Cheryl McCollum

And we had to have multiple sources for, you know, all of our scenes.

It was the writer's

did a tremendous amount of research, spent a long time interviewing Mary Jo and would go back to her, you know, when he was constructing things.

And we made sure, I mean, the actual, the parts that she isn't in, she still read the script at a certain point, but she saw all the things that she was going to say and had her own input in that.

And

You know, I guess we've all decided to believe her.

It's firsthand.

And I do, by the way, believe it.

In fact, I think it was probably worse than, you know, what we could portray.

Yes.

I think it was a conservative thing.

Yes, as a viewer at moments, I felt like, gosh, she just was able to withstand so much, but then also be very transparent about how awful some of these things were.

And I just kept thinking, this is, you know, generationally, that is not true.

It's not something that we culturally have done in this country ever.

And so I feel like, and her being raised Catholic and all of the sort of her own religious and cultural things that just said, you have to be a partner.

That's what you do.

You can't say anything.

That's a really, really central part of understanding why she stayed and

For 11 years after the incident and why and and her family pressures, you know, from their from their religion, because people say, oh, A, why didn't why did you so not believe him?

You know, and B, why did you stay?