Jenny Curtis: From CurtCo Media-
Speaker 2: There's no place like Hollywood.
Jenny Curtis: Welcome to another special episode of Hollywood Unscripted: Stuck At
Jenny Curtis: Home. I'm Jenny Curtis, and today, I have the gift
Jenny Curtis: of virtually sitting down with writer and producer Liz Tigelaar,
Jenny Curtis: who has a plethora of television work under her belt,
Jenny Curtis: including show running the acclaimed Hulu series, Little Fires Everywhere.
Jenny Curtis: Liz, thank you so much for joining me today.
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Jenny Curtis: I want to start with a big congratulations, because Little
Jenny Curtis: Fires Everywhere is up for five Emmys. I'm sure that's
Jenny Curtis: surreal.
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, I can't believe it. It felt like such a
Liz Tigelaar: hard category, and I'm so glad we slipped in. The show
Liz Tigelaar: of course, I loved that nomination because it really represents
Liz Tigelaar: every single person who worked on it. But, yeah, all of
Liz Tigelaar: the nominations for individual reasons are all so incredibly meaningful
Liz Tigelaar: and we're just honored to be included.
Jenny Curtis: So, right now these series of specials with Hollywood Unscripted
Jenny Curtis: we're calling Stuck At Home because of quarantine. So, I
Jenny Curtis: want to start off with a little bit of like, how
Jenny Curtis: are you doing?
Liz Tigelaar: I mean, it's been interesting. It's like, really ridden a
Liz Tigelaar: wave in the last five months. We kind of had
Liz Tigelaar: our system for a while and then we actually were
Liz Tigelaar: supposed to go back east to see our families and we
Liz Tigelaar: were supposed to fly and we got freaked out, and
Liz Tigelaar: so we just rented a minivan and just took our kid
Liz Tigelaar: and dog and drove across the country, and never peed
Liz Tigelaar: in a public restroom. It was an adventure, but it
Liz Tigelaar: was amazing. And I think it really... I don't know.
Liz Tigelaar: It just changed my family's whole outlook on everything, really.
Liz Tigelaar: And so it's been hard obviously, and easier for us
Liz Tigelaar: I think than a lot of people, but we keep
Liz Tigelaar: talking about going back to normal and thinking what is
Liz Tigelaar: normal, and do we really want to go back to normal?
Liz Tigelaar: What does it look like now? I guess it's been
Liz Tigelaar: hard, but illuminating. You know?
Jenny Curtis: I want to dig into Little Fires in a little bit, but I
Jenny Curtis: want to start at the beginning, if that's okay. Your
Jenny Curtis: career has spanned some really high profile TV, reaching all
Jenny Curtis: the way back to Dawson's Creek, which I can find
Jenny Curtis: is your first thing. That is a huge show to
Jenny Curtis: start on, and I believe you were an assistant, is
Jenny Curtis: that correct?
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, I actually started as an intern right out of
Liz Tigelaar: college. I graduated college and drove out to LA and
Liz Tigelaar: started interning at Dawson's Creek because the person who hired the
Liz Tigelaar: interns went to Ithaca, where I went. And she hired
Liz Tigelaar: me, and really it started my whole career. It was
Liz Tigelaar: a great place to be at the time and I
Liz Tigelaar: hadn't really watched the show. It premiered when I was
Liz Tigelaar: a senior in college basically, and I didn't know anything
Liz Tigelaar: about it. But I got the VHS tapes and I
Liz Tigelaar: watched the whole show one weekend in my little crappy
Liz Tigelaar: apartment, and I loved it. I was like, " Sarah McLaughlin,
Liz Tigelaar: Edwin McCain, (inaudible) like Joey on the other side of the creek."
Liz Tigelaar: I just was like, " Oh my gosh, I'm on the greatest show ever."
Liz Tigelaar: It was awesome. There were all these writers there at
Liz Tigelaar: the time, you know? Mike White, and obviously Kevin Williamson
Liz Tigelaar: and Greg Berlanti was a staff writer, and I mean,
Liz Tigelaar: it was just this kind of who's who of everyone
Liz Tigelaar: who would go on to be show runners, and Ruben
Liz Tigelaar: Fleischer, the director, he was a PA with me. And
Liz Tigelaar: I mean, it was fun. I kind of worked through
Liz Tigelaar: all the assistant jobs that you could do. I did
Liz Tigelaar: some weird stuff, and then eventually co- wrote a freelance
Liz Tigelaar: episode with my writing partner at the time and then
Liz Tigelaar: eventually moved on. But some of my very best friends
Liz Tigelaar: in LA are still a group of women who I
Liz Tigelaar: met on Dawson's.
Jenny Curtis: Your writing partner was Holly Henderson, correct?
Liz Tigelaar: Yep.
Jenny Curtis: And you did several things together, including novels about Dawson's
Jenny Curtis: Creek?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, that was the weird stuff. So, Paul Stupin wanted to
Liz Tigelaar: do like... We'd always do a scary episode, like a
Liz Tigelaar: Blair Witch episode or some sort of Halloween episode or
Liz Tigelaar: whatever. It was almost like if you combined Dawson's Creek
Liz Tigelaar: and Scooby- Doo. It was like mystery series. And so,
Liz Tigelaar: of course all of the writers were like, " No." And
Liz Tigelaar: all of the assistants were like, " We'll write them." And so
Liz Tigelaar: basically, all the assistants on Dawson's at some point were
Liz Tigelaar: credited with a Dawson's Creek mystery novel, and I think
Liz Tigelaar: I got the distinct honor of co- writing two.
Jenny Curtis: That's awesome.
Liz Tigelaar: But I mean, at the time it was just like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Oh my gosh, I'll write whatever. Let's write in these
Liz Tigelaar: characters' voices." And I can remember my car breaking down
Liz Tigelaar: and sitting at Toyota, plunking out a Dawson's Creek mystery novel,
Liz Tigelaar: waiting for it to get fixed. It was a time.
Liz Tigelaar: We did a lot of weird things like that. It
Liz Tigelaar: was kind of like, say yes to anything that involves
Liz Tigelaar: getting paid to write, was our motto.
Jenny Curtis: And so Holly and you worked together on Dawson's Creek,
Jenny Curtis: and the novels, and then something called Totally Spies!
Liz Tigelaar: That was a cartoon.
Jenny Curtis: I mean, the say yes to anything, that's awesome.
Liz Tigelaar: Yes.
Jenny Curtis: Starting your career as a writer as a team, what
Jenny Curtis: were the benefits to that? When did you decide it
Jenny Curtis: was time to move on? Do you co- write with
Jenny Curtis: people anymore? I mean, besides writer's rooms?
Liz Tigelaar: Not really. I mean, sometimes now in a more supervisory
Liz Tigelaar: role. I'm doing it again, and I actually really enjoy
Liz Tigelaar: it. I mean, I love the collaboration of pairing up
Liz Tigelaar: and at the time, it was such a valuable partnership.
