Were Susan and Christopher Edwards Really Friends With Gerard Depardieu?

Landscapers is the latest true-crime drama series on HBO Max, about the crimes of husband and wife Christopher and Susan Edwards, portrayed by Olivia Colman and David Thewlis.

They were found guilty of killing Susan Edwards' parents, William and Patricia Wycherley, 15 years after they committed the act in 1998.

Shortly after the killings in her family home, Susan Edwards drained the bank accounts of her parents. According to official court documents, Susan Edwards cleared £40,000 ($53,175) from their bank just one day after her mother and father's deaths.

The Judge at Nottingham Crown Court found that for 14 years Susan and Christopher Edwards spent "thousands of pounds" on "celebrity photographs, letters and other things." In particular, Susan and Christopher Edwards were big fans of French actor Gérard Depardieu, best known for starring in Cyrano de Bergerac, Life of Pi and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Were They Really Friends With Gerard Depardieu?

No, Susan and Christopher Edwards were not friends with Gerard Depardieu.
As seen in the first episode of Landscapers, they were Old Hollywood fanatics and spoke fondly of the French actor. They even referred to him as Gerard, as if he was a close friend.

Susan Edwards in particular was fascinated by Depardieu (and American actor Gary Cooper). When the couple's financial situation began to worsen, she tricked her husband for 14 years into believing the funds they were receiving were coming from Depardieu directly, Screenrant reported.

As seen in Landscapers, Susan Edwards even went on to write fake letters from Depardieu to her husband, convincing him he had a pen-pal relationship with the actor.

Christopher Edwards would often write letters to Depardieu and Susan Edwards would pretend to post them.

In reality, Susan Edwards would be the one writing to her husband, referring to the beauty of art and cinema and offering him words of encouragement.

She would use foreign stamps, tricking her husband into believing the letters came from Depardieu and keeping up the façade of the Hollywood fantasy world they were living in.

The real Christopher Edwards found out the letters were fake and were being written by Susan Edwards herself during their murder trial in 2014.

Giving evidence in his defense in court, he said the letters appeared to be genuine because of the way they were written and the reference to Depardieu's upbringing, The Guardian reported.

Asked who he thought wrote all the letters, he said: "I believe it was my wife." Edwards also told the court he only discovered it was Susan Edwards "a few days ago, during the course of these proceedings."

Speaking to the BBC, Andy Done-Johnson, a local reporter who covered the trial of Susan and Christopher Edwards said: "For instance, for years and years, Christopher thought he was a pen friend of French actor Gérard Depardieu.

"Christopher would write and Susan would take the letters, presumably throw them away, and write back as Gerard.

"She even bought a stamp to make her letters look like they had a French postmark.

"So blurry was the boundary between reality and fantasy that it was never clear why this happened or whether Christopher knew what was going on.

"It seems it was all part of their game."

In June 2014, a year after they turned themselves in to the police, Susan and Christopher Edwards were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 25 years each. A year later, both Susan and Christopher Edwards lost their appeals and remain incarcerated today.

Landscapers airs on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.