First of all, I want to congratulate all of you. I binge-watched the whole season and it was a really compelling show other than being a book adaptation. My first question is for Carina and Julie, could you talk a bit more about your journey adapting We Were Liars for the screen? How did you approach the adaptation process and what guided your decisions along the way?
Carina: Sometimes, as TV writers, when we’re adapting something, it’s because someone else brought it to us and is like, “Here, do you like this book enough to,” and you’re reading the book and trying to find the thing that you want to do. As for this book, we read it and we begged Emily. Like, we did everything we could. I mean, we wanted it for years. We’re huge fans of the first version of it. So really, in the process of adapting it, we just didn’t want to mess it up.
Julie: And then she did us a really great service of writing a prequel, which really dug into the inner lives and thoughts of the Sinclair moms, the parents. And it gave us an opportunity to flesh out the world beyond just Cadence’s story from the book. And that’s what I think made it so much easier to adapt as a series, because we weren’t just restricted to a single person’s point of view, and we could really turn it into a multi-generational family soap and saga. And, you know, that always makes for great television.
Yeah, I think it’s very comprehensive. Emily, I’ll be honest, I haven’t read the book before, but now I’m really curious to read it. The plot was so intriguing. Did you ever imagine it would be adapted for the screen?
Emily: The novel is written from one character’s perspective, completely, right? Cadence is a teenage girl who is madly in love. She has a terrible accident. She suffers amnesia. She has to come back to her family’s private island and solve this mystery of what happened to her that she cannot remember, right? But it’s all from her perspective. And the TV show fleshes that out a lot more and shows deeper stories about the other people in the family, about her cousin and her love interest and all of that. So there are many, many things in the show that I could never have imagined. A whole writers’ room full of people, and cinematographers and costume designers, brought this world into this sort of beautiful, luxe, soapy television space. So I just wrote a novel. I did not imagine a TV show at all. I didn’t start imagining the show until we started making one.
I also want to mention the cinematography and the cast, but before that, what was it like watching your own story unfold on screen?
Emily: It was like having a really intense acid trip. Not that I would know. But it was very surreal, you know, to see these characters walking around, speaking, characters that used to only exist in my imagination.
Aside from the gripping storyline and the narrative, the cast, the cinematography, and the stunning views were all amazing! I also learned that the filming took place in Nova Scotia, I actually lived there, so it was extra nice for me to watch that. As the creators of the series, all of you, are you satisfied with how it turned out?
Julie: I’ll speak for myself. I’m incredibly proud of what we as a team were able to accomplish. I think that you have the stunning location of Nova Scotia and everything that it offers. I think we really found the right alchemy of cast, and then we hired a lot of very fancy people to make it look as good as it could, whether through the lens behind the camera, the hair and makeup, the wardrobe, production design, all of it. We really aimed high and our team really delivered.
Yeah, it definitely shows. I think the mystery elements were also handled really well, the show kept up the momentum and raised new questions with each episode…
Carina: Thank you!
What was the adaptation process like, especially shaping it into just eight episodes?
Carina: I think that was part of the thrill and part of the challenge. It’s hard to tell a full love story in eight episodes. You want more, but also, you do have a lot of time to fill. So you have a lot of characters that you need to delve into. I could have done 16 episodes, but I think it works.
Emily: One thing they did that I really loved was, the Sinclair family has a lot of very fancy parties. And those were really only hinted at in the books. And they took the lemon hunt from my prequel novel, Family of Liars, and they brought that in to be a centerpiece of an episode. They have an amazing Fourth of July party, and so forth. So I feel like there was this chance to structure the episodes around these events that are just like so beautiful and luxe and specific to this family and to this world.
Julie: “What we like to say for anyone that’s already read We Were Liars, or anyone who gets an early look at the show, or even in the binge culture, who watches it first when it drops at midnight, if anybody asks you how it ends, just lie.”
I would also like to mention the prequel, Family of Liars. Are there any plans for a season 2?
Julie: Let’s hope so. Tell people to watch, and we will be right back to work as soon as they let us.
Carina: We love, love, love the second book.
It’s very important not to give anything away, for We Were Liars specifically. So without giving any spoilers, what can fans expect?
Carina: I think they can expect a really satisfying conclusion to the mystery. I think the questions get answered in a -hopefully- surprising way. And I also think that fans of the book, who do know the direction we’re going, have some surprises in store for them too.
Julie: Absolutely. What we like to say for anyone that’s already read We Were Liars, or anyone who gets an early look at the show, or even in the binge culture, who watches it first when it drops at midnight, if anybody asks you how it ends, just lie.
Thank you guys so much!
Julie, Carina, Emily: Thank you, nice to meet you!
