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Florence Pugh and Zoe Kazan Bring ‘East of Eden’ to Life Ahead of Its Netflix Debut

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Adapting one of the most famous American novels of the 20th century is a daunting task under any circumstances, let alone when your own family already has a legendary version to live up to. Netflix’s upcoming take on John Steinbeck’s ‘East of Eden‘ carries exactly that kind of weight, and its stars are already stepping into the spotlight to promote it.

Florence Pugh and Zoe Kazan turned heads at an advance screening for the series, posing together for photos ahead of its release. The event marked one of the first major public moments for a project that has been years in the making, having reportedly been in development since 2020.

Kazan isn’t just involved in front of the cameras for press events. She wrote and adapted the series herself, serving as an executive producer on the seven-part limited series that reimagines Steinbeck’s sprawling multi-generational saga for a new audience.

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The connection to ‘East of Eden’ runs deeper than most adaptations for Kazan, whose grandfather Elia Kazan directed the acclaimed 1955 film version of the novel. Discovering that history while developing her own take on the material struck her as almost fated. “They had ‘East of Eden,’ and I was like, ‘I guess the gods are conspiring,'” she said, according to Time.

That family tie shaped how she approached the project creatively rather than intimidating her away from it. “I don’t think I’d be doing my job as an artist if I weren’t thinking about my family while making this family story,” she told the outlet, framing the adaptation as both a professional undertaking and a deeply personal one.

Pugh stars as Cathy Ames, a character Kazan has described in strikingly layered terms. She called Cathy “irredeemable, irresistible, and so full of agency,” acknowledging the character’s complicated legacy as one of Steinbeck’s most controversial creations.

Kazan even pointed to Steinbeck’s own conflicted feelings while writing the character, noting his tone shifted dramatically over the course of the novel. “He starts out like, ‘You’ve never read a monster like this,’ then he starts referring to her like, ‘I’ll finally get back to my dear Cathy,'” she said.

Beyond Cathy’s individual arc, Kazan has framed the larger series around bigger thematic ambitions tied to the source material’s exploration of generational conflict. “For me, the power of the story is how, over 50 years, it shows history repeating itself, or not,” she explained, describing a narrative that stretches from the Civil War era through World War I.

She’s also described pitching the show around ideas of national self-reflection, arguing that the novel’s central tension between good and evil says something broader about the country itself. “I talked about America and the way that we don’t want to look at our shadow, and how the book argues that embracing your shadow, all of yourself, the good and the bad, is the only way to change,” she said.

That ambition places ‘East of Eden’ among Netflix’s more prestige-driven literary adaptations arriving this fall, alongside the streamer’s upcoming take on ‘Pride and Prejudice’ starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden. Both projects suggest Netflix is leaning further into starry, awards-conscious literary television as it heads into the fall season.

Christopher Abbott plays Adam Trask opposite Pugh’s Cathy, with Mike Faist as Charles Trask and Ciarán Hinds as Samuel Hamilton filling out key supporting roles. Joseph Zada and Joe Anders play the Trask twins, Cal and Aron, whose sibling rivalry echoes the story’s biblical inspiration.

Garth Davis directs the first 4 episodes, with Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre taking over for the final 3. ‘East of Eden’ premieres on Netflix October 1, giving audiences a chance to see how Kazan’s version measures up to her grandfather’s legacy nearly 70 years later.

Splitting directing duties between two filmmakers across the season gives the adaptation room to shift tone as the story moves through its different eras, something the original film, constrained to a single feature-length runtime, was never able to fully capture. A seven-episode structure allows Kazan’s script to spend real time with each generation of the Trask family rather than compressing decades of history into a handful of scenes.

What are you most looking forward to in Netflix’s East of Eden?

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