Liz Tigelaar: I was so lost when I moved out here. I
Liz Tigelaar: asked my parents if for my birthday, they would let
Liz Tigelaar: me take a writing class in the Valley, where someone
Liz Tigelaar: teaches a writing class. And you're like, " Okay," and you
Liz Tigelaar: go on Saturdays or whatever, and they would read whatever
Liz Tigelaar: spec script you were working on, and they didn't have
Liz Tigelaar: a script to read that week, so they were like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Hey, do you have any scripts?" And I was like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Well, I wrote a news radio script in college." They were like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Let's read it." And I'm like, " Oh my gosh, they
Liz Tigelaar: must have read it and loved it, and now we're
Liz Tigelaar: reading my script in front of the class. So, I
Liz Tigelaar: dragged to the Valley, they read my script. It is
Liz Tigelaar: so horrible, it's so painful. The script is clearly so
Liz Tigelaar: bad. I went into the bathroom and just burst into
Liz Tigelaar: tears. I mean, first I cried in front of everybody.
Liz Tigelaar: Then I collected myself and appropriately moved to the bathroom,
Liz Tigelaar: and then I was like, " I'm moving back to Connecticut. I'm going to teach
Liz Tigelaar: Kindergarten. I don't know, there's another career path for me."
Liz Tigelaar: And Holly miraculously was like, " We could write together," and
Liz Tigelaar: I was like, " Yes!" I was like, " I don't know
Liz Tigelaar: what I'm doing!" And so we did. We wrote so
Liz Tigelaar: many specs. We wrote together for a long time. Eventually,
Liz Tigelaar: she started dating somebody and became writing partners with him.
Liz Tigelaar: But it was at a time after we had kind
Liz Tigelaar: of dissolved our partnership, and I think any dissolving of
Liz Tigelaar: a partnership isn't always an easy thing, but I think
Liz Tigelaar: for us, it felt like a natural time where we
Liz Tigelaar: kind of stopped being assistants on the same show together
Liz Tigelaar: and we were just moving in different directions. I think
Liz Tigelaar: I had gotten an opportunity on American Dreams to be
Liz Tigelaar: an assistant, and I had been given the opportunity to
Liz Tigelaar: write a script there. And I think for me, I
Liz Tigelaar: didn't know what my voice was alone. I really didn't
Liz Tigelaar: know what my voice was at all. And so, it
Liz Tigelaar: was an opportunity to start to find it, and it
Liz Tigelaar: just proved to be very invaluable. And being on American
Liz Tigelaar: Dreams especially was really life- changing for me.
Jenny Curtis: And on American Dreams, you went then from assistant to
Jenny Curtis: writer, but then you also were a story editor, and
Jenny Curtis: that's kind of a step up in the writer's room?
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, so you go the ladder. You start as an assistant, you
Liz Tigelaar: get a staff writer job and then it's like story editor, executive
Liz Tigelaar: story editor, co- producer, producer, supervising producer, sometimes consulting producer, co-
Liz Tigelaar: EP and then executive producer. So, you kind of move your way
Liz Tigelaar: up the ladder. And so, I got to be an
Liz Tigelaar: assistant on American Dreams for a year and then two
Liz Tigelaar: years as a writer. And that was the best, craziest
Liz Tigelaar: first experience I could have ever had.
Jenny Curtis: Having it be the first experience, did you see the
Jenny Curtis: steps like you just laid out and know that that's
Jenny Curtis: what you wanted to take, or did they kind of
Jenny Curtis: come at you and you would step up as you
Jenny Curtis: moved along?
Liz Tigelaar: I knew that's what I wanted to do. Like I
Liz Tigelaar: said, I had been on Dawson's Creek. I was an
Liz Tigelaar: assistant, we had written an episode but it didn't really
Liz Tigelaar: lead anywhere. I had been going on meetings forever, and we
Liz Tigelaar: hadn't really gotten anything as a team and we were
Liz Tigelaar: just both kind of trying to figure it out at
Liz Tigelaar: the time and going off on different shows that I
Liz Tigelaar: think really suited both our personalities. I mean, when I
Liz Tigelaar: saw Brittany Snow watching American Bandstand, that's how I felt
Liz Tigelaar: watching American Dreams, and I was like, " I'll do anything
Liz Tigelaar: on this show. I'll be a PA, I'll work for free.
Liz Tigelaar: I'll be an intern. I'll do anything." And of course,
Liz Tigelaar: I knew I wanted to move up the ladder. But
Liz Tigelaar: I don't think I had a huge sense of the
Liz Tigelaar: ladder and of how long it would take, would I
Liz Tigelaar: ever get there? I mean, I moved out here and I thought, " Some
Liz Tigelaar: day, if I write an episode of television with my
Liz Tigelaar: name on it," for all I knew, that could take a
Liz Tigelaar: whole career. So I was like, " That might be it, you might
Liz Tigelaar: work 20 years to have one episode of television." I mean, I
Liz Tigelaar: had no idea. So, I didn't have a great barometer, but
Liz Tigelaar: I just knew I loved where I was.
Jenny Curtis: And then climbing up the ladder again, you went from
Jenny Curtis: What About Brian, where you had a producing role. And
Jenny Curtis: then Brothers & Sisters, you had a season of being a
Jenny Curtis: producer and then supervising producer. So you really went from
Jenny Curtis: show to show, taking on all of these experiences, and
Jenny Curtis: I'd love to hear more about what you learned from
Jenny Curtis: them, what you took from each show.
Liz Tigelaar: So, some of those titles, like you're all sometimes kind of doing
Liz Tigelaar: the same thing even though your title increases and hopefully your
Liz Tigelaar: pay. Everything you're doing is still kind of the same until you get
Liz Tigelaar: to supervising, co- EP level where you might be rewriting
Liz Tigelaar: scripts or really helping out with something specific or being
Liz Tigelaar: in post, you're a writer in the room and you're
Liz Tigelaar: all kind of doing the same thing. You might just
Liz Tigelaar: have more experience. So, what happened was I had been
Liz Tigelaar: on American Dreams, and then it got canceled and I
Liz Tigelaar: did not get staffed. And of course, I was a
Liz Tigelaar: wreck. I was like, " What do I do for money?" It
Liz Tigelaar: was like, I had been story editor and I didn't
Liz Tigelaar: know if I could go back to being an assistant,
Liz Tigelaar: because that's going to look weird, because I'm already a
Liz Tigelaar: couple rungs up and now I'm jumping back. But I
Liz Tigelaar: really didn't know what to do. And by some miracle, I ended
Liz Tigelaar: up selling my first pilot that year. Again, by some
Liz Tigelaar: other miracle, it ended up shooting in Vancouver. And so,
Liz Tigelaar: I ended up shooting this pilot. It completely changed my
Liz Tigelaar: career. Just to have had something shoot, and then Josh
Liz Tigelaar: Reims, who I had worked with on American Dreams, who
Liz Tigelaar: was such a guide and mentor to me... I mean,
Liz Tigelaar: he was so encouraging but he would also pull me
Liz Tigelaar: aside and told me what annoying things I was doing that I needed to really
Liz Tigelaar: correct if I wanted to keep moving up. Which is
Liz Tigelaar: a very hard thing to do, but it's kindness to
Liz Tigelaar: do that for someone. And he really did that for
Liz Tigelaar: me, and then he proceeded to hire me kind of
Liz Tigelaar: again and again on What About Brian and Brothers & Sisters, and
Liz Tigelaar: just always... Dirty, Sexy, Money. He just always really supported
Liz Tigelaar: me and my career. And so hooking up with a person like
Liz Tigelaar: that and being able to grow with them and really
Liz Tigelaar: emulate the way that they ran a show and ran
Liz Tigelaar: a room, and I really did that with Josh.
