E. Lockhart and We Were Liars Showrunners Talk Behind-The-Scenes Battles and Discovering Raw Talent

Spending the summers on an exclusive island, engaging in luxury activities, late nights with good friends, and falling in love. What could be any better? What would you do when tragedy strikes and the world you know is turned upside down?

That’s the premise of Amazon Prime’s newest series, We Were Liars, based on the book of the same name by E. Lockhart. Lockhart is joined by the powerhouse duo Julie Plec and Carina Adly Mackenzie, serving as co-showrunners.

At the ATX Television Festival, the three women joined together on a panel to discuss the intricacies of bringing the series to life.

We Were Liars is set on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, near Martha’s Vineyard, and is owned by the Sinclair family.

The story primarily follows a young woman named Cadence Sinclair Eastman (portrayed by Emily Alyn Lind) as she attempts to recount memories she has lost.

Sharing the screen alongside Lind is Shubham Maheshwari as Gat Patil, Esther McGregor as Mirren Sinclair, and Joseph Zada as Johnny Sinclair. Candice King stars as Bess Sinclair, Rahul Kohli stars as Ed Patil, Caitlin FitzGerald takes on the role of Penny Sinclair, and Mamie Gummer will portray Carrie Sinclair.

Years in the Making

It’s been over a decade since the release of the novel, and the fight for who gets the pleasure of bringing it to the silver screen has been underway almost ever since.

“We Were Liars had been under option as a feature and had five different writers and two different directors attached,” Lockhart said. “Then, it was in development at Netflix, with two different writers attached, one of whom was me. Then that was not happening, and at that point, I was like, ‘Whatever, I think this is done.'”

Lockhart’s hope was restored when Plec and Mackenzie reached out to her, offering to act as showrunners for the series.

“That was so appealing, not only because they make super binge-worthy TV shows that people get super obsessed with, but also because they were just like, ‘Here we are. We’re going to make this,'” Lockhart said. “Sometimes, development is a hot mess. They were like, ‘No hot mess. Here we are.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s amazing. Thank you very much.’ And I’m still saying that.”

Mackenzie reveals she first got her hands on the novel as a galley copy, reading it before publication. That’s when she knew she had to bring it to life eventually.

“I love it. The style of writing is so specific. It’s so different from any YA novel that I’ve ever read before, and I love YA, but this is smarter. It’s smarter, more lyrical, more poetic.”

“It scratches an itch in my brain that I’m always trying to scratch, which is, ‘I want to see a string of words put together in a way that they’ve never been put together before,'” Mackenzie continued. “It’s rare to get that with YA stuff specifically, and it’s all over this book.”

A Resurgence of Popularity

While it’s been over a decade since its release, the novel and story have seen a substantial increase in audience after going viral on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking candidly to the audience, Lockhart says the rebirth of new readers and the role TikTok played came as quite a shock.

“During the heart of the pandemic, when everyone was home all the time, TikTok creators started making videos about We Were Liars,” Lockhart said. “They made two different kinds of videos. One was aesthetic videos, with that beautiful landscape type of thing, golden retrievers, and bonfires on the beach.”

“The other kind was people crying hard, mascara running down their faces, and snot coming out of their noses. They made time-lapse videos of themselves reading the novel, and then they would finish up with that behavior. I had this weird experience, which is that suddenly the book was on the bestseller list again, and I had no idea why because I am a middle-aged lady, and I was not on TikTok,” Lockhart laughed.

As anyone who has ever been vulnerable online with their creative work knows, reading reviews can be detrimental to your mental health.

That’s why Lockhart never took the time in the past to read reviews about her novel. However, she did take the time to scope through the videos online, witnessing the conversations happening in the present day about the decade-old book.

“It felt like a gift to have readers again and also to have people engaging creatively with my work,” Lockhart said.

Shaping Lives and Forming New Actors

It’s not often that an audience gets to experience a brand-new, rising actor they’ve never heard of on a larger platform nowadays. Let alone one who’s never appeared on screen before. But that’s something We Were Liars is helping bring back to the silver screen.

In the role of Gat is Shubham Maheshwari, who auditioned from his college dorm room. Having never acted a day in his life, he took a chance on himself and hit the bullseye.

“We put him through the wringer,” Mackenzie said. “He did a lot of chemistry reads, and the thing that stood out was that over those little windows of time when we could see him, he was improving quickly. He was finding the character in front of our eyes, so he was a great find.”

“This kid had never acted a day in his life, and he just was so effortless, pure, easy, and natural. It’s like he’d been doing it his whole life, and he photographed so beautifully. We just got so lucky,” Plec raved.

Another star on the rise is Joseph Zada. The young actor has previously starred in the Australian series Invisible Boys as a lead, with not much else to his name.

Nonetheless, his talent shone brightly on set, captivating all those who wandered nearby.

“We would be shooting with him, and the crew would stop and watch from behind the monitors,” Plec said. “They would say, ‘Who is this kid?’ I mean, the name Heath Ledger was passed around multiple times. I think that he was this remarkable surprise that none of us expected.”

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We Were Liars will be available to stream on Wednesday, June 18, on Prime Video.

Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. 

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