Is 'The Last Thing He Told Me' Based on a True Story? Find Out Here
Apr. 16 2023, Published 4:35 p.m. ET
Is 'The Last Thing He Told Me' based on a true story?
The mystery thriller that was recently turned into a miniseries, The Last Thing He Told Me, tells the story of a woman named Hannah Michaels attempting to solve the disappearance of her husband, Owen Michaels.
The Last Thing He Told Me premiered on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 23, 2023, and stars Jennifer Garner, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Angourie Rice.
Is The Last Thing He Told Me based on a true story? Find out here.
Is ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ based on a true story?
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Owen Michaels in 'The Last Thing He Told Me'.
Novel author and series showrunner Laura Dave has divulged whether The Last Thing He Told Me is based on a true story during an interview. Though she confirmed The Last Thing He Told Me is not based on one true story to Variety back in 2021, there are parallels to similar incidents that have taken place over time.
The Last Thing He Told Me was heavily inspired by the Enron trial, which Laura was previously following, which tried Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and COO Jeffrey Skilling for fraud, money laundering, and more.
“I was consumed with the Enron trial, the hubris behind the people that allowed that to happen. I saw an interview back then with Linda Lay, the wife of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, in which she said, ‘My husband’s done nothing wrong. He’s not guilty.’ I had no idea if she believed that or not. I started thinking of a woman who found herself newly married to someone that the world is telling her is so paradoxical to her understanding of who her partner is,” she told the publication.
'The Last Thing He Told Me' also parallels another scandal.
We recently saw history somewhat repeat itself with the Theranos trial, where founder Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to over a decade in prison for defrauding investors with her blood testing machine.
Laura recently spoke about the similarities between the trial and her book during an interview with Radio Times.
Jennifer Garner as Hannah Michaels alongside her 'The Last Thing He Told Me' co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Owen Michaels.
"I think that what those two cases really have in common, and it's one of the things that was really interesting to me about it, is the idea of hubris,” she explained.
"And there's so much hubris involved with thinking you can get away with embezzlement, with fraud on such a grand scale," she continued. "What is the story someone is telling himself – or in the case of Theranos, herself – that allows that narrative to go on to the point where there's so much collateral damage?"
Jennifer Garner stars as Hannah Michaels in 'The Last Thing He Told Me'.
"I'm actually not surprised that it still goes on because, at our very base, it's storytelling. You're either going to invest your life in creating a story that is for the good or – without being binary about it – is for less than good. And so you’ve got to be really, really careful about what narrative you're diving into," Laura also said.
Finally, Laura noted, "And in the case of Theranos or Madoff or all the way back to Enron, the common denominator is that people get so invested in a story – their own personal story, their own personal narcissism – that they lose the thread. And I love trying to find the thread for them and suggest that not everything is all bad."
Catch new episodes of The Last Thing He Told Me on Fridays on Apple TV+.
