Patty Jenkins and Chris Pine Attend The New York Premiere for TNT’s I Am The Night

Patty Jenkins and Chris Pine Attend Last Night’s Premiere for TNT’s I Am the Night

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and The Cinema Society hosted the New York premiere of TNT’s new goosebumpy drama, I Am The Night. Chris Pine and Connie Nielsen were both casted in the miniseries, which holds a slightly more melancholy tone than the technicolored Marvel-verse we’re used to seeing them in. (The show’s premise revolves around the grotesque Black Dahlia murder.)

The allure of true crime compelled guests to brave the bitter cold to the screening downtown at Metrograph. Jefferson Mays, who plays the villainous Hollywood doctor, George Hodel, agrees. “Fictional crime is a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. True crime is not that easy. It’s sloppy. It’s messy. And the idea of justice is often a nebulous one and something that’s not guaranteed. I find that fascinating as an actor.” The heroine of the story is India Eisley, who plays the real-life Fauna Hodel, granddaughter of the physician suspected in Elizabeth Short’s (aka the Black Dahlia) death. In the first episode, guests witnessed fawn-faced Eisley as 16-year-old Hodel, only just beginning to discover her family’s dark past. Eisley, dressed in jet-black, vintage Yves Saint Laurent, confessed her own obsession with solving unsolved mysteries. “I think people might think I have a problem! The one I really clicked into was Zodiac. I don’t know why, but I just latched onto that case and read everything that I could. I have a whole conspiracy theory on it which I won’t bore you with!” Another mystery-murder enthusiast? The director herself, but for her it was more about the human stories behind the crime. “I knew about the [Black Dahlia]. It was unbelievably frightening and mysterious and I had no desire to tell the story until I met Fauna Hodel and she told me the most riveting story about her own journey of self-discovery. I believe [her story] is what happened and it’s terrifying.” Guests got a smattering sample of the horror at Metrograph, and then came the after-party.

A quick taxi ride to a townhouse simply called, 214 Lafayette and suddenly partygoers found themselves in a murder mystery-esque realm. Ladies in retro lingerie sipped on coupes in a bathtub, performed acrobatics on top of a golden cage, and slumbered beneath dozens of waxed candles. It was a nightmarish dream. Thankfully, mini chicken potpies and a cacio e pepe station seemed to put guests at ease.

One thing that wasn’t terrifying, was working under Jenkins’s direction. Chris Pine joked how on set, “I just wanted to make Patty laugh!” One of the best parts of the episode was seeing how Pine conned humor into the glum storyline. “She’s the best general you could ask for and also the most sensitive director, a psychologist. That’s a very hard balance to inhabit.” Fellow Wonder Woman alum Nielsen also relished working with Jenkins again. “It just feels like coming home!”

TNT’s new thriller is set to be released on Sunday, January 27.