've gotten older mannerism-wise? What are your emotional tics or the things that soothe you or that just come with who you are that actually never change? What has changed was up to me."

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McEwen took her cues from the older version of her character.

"I had little movements I could pick up on that I was able to take from Nicole, which was really helpful," McEwen said. "But about a month in, I had to slightly release and run with everything that we'd put together and trust that she was there. I couldn't keep going back to the future because that's not how you would exist. You have no idea what is going to happen to you in 30 years time."

The 'Scarpetta' cast at the series' March 3 premiere.

Kevin Mazur/Getty

Curtis, who's also an executive producer on the project, explained the reason for the dual timelines to **.

"It's split over two timelines, allowing us to take advantage of all the books in Patricia's oeuvre," Curtis said in an interview published March 9. "We're able to take some of the older books, which have crimes based back then, when forensic pathology was different, and we have new books where we can take advantage of all the technology that exists today. We're marrying two of the books, episode by episode, connecting the crimes in both books, and then seeing how the characters have developed over these 30 years."

Season 2 will see the team take on Cornwell's 1993 novel *Cruel and Unusual* with 1994's *The Body Farm*.

*Scarpetta* is now available to stream on Prime Video.

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Published: March 15, 2026 at 12:57PM on Source: RON MAG

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