Jenny Curtis: And then all of that led to your first show
Jenny Curtis: running experience, which was Life Unexpected, which is such a
Jenny Curtis: cute show.
Liz Tigelaar: Oh, thank you. I loved that show. I loved that
Liz Tigelaar: group. The writers and cast, we're all still such good
Liz Tigelaar: friends, and we all felt really young, like we were
Liz Tigelaar: all just doing this thing for the first time. Up
Liz Tigelaar: in Vancouver, and it was an amazing experience. I remember
Liz Tigelaar: being in the writer's room and going... looking around and
Liz Tigelaar: thinking like, " Who's going to tell me hat to do?" And
Liz Tigelaar: I called Josh Reims, and he was like, " Nobody, it's
Liz Tigelaar: on you. And if anyone helps you, if anyone has
Liz Tigelaar: one good idea, they're doing you a favor, but it's
Liz Tigelaar: on you." And I was like, " No, I was terrified." I had
Liz Tigelaar: a great producing partner, Mary Beth Basile, and we all
Liz Tigelaar: had the best time doing the show. And it was like
Liz Tigelaar: American Dreams, kind of the best first experience doing that
Liz Tigelaar: that I could have hoped for. And I think unlike
Liz Tigelaar: Split Decision, my first pilot where I was so like, "
Liz Tigelaar: I'm so young and I'm so grateful to be there," and I'm like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Meep," Life Unexpected, I was really able to have more
Liz Tigelaar: of a voice and I don't mean to say stand
Liz Tigelaar: up for myself like I had to stand up to
Liz Tigelaar: anybody, but more like be able to voice what I
Liz Tigelaar: thought and not feel intimidated and know that my voice
Liz Tigelaar: was going to be kind of recognized and included and
Liz Tigelaar: that it mattered, and that just felt so empowering. It
Liz Tigelaar: was so nice to have a voice and it kind
Liz Tigelaar: of made me feel like, " What do people do who
Liz Tigelaar: don't have a TV show to say all this stuff with
Liz Tigelaar: every week?" I felt like I just got to pour
Liz Tigelaar: it all out into the show. What I thought, and yeah. It
Liz Tigelaar: was one of the best experiences of my career, hands- down.
Jenny Curtis: And it was on the CW, is that correct?
Liz Tigelaar: It was. It was on the CW.
Jenny Curtis: So, you had just come off of Melrose Place, also
Jenny Curtis: on the CW. Did that lead to the show, or how
Jenny Curtis: did that work out?
Liz Tigelaar: So, Life Unexpected got picked up but it was starting
Liz Tigelaar: kind of late, and I was in an overall deal.
Liz Tigelaar: So, I went to Melrose. I had gotten to be
Liz Tigelaar: a little bit of a fly on the wall of
Liz Tigelaar: the pilot of that, and then I came to just
Liz Tigelaar: write the second episode and moved on to Life Unexpected.
Liz Tigelaar: But somehow, I don't know. I got credited on all
Liz Tigelaar: 13 or however many there were. I was like, " Oh,
Liz Tigelaar: this is great."
Jenny Curtis: You did so much on this show.
Liz Tigelaar: I look very busy. But it was really fun, it
Liz Tigelaar: was a great group. And it was great to be under
Liz Tigelaar: those guys before I was off to run my own
Liz Tigelaar: thing, just Todd and Darren were great.
Jenny Curtis: The idea sprung basically because you are adopted yourself, is
Jenny Curtis: that correct?
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: How much of yourself did you put in this show?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, initially, I didn't really think it came from me
Liz Tigelaar: at all. I was thinking more about like Knocked Up
Liz Tigelaar: and Gilmore Girls and I don't know, I just kind
Liz Tigelaar: of came up with the idea and it wasn't until
Liz Tigelaar: it was already written and shot and we were staffing
Liz Tigelaar: the writer's room that Mary Beth, my producing partner, was
Liz Tigelaar: like, "This is a lot about you." And I was like, " Is
Liz Tigelaar: it?" And I didn't really set out to do it. It
Liz Tigelaar: just turned out to be that way, and then of course,
Liz Tigelaar: I did get to put a lot of myself into
Liz Tigelaar: it. And all the writers, every time someone new wrote, they
Liz Tigelaar: got to put themselves into it. So by the end,
Liz Tigelaar: it really wasn't just me, it was everybody.
Jenny Curtis: Yeah. So, it's write what you know, even when that's
Jenny Curtis: unintentional, is what you-
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, I guess so. Exactly. It's like, turns out I
Liz Tigelaar: don't know anything else.
Jenny Curtis: But speaking of working within a network, so then you
Jenny Curtis: did a whole string of ABC Shows. You were on Once
Jenny Curtis: Upon A Time and Revenge, and Nashville and the Astronaut
Jenny Curtis: Wives Club. But it feels like you were kind of
Jenny Curtis: sent there to launch the show, because you were in the
Jenny Curtis: first season of all of them. Is that kind of
Jenny Curtis: what happened?
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, so after Life Unexpected, I signed an overall deal
Liz Tigelaar: at ABC, and when you're on an overall deal, you kind
Liz Tigelaar: of get assigned to shows basically. And usually what they'll
Liz Tigelaar: do is they'll assign you to their first season shows
Liz Tigelaar: because we all know the first season's usually the hardest
Liz Tigelaar: to get off the ground. So, yeah. I went from
Liz Tigelaar: first season show to first season show and I don't
Liz Tigelaar: know. I mean, I hope I was helpful. I have
Liz Tigelaar: no idea. But I was there, and I got to do
Liz Tigelaar: a lot and be around a lot of different show
Liz Tigelaar: runners, again learn what I like, what I didn't like, what I
Liz Tigelaar: thought was effective, what I thought wasn't. I got to have
Liz Tigelaar: relationships with a lot of new people and just meet
Liz Tigelaar: writers that I hadn't known before that I really loved
Liz Tigelaar: working with, and then sometimes reunite with people who I
Liz Tigelaar: had known.
Jenny Curtis: What do you think was the biggest thing that you took away from doing
Jenny Curtis: that with all of the show runners?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, you know what? I think I would say that
Liz Tigelaar: I realize I need to be with my people. Some
Liz Tigelaar: shows, well, I'll just say it. Once Upon A Time
Liz Tigelaar: was a show that I loved, I love the fairy tale
Liz Tigelaar: world. I love the themes, but there were elements of it
Liz Tigelaar: that just weren't in my wheelhouse. They would refer to
Liz Tigelaar: a portal and I would talk about a hole. Or
Liz Tigelaar: I'd be like, " She falls down the hole," they'd be
Liz Tigelaar: like, "It's a portal!" And I'm like, " Oh, a portal." I'm just
Liz Tigelaar: not a portal person and so it was pretty obvious quickly
Liz Tigelaar: I wasn't a portal person to them and to me. So
Liz Tigelaar: that, though I loved them, that wasn't a natural fit
Liz Tigelaar: for me and I think that I realized, " Oh, there
Liz Tigelaar: are just people who like, we're going to speak the
Liz Tigelaar: same language and I'm going to know it's right because it's
Liz Tigelaar: going to feel right." I'm not going to feel like
Liz Tigelaar: I'm swimming upstream. So, I think I became a little
Liz Tigelaar: more choiceful when I went on shows to really not
Liz Tigelaar: just try to get the job, but to really investigate
Liz Tigelaar: what they were looking for so I could discern. I
Liz Tigelaar: might love the show and I might love the people
Liz Tigelaar: in that case, but I might not be the best
Liz Tigelaar: fit. I need to discern that for myself a little
Liz Tigelaar: bit. So, I don't know. That was something kind of
Liz Tigelaar: good to learn I think out of the experience of
Liz Tigelaar: hopping around. And that I just really needed to be
Liz Tigelaar: in an effective room where people listened to each other.
