“Georgia [Hunter] and I met in 1999 and Georgia's book came out in 2017,” We Were the Lucky Ones director and executive producer Tommy Kail revealed during the TCA Winter Press Tour. While the Hamilton director knew the author of the source material personally, the tale of a Jewish family hiding their ancestry to survive the Holocaust was one he’d never heard before. “When she went on this pursuit to write her family story down, I started to see, as I read the book, my own experience reflected back. And I think when you tell something that has integrity and truth in the center of it, it becomes a portal to that experience or some sort of mirror that reflects your own life back.”
(Disney/PictureGroup)
“I grew up very close with my grandfather,” We Were the Lucky Ones author and series executive producer Georgia Hunter shared about the story’s origins. “He never talked about the fact that he grew up in Poland, or he was raised in the Jewish faith, or that he came from a family of Holocaust survivors.” It was only after her grandfather’s passing that Georgia learned her grandfather’s untold story, which inspired her novel. “People sometimes asked, ‘Really? You had no idea about his whole Holocaust past and his European upbringing?’ I was an only child. He was my only living grandfather, and I guess now maybe I can look back and say, ‘Oh, I guess I could see the signs.’ But at the time, he was just my grandfather, and I adored him, and that's all I knew.”
“One thing Georgia shared with us about her grandfather, that is in the show, is his music,” revealed showrunner Erica Lopez. “He was a brilliant composer, and I think one of the most thrilling collapsing of time was getting to use two of his actual compositions in this series. We're all so excited that his music is going to be in this forum for a modern generation.” Similar to Tommy Kail, Georgia’s family’s story was a tale of Holocaust survival Erica hadn’t heard before. With antisemitic ideology on the rise around the world, the team didn’t realize how needed this story would be in 2024. “You hope you might make something that has relevance, but you don't really want it to be timely in this way. It's really sad, and it's really devastating, but I think living alongside this family altered me fundamentally as a person. In some ways, I'm a much sadder person confronting this chapter of history and thinking about what we can do to each other as human beings, but I think I'm also a much more hopeful person in trying to lead with compassion. This show does have a lot of love in it, and I hope that that is felt and can maybe be of some comfort.”
“This is about what happens when hate goes unchecked,” explained star Logan Lerman, who plays Addy, a character inspired by Georgia Hunter’s grandfather. “You can apply that to current times and the future, and you can learn from the past and from this piece of history and this period of time. I think it's really important to tell these stories. What really attracted me to it, and why I think it's important, especially now, is that I haven't seen this angle on it. It's not just reexploring something that's been done before. This is new and interesting. I think it will enlighten people about another aspect of World War II that they weren't familiar with. You can take something away from every character's storyline, every person, every member of your family's story, but there's so many things you can take away from this.”
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“It wasn't just about the connection to my own Jewishness but also being able to explore a role that touches on my own ancestry,” added Joey King, who stars as Halina. “It's very personal. It takes on a new personal meaning. A Lot of different jobs that I've had in the past and that I will continue to have in the future, I always feel connected to it in a very specific way. But when it's dealing with subject matter that is so personal to your own history and your own family and something you're proud to be, it just makes it that much more special to step on the set every day with that in mind.”
We Were the Lucky Ones premieres with three episodes on Thursday, March 28th, with new episodes streaming on Hulu on Thursdays.
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