Jessica Chastain is heading to Netflix for “The Retrievals,” a new drama series that places the Oscar-winning actor at the center of a story about fertility patients, medical trauma and a legal fight against Yale.
Chastain will star as Kaitlyn Langford, described by Netflix as a former art historian who has “spent the last decade stuck in an endless cycle of failed fertility treatments.” The character’s story takes a turn when she discovers that she is also among the victims of criminal drug diversion at the Yale Fertility Center. According to Netflix’s description, Kaitlyn then “faces a devastating personal reckoning and becomes a key plaintiff in this historic lawsuit against Yale.”
The casting brings Chastain into an ensemble that already includes Emilia Jones and Amy Ryan, who had previously been announced for the series.
A drama drawn from a podcast investigation
“The Retrievals” is based on the New York Times and Serial Productions podcast of the same name by Susan Burton. The series will center on “an unlikely community of IVF patients who come together to crusade against Yale University after they are operated on without anesthesia — because a nurse stole their fentanyl.”
That premise gives the Netflix drama a sharply defined emotional and legal framework: a group of patients connected by IVF treatment, the alleged theft of fentanyl by a nurse, procedures performed without anesthesia, and the resulting campaign against Yale University. Chastain’s Kaitlyn is positioned as one of the women whose personal history with fertility treatment intersects with the broader case.
The role was built with Chastain in mind
Molly Smith Metzler, who serves as showrunner, writer and executive producer, said Chastain had been central to the creative team’s thinking as the character was being developed.
Chastain “was the writing team’s ‘exemplar’ while crafting the role of Kaitlyn,” Metzler said. “As a performer, she has the rare ability to convey extreme restraint and unbridled freefall, often at the same time. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about what Jessica’s going to do with this role.”
Metzler’s comments underline how specifically the part was conceived around the kind of performance the team believes Chastain can deliver: a character navigating both contained pain and emotional rupture as she confronts what happened to her during years of failed fertility treatments.
The team behind “The Retrievals”
Metzler executive produces the series alongside Dani Gorin, Tom Ackerley and Margot Robbie for LuckyChap. Colin McKenna, Caitlin Roper for The New York Times, and podcast writer Susan Burton are also executive producers.
The project is produced by LuckyChap and Quiet Coyote. Lila Neugebauer serves as pilot director and executive producer. Neugebauer’s credits listed in connection with the project include “Maid,” “Sirens” and “The Beast in Me,” while McKenna’s listed credits include “Maid” and “Sirens.”
For Netflix, “The Retrievals” adds another drama to its slate with a story that comes from a nonfiction audio source and has already defined its central conflict through specific institutions, patients and alleged wrongdoing. With Chastain now set for the lead role, the series has its Kaitlyn Langford: a woman whose private battle with infertility becomes tied to a wider reckoning over what happened at the Yale Fertility Center.