Speaker 1: Hello, Little Fires Everywhere Heads, LFE heads, Shaker Rights. Did
Speaker 1: we ever decided on a fan base name? Anyways? Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the final episode of Little Fires Everywhere, the
Speaker 1: official podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and we have
Speaker 1: a banger of a podcast finale for you today, Because
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this right after watching this series
Speaker 1: finale of Little Fires Everywhere, oh my word. I mean
Speaker 1: there's no way to cover it in a spoiler free way,
Speaker 1: but I was completely blown away by the final episode.
Speaker 1: Just really intense performances, incredible twist and turn writing, beautiful direction,
Speaker 1: just chefs kiss, amazing stuff, which is why for our
Speaker 1: episode today, we wanted to do what we all lease do.
Speaker 1: I know what happened behind the scenes from the people
Speaker 1: who made the show what it is, and today you
Speaker 1: are in for an absolute treat only hitters for guests.
Speaker 1: We have the author of Little Fires Everywhere and producer
Speaker 1: of the show, so lest In. We have the Little
Speaker 1: Fires Everywhere showrunner, head writer and executive producer Liz Tiglar,
Speaker 1: and we have the stars of the show. We're talking
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington, Race Witherspoon, and Rosemary DeWitt. I know it's
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff. And keep in mind we
Speaker 1: were originally going to have a big to do and
Speaker 1: a whole live event, but that was during the before times,
Speaker 1: and so for this interview, we are all on Zoom
Speaker 1: in full quarantine. So what follows is my interview with Carrie,
Speaker 1: Reese and Liz. And if you did not know, Carrie
Speaker 1: and Race are more than just the incredible leads of
Speaker 1: Little Fires Everywhere as Mia and Lena, they're also executive
Speaker 1: producers on the show, so their fingerprints and influence have
Speaker 1: been on this project since day one. We talked about
Speaker 1: the finale, building out the world of their characters working
Speaker 1: together for the first time and more so, let's take
Speaker 1: a listen. Welcome Liz Tickler, Carrie Washington, and Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 1: All of our viewers and then listeners of the podcast
Speaker 1: have seen the finale, and I'm very interested to hear
Speaker 1: from all three of you. Is there any viewer reaction
Speaker 1: that is like particularly like surprised you or touched you?
Speaker 1: I mean, even throughout all of the episodes, Aring Reese,
Speaker 1: what do you think? I mean, I think everything is
Speaker 1: so incredibly thoughtful and even people's strong any kind of
Speaker 1: strong reaction. Do you have anything even people hating Elena?
Speaker 1: It makes me so out of the work that we did.
Speaker 1: And we worked really hard to make sure the assumptions
Speaker 1: that you had about any character would be dismantled by
Speaker 1: something two or three episodes later, So it really challenged
Speaker 1: your assumptions all the time, and that we really listed
Speaker 1: such a beautiful job plotting that and being the architect
Speaker 1: of you know, pulling people in and then pushing them away,
Speaker 1: and um, it's just a it's a beautiful sort of
Speaker 1: emotional jungle gym that people are going on. And I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to see people's reactions to the finale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm so excited. Yeah, the ending of the series
Speaker 1: is slightly different from the ending of the book, and Louse,
Speaker 1: could you walk me through that decision making process. One
Speaker 1: thing was clear, which was there's this very humorous thing
Speaker 1: that happens at the beginning of the book, which is
Speaker 1: this iconic houses on fire, the little fires everywhere, fires everywhere,
Speaker 1: and you know in the beginning kind of on the
Speaker 1: first page that is he's the one who did it.
Speaker 1: So for a series, you know, it kind of begs
Speaker 1: the question, like if you didn't know Izzy was the
Speaker 1: one who did it, but even if all things point
Speaker 1: to Izzy, or the assumption is that it's Izzy, is
Speaker 1: there an overarching mystery to not knowing that answer that
Speaker 1: could be propulsive and compelling. Um. Then it became this
Speaker 1: great challenge to think, well, obviously we know it could
Speaker 1: be easy, but if it wasn't Izzy, who could it be?
