Netflix has put out the first few details about its big new series Ratched, but all we can focus on right now is the fact that in one of the press photos Sharon Stone has a monkey in a dress on her shoulder. Ratched is prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest focused on the backstory of the villainous Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher in the 1975 film adaptation and regular Murphy player Sarah Paulson on the show. Neither of them are Sharon Stone, however, and in the photo above Sharon Stone does have a monkey in a dress on her shoulder.
Ratched, according to Netflix’s plot synopsis, “is a suspenseful drama series that tells the origin story of asylum nurse Mildred Ratched,†who arrives at an asylum in Northern California in 1947 where people are doing “new and unsettling experiments†on the human mind. Presumably monkeys are involved, too. In addition to Paulson, the series stars Cynthia Nixon as Gwendolyn Briggs, Judy Davis as Nurse Betsy Bucket, Sharon Stone as Lenore Osgood, Jon Jon Briones as Dr. Richard Hanover, Finn Wittrock as Edmund Tolleson, Charlie Carver as Huck, Alice Englert as Dolly, Amanda Plummer as Louise, Corey Stoll as Charles Wainwright, Sophie Okonedo as Charlotte, and Vincent D’Onofrio as Governor George Wilburn. The name, backstory, and dressmaker for Sharon Stone’s monkey have not yet been revealed to the public. We hope to learn more when the eight episode series premieres on Netflix Friday, September 18.