Liz Tigelaar: That was another thing. I would go on some shows
Liz Tigelaar: where it just felt like everyone was talking, but no
Liz Tigelaar: one was listening.
Jenny Curtis: Hmm. So then Casual, I read something where Zander Lehmann
Jenny Curtis: basically said him and Jason Wrightman and Helen Estabrook all
Jenny Curtis: kind of followed your lead because you had the most
Jenny Curtis: experience in television. Was that kind of a room where
Jenny Curtis: you guys all carried each other's weight and worked together
Jenny Curtis: as a team of show runners, kind of?
Liz Tigelaar: Absolutely. I mean, they hadn't done TV before, and so
Liz Tigelaar: I kind of got brought in as the experienced show
Liz Tigelaar: runner. I hadn't done a comedy before, so that part
Liz Tigelaar: was new to me. But yeah, Helen, Zander and I
Liz Tigelaar: really ran that show kind of in a three- pronged
Liz Tigelaar: approach. I ran the room. Zander controlled all the scripts,
Liz Tigelaar: and Helen really spearheaded set and producing. And so that
Liz Tigelaar: was a great partnership at the time, and I think
Liz Tigelaar: that I loved the... I mean, I would say mentorship with
Liz Tigelaar: Zander, but in a lot of ways, Zander mentored me
Liz Tigelaar: as much as I did him. It was really a two-
Liz Tigelaar: way street because he thought so much outside of the
Liz Tigelaar: box because he hadn't grown up kind of in that
Liz Tigelaar: box because he was so young. And he'd barely grown
Liz Tigelaar: up. But yeah, so I had a lot to learn
Liz Tigelaar: from Zander too. I really appreciated his approach to storytelling
Liz Tigelaar: and I really appreciated his voice, and I think he
Liz Tigelaar: stretched me to go outside the box a little more,
Liz Tigelaar: because I had grown up kind of in that network
Liz Tigelaar: box and structure. But yeah, I loved running that room.
Liz Tigelaar: I absolutely loved the writers on that show. So many
Liz Tigelaar: of them I've taken to do so many other projects
Liz Tigelaar: and that was a great experience. It was a really
Liz Tigelaar: particularly wonderful room experience.
Jenny Curtis: And that was your first experience with streaming, right?
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: So, what did you find the main difference was there
Jenny Curtis: in streaming versus network?
Liz Tigelaar: The biggest difference I think was getting to write almost
Liz Tigelaar: all the scripts ahead of time, was having like a three-
Liz Tigelaar: month lead instead of a six- week lead. So you
Liz Tigelaar: could find the show and if you had an episode
Liz Tigelaar: where you were struggling, you weren't having the weight of
Liz Tigelaar: production bearing down on you. You had time to find
Liz Tigelaar: the show and find the voice and find the rhythm.
Liz Tigelaar: Sometimes it can take four episodes in, five, six. And
Liz Tigelaar: so once we found it with Casual, it was just
Liz Tigelaar: such an easy show to do I thought, because we
Liz Tigelaar: knew what felt right for that show. We could just
Liz Tigelaar: feel it when we were in the room.
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Jenny Curtis: So, with Little Fires Everywhere, this is such a great
Jenny Curtis: show. Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington approached you with the
Jenny Curtis: book, is that correct? And then you turned it into
Jenny Curtis: the show?
Liz Tigelaar: Exactly, yeah. I had had a general meeting with Laura Neustadter
Liz Tigelaar: at Reese's company, because I really wanted to go on
Liz Tigelaar: Morning show, and we kind of had a general meeting
Liz Tigelaar: and I did end up going on Morning Show, but
Liz Tigelaar: in the meantime, this book had become available and they
Liz Tigelaar: needed a writer, and she sent it to me and
Liz Tigelaar: was like, " Reese and Kerry are starring in it, do
Liz Tigelaar: you want to do it?" And I'm like, " Of course." And
Liz Tigelaar: then I'm like, " Well, let me read it." But I
Liz Tigelaar: mean, obviously. And then I read it and I was like, " Oh my god, I love
Liz Tigelaar: the book so much. Even if Reese and Kerry weren't
Liz Tigelaar: starring in it, I would want to adapt this book."
Liz Tigelaar: I just, I loved it.
Jenny Curtis: The process in adapting the book, did you work with
Jenny Curtis: Celeste Ng who's the author of the novel? How did
Jenny Curtis: you find the show from what the book gave you?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, I read the book and I kind of instinctively
Liz Tigelaar: knew some areas that I might want to mine, some
Liz Tigelaar: questions I had, some places where I thought we could
Liz Tigelaar: maybe mine the story for even more story, and I
Liz Tigelaar: knew I wanted to maybe connect some story points a
Liz Tigelaar: little more. So, I just had a lot of ideas
Liz Tigelaar: reading the book. When you read something and it sparks all
Liz Tigelaar: this other stuff, that's obviously a good sign. So, it
Liz Tigelaar: sparked a lot in me and so I kind of
Liz Tigelaar: pitched out to Celeste how I saw doing it and
Liz Tigelaar: maybe where I saw adjusting or tweaking or doing this
Liz Tigelaar: or adding this element, and obviously, a huge element that
Liz Tigelaar: was added to the story was Mia being black. Because
Liz Tigelaar: in the book, her race wasn't referenced and the assumption
Liz Tigelaar: was kind of that she was white. So, all of
Liz Tigelaar: those things kind of contributed to the adaptation and I
Liz Tigelaar: really ran everything by Celeste and pitched it out to
Liz Tigelaar: sell it. And then it was breaking the pilot, which
Liz Tigelaar: I did first. And I put all the story deets
Liz Tigelaar: from the book up on the board, like Beautiful Mind.
Liz Tigelaar: Note cards everywhere. It looked like crazy, but I just
Liz Tigelaar: wanted to lay everything out so I could see it
Liz Tigelaar: really clearly, and then start to think, " How can things
Liz Tigelaar: connect even more? How can we take something in the
Liz Tigelaar: book that was maybe a little bit more insulated and make it
Liz Tigelaar: the catalyst for something else? How do we weave it
Liz Tigelaar: all together and how do we tap into this great
Liz Tigelaar: backstory in the book with all these characters?" And just
Liz Tigelaar: starting to think about how best to approach it. I mean,
Liz Tigelaar: that's the type of stuff I love. It's like putting a puzzle
Liz Tigelaar: together.
Jenny Curtis: And you can feel that, because you tackle so many
Jenny Curtis: scenes. You've got race and motherhood and ambition and identity,
Jenny Curtis: and just all of these really rich themes the actors
Jenny Curtis: and I'm sure writers want to sink their teeth into.