Speaker 1: And I think we went on a real journey with
Speaker 1: that challenge, which at first, you know, thinking what would
Speaker 1: be who would be the most dramatic character that you
Speaker 1: would not expect to burn the house down that would
Speaker 1: have to go the furthest and have the furthest. Arc
Speaker 1: obviously felt like Elena, and that was what we kind
Speaker 1: of talked about at first. But I think all of us,
Speaker 1: the Carrie, reaese Um, Lauren and Player are producing partners
Speaker 1: and myself we talked about this idea of like is
Speaker 1: that real? Is that just too far for for this
Speaker 1: woman to go? Would any adult do this? There's obviously
Speaker 1: something about it that so you can really buy a
Speaker 1: teenager doing it much more than you can then a
Speaker 1: her own person would need to do that. And then
Speaker 1: as we you know, went on our journey with it,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking like, who could it be be Lexie,
Speaker 1: would it be Trip, would it be Moody? And it
Speaker 1: didn't seem like it would be any one of them.
Speaker 1: But then this idea kind of struck me of well,
Speaker 1: could it be all three? And what would it mean
Speaker 1: if it were all three? And could we take the
Speaker 1: spirit of the book, which is Easy wanting to start
Speaker 1: a fire, and could it kind of take on a
Speaker 1: life of its own, so that Easy starts it and
Speaker 1: the kids finish what she started and they have their
Speaker 1: own reasons from their own arcs for like lighting these matches.
Speaker 1: For Carrie and Reest, I guess I'm interested in your
Speaker 1: reactions to where your characters land and where they might
Speaker 1: go from here. Carrie, I feel really grateful that both
Speaker 1: Mia and Elena that they there, They had to have
Speaker 1: their illusion of control ripped from them, that they both there.
Speaker 1: There were real costs two in the secrets that they kept,
Speaker 1: in the ways that they were living their lives trying
Speaker 1: to control the world around them by controlling their children,
Speaker 1: that they both really had to they were forced to
Speaker 1: let go of that, and I think that was so
Speaker 1: beautifully designed by Celeste in the book and then really
Speaker 1: just dimensionalized and and glorified by Liz is just really
Speaker 1: so beautifully painted. Absolutely at the end of the show,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a sense of hope that isn't necessarily in
Speaker 1: the book. Boy, I just when I read the book,
Speaker 1: I bawled my eyes. You can't treat your children that way.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know this idea. I think we
Speaker 1: all kind of longed for our mother to understand us,
Speaker 1: our mother or whoever the parent is that raised you.
Speaker 1: You just you want that that unconditional acceptance. And Izzy
Speaker 1: doesn't get it. There's a lemmer of hope that Elena
Speaker 1: holds the feather and says Izzy instead of Isabelle. It's
Speaker 1: a big moment that Liz built in that It's like
Speaker 1: you're always longing for your parents to truly understand you,
Speaker 1: and and not just to understand you, but accept you.
Speaker 1: And it comes. You know, that's a for many many
Speaker 1: people in this world never happens. Yeah. I also I
Speaker 1: like this idea of na Um. You know that car,
Speaker 1: like taking that car from place to place, that car
Speaker 1: was her everything and literally driving that car was how
Speaker 1: she controlled Pearl's worldview. Um And to say to Pearl,
Speaker 1: like you get to decide where the car goes next
Speaker 1: Um and to be led two back to her home,
Speaker 1: even though she assumed that Pearl would want to find
Speaker 1: her dad, but she lets Pearl lead her somewhere equally
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and lets herself get out of the car to
Speaker 1: follow Pearl back into her her place of origin. Is really,
Speaker 1: I think, also hopeful. I really like the adjustments made
Speaker 1: from book Mia to show Mia, and I'm curious as
Speaker 1: to where some of those came about where, um, part
Speaker 1: of it's just flashing out her history more. But we
Speaker 1: you know, in the book she doesn't have a sex
Speaker 1: life really of any kind, and that was changed for
Speaker 1: the series. And so where where did that idea begin?
Speaker 1: A lot of that came from the writer's room and
Speaker 1: this you know, Liz and this phenomenal room full of
Speaker 1: just dynamic, intelligent, raw, courageous writers, and they decided early
Speaker 1: on that there was, you know, this sort of um
Speaker 1: image throughout history and literature of black women being a
Speaker 1: sexual and so they wanted to make sure that Mia
Speaker 1: that there was so missed read around her sexuality in
Speaker 1: her sex life, but that it was embodied more so,
Speaker 1: A lot of those traces really came from the writer's room.
