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New Netflix<\/a> film The Good Nurse<\/a> has proven very popular with subscribers since being added to the platform last week \u2013 quickly rising to the streamer\u2019s top 10 and receiving some very good reviews<\/a> along the way.<\/p>\n The film tells the story of American serial killer Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), told from the perspective of his friend and colleague Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), who played a crucial role in helping the authorities catch and sentence him when she realised his crimes.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com<\/a>, screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns revealed that the decision to tell the drama from Amy\u2019s point of view was very deliberate, explaining that: \u201cI didn\u2019t want the serial killer to be the lead, I didn\u2019t want him to be the star.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, it\u2019s only natural that some viewers would want to know more about exactly who Charlie Cullen was and the true story behind the film. Read on for everything you need to know.<\/p> The first thing to note is that unlike a lot of true crime dramas \u2013 which can often tend to sensationalise true events for dramatic effect \u2013 The Good Nurse broadly sticks fairly accurately to the story as it really happened, something both Wilson-Cairns and director Tobias Lindholm were very keen to ensure.<\/p>\n \u201cHe [Tobias] was like, \u2018What if we put in nothing invented? Like, what if we don\u2019t add anything for horror?’\u201d Wilson-Cairns explained. \u201cAnd I knew from his work, and also from our collaboration, that he could pull that off. And that was really, I think, the core of letting this be a real and terrifying drama.\u201d<\/p>\n The screenplay was adapted from Charles Graeber\u2019s heavily researched non-fiction book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder. Although in the book, Amy\u2019s story only really comes into play towards the latter stages \u2013 focusing much more on events that happened before those depicted in the film.<\/p>\n In real life, Cullen spent 16 years working at various hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before his arrest in December 2003, having first qualified as a nurse in 1986.<\/p>\n The first of the murders to which he confessed occured only two years into his career, in 1988, when he administered a lethal dose of\u00a0intravenous medication to a patient at\u00a0Saint Barnabas Medical Center\u00a0in\u00a0Livingston, New Jersey.<\/p>\n This was the first of 29 murders that he was eventually convicted for, although as is made clear in the final moments of the film, it is strongly suspected that the actual number was far higher \u2013 perhaps as high as 400.<\/p>\n As is shown in the film, Cullen regularly changed jobs \u2013 at one point cycling through nine different hospitals in just 11 years \u2013 predominantly working in the cardiac and intensive care units of hospitals such as Warren Hospital in New Jersey, Morristown Memorial in New Jersey, and Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n Several of these jobs ended with him being fired, but he was always able to quickly find new employment which \u2013 according to a report in The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 was partly because in the US healthcare system \u201cemployers frequently [refused] to pass on negative information, even about people they have fired, for fear of being sued for slander by the former employee\u201d.<\/p>\nWho is Charles Cullen? The Good Nurse true story<\/strong><\/h2>\n