Jenny Curtis: Besides Beautiful Mind- ing on the wall, how did you
Jenny Curtis: apply that to the script and make sure everything linked
Jenny Curtis: together?
Liz Tigelaar: The biggest thing was deciding where the pilot ended and
Liz Tigelaar: what needed to launch us into the series. So, Mia
Liz Tigelaar: doesn't start working in the Richardson house until much deeper
Liz Tigelaar: into the book, but that was something we felt like
Liz Tigelaar: we really needed to pull up sooner to understand this
Liz Tigelaar: dynamic and how this was going to propel us into
Liz Tigelaar: the story. And so, he almost divided the season into
Liz Tigelaar: three acts like a movie, and then thought, " Okay, what's
Liz Tigelaar: act one of the movie and how is that propelling
Liz Tigelaar: us and launching us into act two, and then what's
Liz Tigelaar: the twist halfway through act two?" I mean, we really almost approached
Liz Tigelaar: it like breaking a movie script but then doing it
Liz Tigelaar: over eight episodes.
Jenny Curtis: Now, you said at the beginning that you were still
Jenny Curtis: finding your voice, or you didn't know what your voice
Jenny Curtis: was as a kid, as a young woman who-
Liz Tigelaar: I mean, I was a kid.
Jenny Curtis: But this show feels really different from your body of
Jenny Curtis: work. So, is this kind of finding a new aspect
Jenny Curtis: of your voice in the creation of it?
Liz Tigelaar: Definitely. I mean, it's almost like my voice has gotten
Liz Tigelaar: to grow up with me, which obviously makes sense. It's
Liz Tigelaar: my voice. So, I started as a kid, or writing
Liz Tigelaar: about kids and as I've gotten older, I've been able
Liz Tigelaar: to write what's important to me, and I think that
Liz Tigelaar: this was really the culmination of that. Life Unexpected was
Liz Tigelaar: at a certain time of my life and that was my
Liz Tigelaar: voice at that time. That was a time of being
Liz Tigelaar: in your early 30s and grappling with, " Are you going
Liz Tigelaar: to get married? Are you going to have a kid?" All that
Liz Tigelaar: stuff. This is a time in my life, of my mid-
Liz Tigelaar: 40s that's much more about motherhood and world view and
Liz Tigelaar: yes, of course examining things like race and class and
Liz Tigelaar: identity, all of those things. So, I think my voice
Liz Tigelaar: has luckily grown up with me, and I think sometimes,
Liz Tigelaar: you can get kind of pigeon- holed in stuff or
Liz Tigelaar: just you gravitate towards kind of staying in that younger
Liz Tigelaar: time. But for me, I think having the opportunity to
Liz Tigelaar: write a story about all different types of mothers in
Liz Tigelaar: particular, I felt very fortunate. It was incredibly meaningful, especially
Liz Tigelaar: at this time.
Jenny Curtis: Yeah. So, I'm probably going to dig into spoilers, so
Jenny Curtis: anybody listening to this show who doesn't want spoilers, probably skip
Jenny Curtis: forward to the end.
Liz Tigelaar: The house burns down.
Jenny Curtis: The house burns down.
Liz Tigelaar: There is a fire.
Jenny Curtis: So, it starts with a fire, and I actually went
Jenny Curtis: back and re- watched the first episode yesterday, and I
Jenny Curtis: didn't realize the first time I watched it, of course.
Jenny Curtis: It just goes right past you because you haven't seen the show
Jenny Curtis: yet, but the kids basically say Elena's going to throw
Jenny Curtis: her youngest kid Izzy under the bus, because of course
Jenny Curtis: she is. And then at the end, she doesn't. She
Jenny Curtis: takes the blame on herself. So, from the first minute
Jenny Curtis: of your show, you're setting up exactly what's going to
Jenny Curtis: happen. Was that in the book? Is that just how
Jenny Curtis: skilled you are as a writer? How did you find
Jenny Curtis: the arc that way?
Liz Tigelaar: In the book, Izzy burns the house down and you know it on the
Liz Tigelaar: first page. So, basically when they're sitting in the car saying, "
Liz Tigelaar: It's Izzy." They know it's Izzy. The twist that we
Liz Tigelaar: wanted to do in the show is that if you've
Liz Tigelaar: read the book, you think that it's Izzy. And you'll
Liz Tigelaar: probably think it's Izzy all the way through and then
Liz Tigelaar: we wanted to kind of twist it and say, " Well,
Liz Tigelaar: yeah. It was Izzy starting something, but they're really the
Liz Tigelaar: ones who finished it." And when you really look at
Liz Tigelaar: it globally, you could argue that Elena burned the house.
Liz Tigelaar: It's kind of how you define burning the house down.
Liz Tigelaar: Izzy wanted to burn the house down, or at least
Liz Tigelaar: the stuff in their room. The kids burned the house down,
Liz Tigelaar: and Elena metaphorically burned the house down. And I think
Liz Tigelaar: that those were the type of layers I think we
Liz Tigelaar: wanted to add to it because we didn't want the
Liz Tigelaar: ending to be exactly the same and I didn't want
Liz Tigelaar: it to just be like, " Oh, the person who you
Liz Tigelaar: think burned the house down burned the house down." And
Liz Tigelaar: it was very hard to earn it, but it was...
Liz Tigelaar: The journey to earning it was really fulfilling.
Jenny Curtis: So, Reese Witherspoon's character, Elena, she is the epitome of
Jenny Curtis: privilege, of white suburban mother who is incredibly racist but
Jenny Curtis: doesn't realize it. We love to hate her because she's
Jenny Curtis: awful. But also, Reese is so good at what she
Jenny Curtis: does that you find so much empathy in that character.
Jenny Curtis: I'm really wondering, do you consider Elena the antagonist, or
Jenny Curtis: is she something else?
Liz Tigelaar: That's a good question. It's interesting because we really tried
Liz Tigelaar: to approach it the way that Celeste approached the novel
Liz Tigelaar: of no one's the hero and no one's the villain.
Liz Tigelaar: I think it is easy to look at Elena and
Liz Tigelaar: look at her as villainous, and it's easy to look
Liz Tigelaar: at her especially now through a lens and say she's
Liz Tigelaar: incredibly racist. But I think Elena herself doesn't feel that
Liz Tigelaar: way at all, and I think a lot of people
Liz Tigelaar: who are a lot like Elena don't feel that way
Liz Tigelaar: about themselves. It was interesting, when we talked to Celeste,
Liz Tigelaar: she was saying, " Everybody knows an Elena, but nobody thinks
Liz Tigelaar: they are an Elena." And I think a lot of
Liz Tigelaar: us are Elenas, you know? A lot of us are well-
Liz Tigelaar: meaning white people who really think we are allies, or
Liz Tigelaar: who really think we've done the work. And this was
Liz Tigelaar: something we were talking about in the writer's room two
Liz Tigelaar: years ago. How do we explore not KKK members or
Liz Tigelaar: people marching in Charlottesville. How do we explore white liberal,
Liz Tigelaar: progressive women who really don't believe they have a racist
Liz Tigelaar: bone in their body, yet are doing all of these
Liz Tigelaar: things constantly that show something and reveal something different? And
Liz Tigelaar: so that was exploration and I think that what Reese
Liz Tigelaar: did was such a brave performance. Because I think she
Liz Tigelaar: used a level of familiarity to invite you into this
Liz Tigelaar: character that you think you know. Oh, it's Reese being
Liz Tigelaar: a perfect mother, being this type A woman, but where
Liz Tigelaar: she went with it to me was something I've never seen
Liz Tigelaar: her or anyone else go to that place in that
Liz Tigelaar: way before. I mean, where she gets in the finale
Liz Tigelaar: is so ugly but also raw, and really honest. And
Liz Tigelaar: I think there's something about honesty that's in a lot
Liz Tigelaar: of ways, so much better because it's clear. You know?
