“When I read the book, I really connected to the visceral feeling of being destroyed by a relationship,” Tell Me Lies showrunner and executive producer Meaghan Oppenheimer said during a TCA press conference for the series. Based on Carola Lovering’s bestselling novel, Hulu will launch the first three episodes on September 7th, with weekly episode drops on Wednesdays. “Carola did such a great job going to these really humiliating places that happen in relationships that we don't always talk about because it's shameful and we become versions of ourselves that we don't recognize. And when I read that, I was like, oh, wow, I know what that feels like. Hulu knew that sometimes what works in a book doesn't work format-wise on TV. So I really wanted to keep the core emotional truths in the book, but we were able to go wherever we wanted with the plot, in a way that allows it to go on for multiple seasons. And we got to expand on all of the ensemble characters that are smaller in the book.”
(Hulu)
Grace Van Patten (Nine Perfect Strangers) stars as Lucy Albright, an outwardly confident girl concealing a trauma from her past. “A reason why I was so drawn to Lucy is because she really reminded me of my 18-year-old self,” the actress revealed, who plays Lucy over the span of either years in the series. “Her mindset is that vulnerability is this weakness and fear to connect because that means you can potentially get hurt. I definitely lived my high school years with a wall up. The main thing that I've learned the past few years of my life is that being vulnerable and open is the coolest thing ever and beautiful. And it's the most powerful thing. That was a really big change in my life and changed my relationships with people and friends.”
Lucy’s Achilles heal is Stephen DeMarco, a guy she can’t stay away from who brings out the worst in her, played by Jackson White (Ambulance). “It was challenging finding things to relate to about that dude,” the actor confessed, sharing that his natural instincts are to be open and honest with people in his life. “I hope that they’re not romanticizing it,” Jackson added about audience takeaways. “It’s so tumultuous and specific to this toxic thing. It’s so easy for people to watch movies and emulate and take it on as this big romance, and this is something that’s so specifically character-driven, and it’s about the negative effects of what happens when people get attached this way. So I hope people understand that.”
“The drama of this show is watching people miscommunicate, and then the consequences of that miscommunication,” revealed executive producer Karah Preiss. “One of the tragic things about this show is when you don't share what you're going through with the people around you, you are hurting yourself more than you're benefitting yourself. That is something I learned from watching [Meaghan] write this show and then watching [Grace and Jackson] act in the show and watching the show now is that if you just talk to people about things, it doesn’t have to be such a big deal.”
(Josh Stringer/Hulu)
With a narrative that jumps forward and backward in time, music became a way to help keep track of where the characters are in their lives. “When I was writing the pilot I had made a playlist, and I was in high school and college during this time, and I realize the music of this time was so emo, and it was just so emotion forward, and you’re eighteen, and you think you’re going to die because of some guy, it feels really good to listen to that stuff,” Meaghan Oppenheimer shared. “We had a lot of fun putting stuff like Death Cab for Cutie and The Killers and, for me, it just felt like a crazy nostalgia trip down my first experiences and relationships… The thing about stories about love is that they are so timeless. If you look at a book written a hundred years ago, people have been doing the same [stuff] to each other forever, and I think music is similarly timeless. So we also wanted to use music in a way that felt true to the time but also completely current.”
“We had blocks of two episodes, so we weren't going too far forward, too far back,” explained Grace Van Patten about the shooting schedule, which helped the actors not lose track of where they were in the timeline. Another key element to the shoot was trust, with multiple intimate scenes between Lucy and Stephen. “It would’ve been hard to do this without a level of trust between us, and I think we established that really early,” Jackson White shared. “It was just really natural, really comfortable, really communicative. It was so important, and we always had that.”
Behind the scenes, there was trust, support, and open communication. But on screen, Tell Me Lies takes audiences on a turbulent emotional rollercoaster. Strap in and don’t miss the premiere on Wednesday, September 7th, only on Hulu.
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