The Real Amy Loughren Reveals What Netflix's The Good Nurse Changed About The True Story
Netflix's "The Good Nurse" is a crime drama film based on the true story of a nurse named Charles Cullen, who is estimated to have potentially killed around 400 of his patients by lacing their saline bags with insulin, as well as a separate (but no less lethal) drug known as digoxin (via USA Today). The story of "The Good Nurse" is told primarily through the perspective of Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), a single mother who works in the Intensive Care Unit at Parkland Memorial Hospital, New Jersey, and who is secretly struggling to raise money for a heart transplant after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
Working night shifts to make ends meet, she becomes fast friends with veteran nurse Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) and later ends up playing a major role in Cullen's arrest and conviction. In the film's climax, she even wears a wire and coerces a confession out of Cullen. As with all films that are allegedly based on a true story, "The Good Nurse" tweaked a great deal of the actual events while adapting it for the big screen. Indeed, Amy Loughren herself has actually spoken about some of the more significant changes that "The Good Nurse" made to her story, saying that she actually understood and even supported most of the changes — even if they were not technically true.
Amy Loughren is surprisingly supportive of the changes made to her story
During an appearance on the "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast, the real Amy Loughren addressed some of the more notable changes that "The Good Nurse" made to her story, and explained that she actually agreed with a lot of them.
For starters, the real Amy Loughren actually already had healthcare when she met Charles Cullen, while in the movie she is still unable to afford it. Loughren explained that she is supportive of this particular change, as the health insurance she did have was dependent on her contract as a travel nurse, and still could have disappeared at any time. "It was just easier to set it up that way [in the movie] rather than trying to explain the complexities of the way that our health insurance works," Loughren said.
Loughren went on to address how Cullen's climactic confession in the diner was much, much longer in real life — admitting that the hours of conversation she had with Cullen that day wouldn't have translated well to the screen. On top of that, she also claimed that Cullen never actually met her children, unlike in the film. Although this seems to twist the truth a bit too far, Loughren clarified that this was a good change as it helped emphasize the deep friendship she had with Cullen prior to his arrest.
It's clear that Amy Loughren was overwhelmingly supportive of the numerous changes made to the true story of "The Good Nurse" as she believes they still helped to tell her story in an honest way.