Jenny Curtis: And with her and Kerry having brought this story to
Jenny Curtis: you, because Kerry did such a phenomenal job with Mia,
Jenny Curtis: holy crap. I know it's a collaboration no matter what,
Jenny Curtis: but how much did you guide them in their characters?
Jenny Curtis: How much did they bring you the characters?
Liz Tigelaar: It was both. We kind of initially met and talked
Liz Tigelaar: about the characters, and I had ideas in my head from
Liz Tigelaar: them and then I really went off and went into the writer's
Liz Tigelaar: room and we all did the work together, me and
Liz Tigelaar: the writers. And they read scripts and weighed in, but
Liz Tigelaar: they were doing American Sun and Big Little Lies and
Liz Tigelaar: Morning Show. They were doing other things, and then once
Liz Tigelaar: their other things ended, the writer's room wrapped. Then we
Liz Tigelaar: were able to collectively say, " Okay, here are all eight
Liz Tigelaar: episodes. Let's really look at them." And it was really
Liz Tigelaar: rolling up our sleeves and doing a lot of work.
Liz Tigelaar: We examined Elena, we examined Mia. We kind of worked
Liz Tigelaar: everything we would want to work out in a more
Liz Tigelaar: macro sense, and then once we were shooting, we were
Liz Tigelaar: able to really go in a much more micro way
Liz Tigelaar: into each scene, and whether it was Reese talking about
Liz Tigelaar: just how teenagers in a house behave. Because she has
Liz Tigelaar: teenagers in her house, or it was Kerry with specific
Liz Tigelaar: ideas about Mia's dynamic with Bebe, or Pearl. We were
Liz Tigelaar: able to incorporate their own personal experiences kind of into
Liz Tigelaar: these characters. And a big thing from Kerry was Mia
Liz Tigelaar: being non- apologetic and not trying to make people okay.
Liz Tigelaar: Because I think as women, we try to smooth it
Liz Tigelaar: out and make it okay and oh, it's uncomfortable and
Liz Tigelaar: we're like, " It's okay, let's just get through it." And
Liz Tigelaar: to see such a strong woman, not to mention a
Liz Tigelaar: strong black woman who's like, " My job's not to make
Liz Tigelaar: it okay for you. If you dig yourself in this
Liz Tigelaar: hole, I'm not going to kick you down in it
Liz Tigelaar: further, but I'm not going to give you a hand
Liz Tigelaar: and pull you out either, because this isn't my hole."
Liz Tigelaar: And I think that that was incredibly powerful.
Jenny Curtis: Yeah, it was really interesting to watch, because you start
Jenny Curtis: out and you don't know the characters very well. And
Jenny Curtis: yeah, Mia's kind of unpleasant and you're like, " Why is
Jenny Curtis: she so rude?" And then as it goes on, you're like, "
Jenny Curtis: Oh, no. That's everything I want to be," because she just
Jenny Curtis: says what she says.
Liz Tigelaar: Well, and you realize how offensive Elena is being without realizing
Liz Tigelaar: it and how much Mia is... It is, it seems
Liz Tigelaar: like, paper cuts or microaggressions or however you want to
Liz Tigelaar: look at it. I mean, they're not even micro. They're
Liz Tigelaar: macro. And I loved the audience kind of feeling one
Liz Tigelaar: way and thinking they knew one thing about a character,
Liz Tigelaar: even to say, " Why is Mia so mean?" And then
Liz Tigelaar: to be like, " Oh, Mia's not mean, Elena is deeply,
Liz Tigelaar: deeply offensive, and if I didn't notice that, maybe I'm
Liz Tigelaar: deeply, deeply offensive." And same with Moody. There was so many
Liz Tigelaar: characters that we tried to do that with. Moody deserves Pearl,
Liz Tigelaar: and he's the good guy and suddenly, then being like, "Does
Liz Tigelaar: it matter what Pearl wants? Do we care or is
Liz Tigelaar: this just such a TV trope that the nice guy
Liz Tigelaar: finishes first or should, that we get sucked into that?"
Liz Tigelaar: You know? So, anyway, those are the fun stories to
Liz Tigelaar: just explore.
Jenny Curtis: The young Mia and young Elena was played by AnnaSophia
Jenny Curtis: Robb and Tiffany Boon who were so well cast. Oh
Jenny Curtis: my god, so well cast. Tiffany especially, her mannerisms, her
Jenny Curtis: facial expressions. She was the same Mia that Kerry was.
Jenny Curtis: Did they work together on that? Or did she come
Jenny Curtis: to the audition with that already prepped, or how did
Jenny Curtis: that work?
Liz Tigelaar: Both AnnaSophia and Tiffany came to set and really did
Liz Tigelaar: a lot of observing, and they each had different ways
Liz Tigelaar: that they did it. Reese would even read the lines,
Liz Tigelaar: record them for AnnaSophia, so she could get her inflection,
Liz Tigelaar: things like that. And then Tiffany just embodied Kerry in
Liz Tigelaar: every way. I mean, her mouth. It was eerie. I
Liz Tigelaar: mean, you kind of couldn't even believe it. I honestly
Liz Tigelaar: wish we could do a whole season with those two
Liz Tigelaar: as those characters, because they just encapsulated them so perfectly.
Liz Tigelaar: You really believed it, and I loved seeing who these
Liz Tigelaar: characters were before we met them in the pilot. You
Liz Tigelaar: know? This idea of the women that they were and
Liz Tigelaar: how they became the women that we knew.
Jenny Curtis: I do have a question about the photo.
Liz Tigelaar: Oh, the photo. Oh, no. I know.
Jenny Curtis: But it's such a stunning photo. So, your whole story
Jenny Curtis: revolves around this piece of art, that can sell for
Jenny Curtis: a quarter of a million dollars, and it is young
Jenny Curtis: Mia. But it's not young Mia. So, how did that
Jenny Curtis: happen?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, okay. I mean, the email chains, the discussions. So
Liz Tigelaar: you see the photo before you ever see Tiffany, and
Liz Tigelaar: when you see the photo, you have to know that
Liz Tigelaar: it's Mia for the story to make sense, because she's
Liz Tigelaar: looking at this woman pregnant, and crying. If you had
Liz Tigelaar: put Tiffany Boon in the picture, you would have been like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Who's this girl that Mia's crying about?" And then in
Liz Tigelaar: two episodes, you would find out, " Oh, that's young Mia."
Liz Tigelaar: It felt like the audience could more easily suspend their
Liz Tigelaar: disbelief of understanding that Tiffany, yes, is a different actress
Liz Tigelaar: playing young Mia versus the confusion of a picture of
Liz Tigelaar: Tiffany Boon, when it's important for the audience to know
Liz Tigelaar: this is Mia. So, what we prioritized was story clarity
Liz Tigelaar: knowing that the puzzle pieces of this were going to
Liz Tigelaar: be slightly confusing. Also, we had to shoot the picture
Liz Tigelaar: well before Tiffany was cast.
