The Residence, Netflix‘s popular new White House-set whodunnit, starring Uzo Aduba as the quirky detective Cordelia Cupp, was once supposed to be a very different television show.

The Shondaland production is based off a book by the same name, by author and former White House correspondent Kate Andersen Brower.

Brower’s book turns 10 years old this week, and it almost immediately got the attention of Hollywood.

‘When the book came out in 2015 it was originally optioned by Kevin Spacey,’ Brower told DailyMail.com in a phone interview Friday. ‘And Megyn Kelly at one point was involved and she called me and was like, “You should really say yes to this deal.”‘

At the time, Spacey’s House of Cards was in its prime and it was two years before his MeToo fall from grace.

Brower said that screenwriter Dustin Lance Black – of Milk and Big Love fame – was hired for the project.

‘It was much darker. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t a dark comedy or anything like that. It wasn’t a Shondaland, it was much more in the House of Cards realm,’ she said.

‘And then everything blew up because of Kevin Spacey’s obvious issues,’ she added.

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The Residence, Netflix’s popular new White House-set whodunnit, starring Uzo Aduba as the quirky detective Cordelia Cupp (pictured), was once supposed to be a very different television show

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The author of The Residence, Kate Andersen Brower, revealed to DailyMail.com that actor Kevin Spacey (left), before his fall-from-grace, had first optioned her book. Brower said that Megyn Kelly (right) was also initially attached to the project

Cut to 2018, when television giant Shonda Rhimes got involved.

‘I found out that she had read the book and went to my agent and said, ‘We love this book, this is perfect for us, we’d love to option it for us,” Brower said. ‘But I didn’t want to get too excited because you never know.’

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Author and former White House correspondent Kate Andersen Brower  (pictured) was thrilled that so much of her original non-fiction book was used in plotlines for the series

The series was finally released on March 20 – surviving the writers’ strike, the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of a lead actor.

Paul William Davies was tapped as the writer and showrunner – and he used a lot of Brower’s source material in interesting ways.

In the series, fictional President Perry Morgan is obsessed with taking very hot and high pressure showers – something nearly impossible with the White House’s old plumbing.

It creates a conundrum for actor Mel Rodriguez’s character Bruce Geller, who plays a White House engineer.

In real life, White House Chief Usher J.B. West was tasked with ‘calling in dozens of experts in an unending quest to satisfy President [Lyndon B.] Johnson’s demand for better water pressure in his shower,’ Brower wrote in the book.

Rodriguez’s character in the series falls in love with a White House maid.

This was based on a real love story between engineer Robert Limerick and executive housekeeper Christine Limerick.

‘She met him measuring his uniform, because her job was to get all the uniforms made,’ Brower said. ‘And they got married and the Reagans sent them a wedding gift and a bunch of the staff came to the wedding and everyone was so excited that they were together.’

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The show begins at the White House, with a state dinner for Australia, and the mysterious death of Head Usher A.B. Wynter (right), who was played by Giancarlo Esposito, after the original actor to play the part, Andre Braugher, passed away in 2023 after a cancer battle

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Head Usher A.B. Wynter, played by Giancarlo Esposito, stands in the middle of the White House State Dining Room, ahead of the White House state dinner with Australia. He would mysteriously die by the end of the night – triggering the murder mystery

‘And so people have met that way,’ she said. ‘I thought that was really sweet that [Davies] incorporated that.’

Not nearly as nice, was a very real White House tactic to keep guests away.

‘Another example was the room on the third floor that was being renovated,’ Brower said.

In the series, President Morgan and first gentleman Elliot Morgan order that one of the upstairs bedrooms look like a construction site, to prevent political aide Harry Hollinger’s sister from staying there during the Australian state dinner.

‘That has happened in multiple White Houses,’ Brower said, noting that in The Residence she writes about it happening during the Kennedy administration.

‘And then, later on, after the show came out, this usher who I’ve talked to a bunch emiled me and said, ‘It’s so funny, did anyone tell you that Nancy Reagan did the same thing?”

In the series White House butler Sheila Cannon, played by actress Edwina Findley, joins the State Dinner party despite being at work – because she’s chummy with the former first lady.

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Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp (left) investigates the murder of Chief Butler A.B. Wynter during a White House state dinner with Australia. A number of plotlines in the Netflix series The Residence came from Kate Andersen Brower’s book of the same name

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Julieth Restrepo as maid Elsyie Chayle (left) and Edwina Findley as butler Sheila Cannon (right) in Netflix’s The Residence. Chayle’s love story in the series is based off a real one, as is Cannon being too chummy with a former first lady

This was also a problem with real White House staff, Brower said, noting usher Chris Emery’s relationship with former first lady Barbara Bush.

‘And Barbara Bush would keep calling and ask him for help with her computer, she was working on her memoir, and she just trusted him and missed him and wanted his help and it was like a problem,’ Brower said. ‘The Clinton people were like you have to stop talking to Barbara Bush.’

The murder at the White House occurs on the same night as a state dinner with Australia.

The real White House has hosted two state dinners with Australia in recent years.

The first was for Prime Minister Scott Morrison under President Donald Trump in 2019 – the second of only two state dinners held in Trump’s first term, due to one in 2020 for Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia being scrapped thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Joe Biden also hosted a state dinner with Australia – this time for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – in October 2023.

In both cases, the presidents entertained the Australians with performances by the U.S. Marine and other military bands.

‘I love that it was Australia too. Because, like the nicest people, no one ever has a problem with Australia,’ Brower commented.

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Both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden hosted the Australians for state dinners in recent years. In the Netflix version, White House aides have to beg Australian pop star Kylie Minogue, who was invited as a guest, to perform

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Kylie Minogue (right) played herself in the series, even uttering the memorable line:  ‘I have sung “I can’t get you out of my head” seven times,’ as Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp (left) investigated a murder at the White House

But in the series, the Morgan administration has annoyed the longtime U.S. ally, and so there’s panic when the planned entertainment bows out.

Instead, staffers beg Australian pop star Kylie Minogue, who was supposed to be a guest at the state dinner, to entertain the crowd.

‘I have sung “I can’t get you out of my head’ seven times,” Minogue utters during a hilarious scene in the series, as state dinner guests are kept at the White House so Cupp can investigate the murder of the White House’s Chief Usher A.B. Wynter.

Wynter was portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito but the original casting was the late Andre Braugher, whose death was a true tragedy during production.

‘It was a huge blow because they had already done a lot of the filming,’ Brower said. ‘And everyone loved him and the show is dedicated to him, the last episode they say it.’

The Wynter character was also based in truth – though there was no murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

‘The chief usher’s general attitude is very similar to Stephen Rochon, who was the admiral who ran the White Hosue when Obama was there and Bush,’ Brower noted.

Rochon didn’t get whacked but he did get sacked.

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The Chief Usher A.B. Wynter character had a similar attitude to former White House Chief Usher Stephen Rochon, Brower said. In real life, Rochon didn’t get whacked, but got sacked by President Barack Obama

‘He was hired by Bush, fired by Obama,’ Brower said, suggesting the dismissal was a matter of personal preference.

Looking back on the nearly 10-year journey, Brower was impressed at how much of her non-fiction book ended up on the small screen.

‘Once I found out the tone of the show, I didn’t expect there to be actually as much overlap as there was,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘He did an amazing job of incorporating the broader themes of the White House and respect for the position. And the general vibe of the residence staff in the show he completely got,’ she said.