David Bianculli

She asked him about the Phoenician scheme.

Benicio Del Toro speaking with Tanya Mosley last year.

After a break, we'll continue their conversation.

And we have two TV reviews.

I'll review the new Nicole Kidman series, Scarpetta, based on the novels by Patricia Cornwell.

And critic-at-large John Powers reviews the Netflix series, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.

I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air.

Benicio Del Toro speaking to Tanya Mosley last year.

He's nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in One Battle After Another.

The Academy Awards are scheduled to be held Sunday and televised by ABC.

Coming up, I review Nicole Kidman's newest TV project, Scarpetta, the prime video series based on the series of novels by Patricia Cornwell.

This is Fresh Air.

Nicole Kidman is an executive producer of, as well as the main star of, Scarpetta, the new eight-part mystery series now streaming in its entirety on Prime Video.

She plays Virginia medical examiner Kay Scarpetta.

But in this ambitiously structured drama, Kidman isn't the only one playing her.

This narrative unfolds as two different mysteries from two different timelines and shifts between them like cards being shuffled in a deck.

One timeline, in the present, has Kidman as Kay returning to her old job after a long time off and instantly faced with a baffling set of murders.

The other timeline, from decades earlier in 1998, shows a younger Kay taking the job as chief medical examiner for the first time, and being hit with a serial murder case then, too.

In these scenes from the past, Kay is played by a different actress, Rosie McEwen, who matches Kidman's mannerisms and demeanor perfectly.

It's a high-wire balancing act, also required of almost all the other young actors who managed to mirror their more mature counterparts convincingly and entertainingly.