Jenny Curtis: Ah.
Liz Tigelaar: So we didn't even have a young Mia when we
Liz Tigelaar: had to shoot the photo. But yeah, I know. A
Liz Tigelaar: lot of discussions.
Jenny Curtis: That was just one little thing I wanted to bring
Jenny Curtis: up. But the photo itself though is stunning. So, what
Jenny Curtis: was the process in finding and art directing and making
Jenny Curtis: sure you had a photo that could believably sell for
Jenny Curtis: so much money, not just because it was a famous
Jenny Curtis: artist, but because it's a gorgeous work of art? How
Jenny Curtis: did you get there?
Liz Tigelaar: It was incredible. Our production designer Jess Kender, it was
Liz Tigelaar: working with artists. We had so many test photo shoots,
Liz Tigelaar: belly photo shoots, how should it be? And we were
Liz Tigelaar: just so thrilled with the finished product. I mean, the
Liz Tigelaar: photo for sure, but all of the art in the series
Liz Tigelaar: done by Connie Martin Trevino was so beautiful and just
Liz Tigelaar: so stunning and if it wasn't weird, I would just have
Liz Tigelaar: it on the wall of my home. But-
Jenny Curtis: Why don't you?
Liz Tigelaar: I know, there's a pill bottle that says Valium for
Liz Tigelaar: Elena, and it has little tabs on it that say, " Return Blockbuster.
Liz Tigelaar: Give Blood," and then something else funny, and I'm like, "
Liz Tigelaar: I kind of do want to bring that one for
Liz Tigelaar: my wall." But I mean, yeah. Just all of it. The art
Liz Tigelaar: was so stunning. That photo was incredible. We had different
Liz Tigelaar: photographers come in, but Connie, our main photographer and artist,
Liz Tigelaar: not just photographer. But yeah, the art was so important
Liz Tigelaar: and it was so important that it feel elevated and
Liz Tigelaar: real and like something that would sell. And yeah, we
Liz Tigelaar: had different artists. That was Pauline's photo of Mia, so that was
Liz Tigelaar: a different artist than what Mia's... So, there was a
Liz Tigelaar: lot of thought into who were the artists, not using
Liz Tigelaar: the same artist when it was supposed to be two different artists,
Liz Tigelaar: like the lens and the eye had to be different.
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Jenny Curtis: There's a storyline in the show, a major storyline obviously
Jenny Curtis: about adoption and you've said that you've drawn from your
Jenny Curtis: own experience and applied it to the story, but I'm
Jenny Curtis: curious to hear what your thoughts are on what the
Jenny Curtis: right ruling would have been in court.
Liz Tigelaar: Oh, I mean, I don't know. I honestly don't know
Liz Tigelaar: the answer. I feel like in some ways, there was
Liz Tigelaar: no right ruling and no wrong ruling because look, I'll
Liz Tigelaar: be honest, I came into it as an adopted kid
Liz Tigelaar: being like, " That baby is Linda McCullough's, she's been there
Liz Tigelaar: for 10 months, she's the mother she knows," and in
Liz Tigelaar: my mind, I was saying, " It's not about her nice
Liz Tigelaar: house and all the things she can afford her, it's
Liz Tigelaar: just that that baby is attached to her. That is a
Liz Tigelaar: long time for a child to be with a mother
Liz Tigelaar: figure and then to be taken away." And I still
Liz Tigelaar: feel that way. At the same time, I feel incredibly
Liz Tigelaar: protective of Bebe's character and Bebe's journey, because one of
Liz Tigelaar: the things we wanted to add to the book was
Liz Tigelaar: that Bebe was in the country illegally, because we felt
Liz Tigelaar: like it made it even more justifiable why she couldn't
Liz Tigelaar: just go to the fire station and say, " We need
Liz Tigelaar: help," because if she exposed herself, she might be deported,
Liz Tigelaar: her baby would still be here, and she might never
Liz Tigelaar: get back to see her again. So, that was an
Liz Tigelaar: element we wanted to add to it, but I think
Liz Tigelaar: just to really explore what it must feel like to
Liz Tigelaar: be in a country with no safety net, with no
Liz Tigelaar: support, with nobody you can turn to, not knowing the
Liz Tigelaar: language well, not having a credit card that you can
Liz Tigelaar: just put formula on. All of those things. I mean,
Liz Tigelaar: to really understand what no safety net looks like, because I
Liz Tigelaar: think a lot of people might not have much, but
Liz Tigelaar: to have nothing else aside from what she had, that's
Liz Tigelaar: different. And so, I think there was no happy ending
Liz Tigelaar: because either way, they both were deserving mothers, both doing
Liz Tigelaar: the best in their circumstances.
Jenny Curtis: In the same vein, but different, all the way back
Jenny Curtis: to episode one, Pearl's Poem states, " Can something be stolen
Jenny Curtis: if it was always meant for you?" Which obviously sets
Jenny Curtis: up the whole series. I'd love to hear more about
Jenny Curtis: what the discussion was on right or wrong in Pearl's
Jenny Curtis: sense with Mia.
Liz Tigelaar: Well, that was another thing. I feel like people could
Liz Tigelaar: so harshly judge Bebe but nobody was judging Mia in
Liz Tigelaar: that same way because you fall in love with Mia and
Liz Tigelaar: you understand. I mean, you look at Pearl and you say, "
Liz Tigelaar: Well, of course Pearl is Mia's baby," and yes, Mia did
Liz Tigelaar: something that I guess technically wasn't right, but how is
Liz Tigelaar: it not right to be with your own baby? And
Liz Tigelaar: that's what we talked about. May Ling will be a
Liz Tigelaar: Pearl in 15 years, and why would we not feel
Liz Tigelaar: that same way? And what really became an interesting discussion
Liz Tigelaar: was talking about how much good motherhood is tied to
Liz Tigelaar: being able to afford it. And I think that was
Liz Tigelaar: something in the room, and we also talked about... One
Liz Tigelaar: of the writers, Shannon Houston, brought up a really good
Liz Tigelaar: point. She said, " If Linda McCullough had a baby, two
Liz Tigelaar: babies of her own, biological babies, would we be so
Liz Tigelaar: convinced that she somehow deserves Bebe's baby?" And I think
Liz Tigelaar: the answer would be no. But somehow, she deserved it.
Liz Tigelaar: It's like, yes, she deserves a baby, but why does
Liz Tigelaar: she deserve Bebe's baby, and why doesn't Bebe deserve her
Liz Tigelaar: baby? So those were all the discussions that we had and
Liz Tigelaar: definitely modeling Bebe and May Ling after Mia and Pearl.
Liz Tigelaar: And I think what made it so amazing is that
Liz Tigelaar: there was no right answer. I mean, I don't think
Liz Tigelaar: you could say that Mirabelle wasn't Linda's baby. Of course
Liz Tigelaar: she was.
Jenny Curtis: Do you have a moment of Little Fires Everywhere that
Jenny Curtis: you're proudest of?
