Adam Trask

From a psychodynamic perspective, we might wonder whether needing another person has become so threatening that she organizes her relationships around never allowing herself to become vulnerable.

Her relationship with Adam Trask is especially revealing.

Adam sees Kathy through an idealized image that has little relationship to her actual behavior.

Kathy, meanwhile, recognizes his emotional investment and uses it to maintain control.

There's a heavy weight of history, therefore, on the new Netflix series adaptation of the multi-generational family saga.

Mirroring the biblical story of Cain and Abel, it follows warring brothers Charles and Adam Trask locked in a conflict into which Cathy Ames stumbles, literally.

The BBC's Nick Grimshaw spoke to two of the show's stars, Mike Feist, who plays Charles, along with Florence Pugh, who is superb as Cathy.

She explained how director Zoe Kazan got her on board.

And I mean, East of Eden is at its core a book about nature versus nurture and kind of what shows up versus what is built, what's grown.

Now, when you say, OK, I have to kind of embody Adam Trask, who is a huge character in the American literary canon.

What were non-negotiables for you that you were like, I need this to show up on screen about Adam's wants and desires?

Well, you know, unfortunately, as an actor, you're not in complete control of that.

And the idea around Tim Schill is that like, Life is about the choices that we make.

We can choose a different path.

When you think about Adam Trask, what do you think this version of East of Eden is kind of saying about not only evil, but hope and choice?

Well, I mean, I think it's quite, in a good way, quite similar to maybe, I think, the feeling I got in the book of the character of Adam.

in a very, very, very hard role.

Uh, Adam Trask ages quite a bit, goes through an old man's life early in his life-

Yes

... and then has a youth in his middle age and then becomes-

Um, well, I think, I think, I think...

I'm gonna, I'm gonna contrast Cathy with Adam Trask, and I'll, I'll...

You have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

So we are-

And one of the things that comes up repeatedly in his depiction or his analysis of Cathy is that part of his frustration around her, or part of why he depicts her as this villainous character, is because it's never really clear what her motivator is.

It's never clear what her internal objective or her ambitions are or, you know, who she is as a person, 'cause she doesn't fit the kind of obvious mold of someone who wanted to get married, wanted to have children, wanted to settle down into a life of relative safety, which she would have had with Adam because of his financial security.

But if you juxtapose that with the idea that a lot of the male characters themselves don't have a clear internal objective, aren't hyper-ambitious, are also just kind of figuring their way out or figuring themselves out in this kind of very lackadaisical, self-indulgent way, that's considered morally resplendent, whereas Cathy is ultimately morally corrupt.

Okay.

So can you give me a little bit more understanding on some characters that you felt were just figuring it out in a way that people thought was good?

So for me, I would say that Adam was the most obvious example of that.

You know, never really had a job or-

So, so let me just give some background first on Adam Trask.