Liz Tigelaar: Oh, that's a good question. Gosh, there was a scene
Liz Tigelaar: between Mia and Izzy in episode seven, that really, really
Liz Tigelaar: touched me. Izzy was finding out that Mia had been with
Liz Tigelaar: a woman, and Mia was saying to Izzy, " You won't
Liz Tigelaar: swim forever." That was a moment I just like, every
Liz Tigelaar: time I saw it, when I was there for filming,
Liz Tigelaar: when I saw it in post, every cut, it just
Liz Tigelaar: guts me. And watching Megan, watching her eyes just well
Liz Tigelaar: up with tears, that was a moment that I felt...
Liz Tigelaar: Maybe it's not that I felt so proud. I just
Liz Tigelaar: felt so moved by that moment, and I think that
Liz Tigelaar: the bravery of the kids was something that I felt
Liz Tigelaar: really proud of for them, Lexi Underwood, Jade Pettyjohn and
Liz Tigelaar: that scene with Mia where she kind of really tells
Liz Tigelaar: it like it is. Gavin, like so many... SteVonte's break
Liz Tigelaar: up. I can just think of moment after moment where
Liz Tigelaar: I just had so... I felt like a maternal pride,
Liz Tigelaar: I think for the kids. And just how brave they
Liz Tigelaar: were, working with these big movie stars and how they
Liz Tigelaar: held their own and did the work and pulled these
Liz Tigelaar: performances out of themselves, and being so young. So, I
Liz Tigelaar: think I had a lot of pride in that, and I
Liz Tigelaar: think really behind the scenes, I had a lot of
Liz Tigelaar: pride of all the women working on the show and
Liz Tigelaar: all the people who were allowed to be mothers while
Liz Tigelaar: they were working. And that we got to work very hard,
Liz Tigelaar: and we also got to say like, " Hey, I've got
Liz Tigelaar: your back. Go home. Go get to your kid." You
Liz Tigelaar: know? I think those moments felt really profound.
Jenny Curtis: So, if you could relive one day on set, over
Jenny Curtis: and over and over again besides the Izzy scene, what
Jenny Curtis: day would you choose to relive Groundhog- style wise?
Liz Tigelaar: I think in the finale, the Mia/ Elena scene. It's
Liz Tigelaar: their final showdown where Elena comes to the door to
Liz Tigelaar: tell Mia she's out and Mia's like, " Yeah, you think?" That
Liz Tigelaar: dynamic, it was so... Any time Reese and Kerry were
Liz Tigelaar: together, it was so palpable. They both had it. They really
Liz Tigelaar: didn't need anything from anybody. They just were ready to
Liz Tigelaar: go toe to toe. And they were giving each other
Liz Tigelaar: all they needed. And so I think we were just
Liz Tigelaar: able to sit back in video village and just be like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Oh my gosh!" Like Kerry would say something that surprise
Liz Tigelaar: Reese, and Reese would do something and you just... I
Liz Tigelaar: mean, I could've watched that forever, and I think we
Liz Tigelaar: were all just like, " Oh, man. That was good. That
Liz Tigelaar: was good." And so much of it honored the book, which I
Liz Tigelaar: loved. It was hard sometimes to get dialogue from the
Liz Tigelaar: book into the dialogue of the show because the book
Liz Tigelaar: was so beautifully written, and you write a different way
Liz Tigelaar: than you speak. So sometimes, putting in dialogue could sound
Liz Tigelaar: a little false. But that was a moment where I
Liz Tigelaar: felt like we really could use the dialogue from the
Liz Tigelaar: book and that it could feel natural enough that people could
Liz Tigelaar: be speaking it. And so, I loved that too. There were
Liz Tigelaar: a lot of days I would love to relive. I
Liz Tigelaar: mean, sometimes when Funnel Cake showed up, I'd be like, "
Liz Tigelaar: Oh yeah!" Behind the scenes. We had a hawk once. I mean,
Liz Tigelaar: there were random things.
Jenny Curtis: Why did you have a hawk?
Liz Tigelaar: Well, because we shot in Pasadena, and there are crazy, wild
Liz Tigelaar: parrots in Pasadena that just chirp all night. And so whenever
Liz Tigelaar: we'd shoot at night, we'd have to get the set
Liz Tigelaar: hawk to come in and basically scare out all the
Liz Tigelaar: parakeets. So it was very exciting. I'm like, " A set
Liz Tigelaar: hawk? This is new."
Jenny Curtis: That is awesome.
Liz Tigelaar: Yeah, anytime we did big rain and big effects, there
Liz Tigelaar: would be an energy where you'd just be like, " Oh, what's going
Liz Tigelaar: to happen?" I mean, I loved those moments where they were about
Liz Tigelaar: to shut us down in two minutes, we had to
Liz Tigelaar: get the shot. We're like, " Are we going to get it?"
Liz Tigelaar: And you're just running on adrenaline, totally stressed, but you're like, " We
Liz Tigelaar: got it, we got it." I liked those moments.
Jenny Curtis: So, this has become one of my favorite questions and
Jenny Curtis: it's kind of piggybacking off what you just said, but what
Jenny Curtis: does it mean to you to have created a life
Jenny Curtis: in storytelling?
Liz Tigelaar: I mean, it's incredible to get to dive into these
Liz Tigelaar: characters. I mean, this was a good example of diving into
Liz Tigelaar: the topics of this show gave me the gift of exploring
Liz Tigelaar: myself. It challenges me with my own gut reactions and
Liz Tigelaar: my own biases and my own belief system and why
Liz Tigelaar: I have the belief system I have and it reveals
Liz Tigelaar: you, you know? And I think not only the subject
Liz Tigelaar: matter of the show, but being a show runner and
Liz Tigelaar: running a show and being in charge of people and
Liz Tigelaar: having to manage people and their feelings and their work, all
Liz Tigelaar: of those things challenge you as an individual and you
Liz Tigelaar: have to learn how to rise to the occasion, and
Liz Tigelaar: it reveals where you need to be better. It reveals
Liz Tigelaar: what you're good at. It reveals a lot, and so
Liz Tigelaar: I think that's just such a gift, and I honestly
Liz Tigelaar: don't know what I would do if I couldn't tell
Liz Tigelaar: stories for a living. I really have no idea. So
Liz Tigelaar: I'm glad it's slightly working out.
Jenny Curtis: Yeah, slightly.
Liz Tigelaar: (crosstalk) I'll be like, " Portal, hole, portal, hole!"
Jenny Curtis: Oh, Liz, it has been an absolute joy talking to
Jenny Curtis: you. You're such a delight. I can't thank you enough
Jenny Curtis: for joining me today.
Liz Tigelaar: Oh my gosh, thank you, Jenny. Thanks for having me.
Jenny Curtis: Anyone who hasn't watched Little Fires Everywhere, it's on Hulu.
Jenny Curtis: I'm sorry I spoiled most of it for you, but
Jenny Curtis: you should go and check it out. And good luck in the
Jenny Curtis: Emmy season!
Liz Tigelaar: Thank you! Thank you so much!
Jenny Curtis: Okay, thank you. Hollywood Unscripted was created by CurtCo Media.
Jenny Curtis: This special episode of the Stuck At Home series was
Jenny Curtis: hosted and produced by me, Jenny Curtis, co- produced and
Jenny Curtis: edited by Jay Whiting. The executive producer of Hollywood Unscripted
Jenny Curtis: is Stuart Halperin. The Hollywood Unscripted theme song is by
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