Speaker 1: And their desire to have me to be fully realized
Speaker 1: on on your end, when you're kind of plugging into
Speaker 1: this character and preparing, where were you able to meet
Speaker 1: and understand her to build up the performance? You know,
Speaker 1: I just had an experience of her when I read
Speaker 1: her in the novel, and so I just felt like
Speaker 1: I was constantly climbing toward that, like there was kind
Speaker 1: of a soul of an understanding of her that existed
Speaker 1: outside of me that as I read the book, I
Speaker 1: saw her, I could smell her, I could hear her,
Speaker 1: and I was just constantly trying to work in my
Speaker 1: process to get close to that thing. Um that was
Speaker 1: that that I felt was this combination of what I
Speaker 1: read on the page and who why was the alchemy
Speaker 1: of that created this other thing outside me that I
Speaker 1: was just aiming for all the time, down to even
Speaker 1: like taking photos and and like embodying her art life too,
Speaker 1: which is so amazing. Yeah. I got to take photography
Speaker 1: classes and learned to be a photographer because I feel
Speaker 1: like there were things I would discover about Mia even
Speaker 1: just from that learning process. And there were you know,
Speaker 1: like even the way that she engages with people that
Speaker 1: that her chosen art form, you know, like Greece and I,
Speaker 1: our chosen art form is to like take on somebody
Speaker 1: else's entire emotional and psychological being and like surrender ourselves
Speaker 1: to live in somebody else's shoes and brain. And and
Speaker 1: MIA's chosen form of art work was really about like
Speaker 1: being on the outside, observing, capturing, manipulating, not giving herself
Speaker 1: fully over, but trying to transform how you see a
Speaker 1: supposed to transforming how you know how I see. So
Speaker 1: just things like that that could help me understand how
Speaker 1: she thinks. For reasons, I'm interested in how you were
Speaker 1: able to find a connection and build out a lot
Speaker 1: of depth in Bolina as well, where when we meet
Speaker 1: her she's kind of this quintessential upper crust white housewife,
Speaker 1: and then as the lawyers are are more exposed, she
Speaker 1: has this very rich in her life. What what drew
Speaker 1: you to her? And how did you build out that character?
Speaker 1: I always look at characters that we see, you know,
Speaker 1: you can read it very one dimensionally and and really
Speaker 1: see her as this very rigid person from a place
Speaker 1: at a time. But I always think of characters when
Speaker 1: I meet people who are so rigid in their ideology
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated with digging deeper. Where does that? Where
Speaker 1: did that come from? Where? What is that? Where did
Speaker 1: that ideology come from? There's something sort of interesting about
Speaker 1: that to me too. This in sense of entitlement, sense
Speaker 1: of protecting a bubble that she grew up in and
Speaker 1: that her children will grow up in. It's inevitable that
Speaker 1: the world comes in and what happens to someone who
Speaker 1: has that force field almost like a impenetrable idea of
Speaker 1: what is right and what is good. And it's all
Speaker 1: in the book. I mean, it's beautifully said in the book. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that she believes that people who behave the
Speaker 1: way that Mia does create chaos and they can burn
Speaker 1: the whole world to the ground. Um, and then you
Speaker 1: see obviously something else happens. But um, it's sort of
Speaker 1: it was fascinating. I have deep tender thoughts about her,
Speaker 1: as you have to in order to get inside these things.
Speaker 1: Is as Gary said, you have to have you have
Speaker 1: to have compassion and curiosity. And I I will say
Speaker 1: to you know, for people who you don't think of hers,
Speaker 1: they kind of love to hate her, which I totally
Speaker 1: get that too. There there elements of it of deep
Speaker 1: loss and sadness of her own identity. She was never
Speaker 1: allowed to explore her identity. Yeah, and I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it is kind of incredible over the course of
Speaker 1: the series to not just see so distinctly who Elena
Speaker 1: and who me are, but that they end up on
Speaker 1: the opposite ends of the conflict of the adoption storyline
Speaker 1: and of mailing. And you, you know, no matter who
Speaker 1: you agree with, you fully understand where they're coming from
Speaker 1: and why they're coming from that place, and that storyline,
Speaker 1: I mean, for just me as a viewer was one
Speaker 1: of the most fascinating and challenging that that I've seen
Speaker 1: in TV in a long time. And so as speaking
Speaker 1: as executive producers as well and as mothers. How how
Speaker 1: was navigating that story reliant for everybody over the course
Speaker 1: of production. Well, I mean, I don't know about y'all,
Speaker 1: but I've had the best conversations about it with people.
Speaker 1: I think it was always meant to illicit conversation, and
Speaker 1: I think there isn't a right or wrong or how
Speaker 1: we feel like I don't know, I would vastly wildly
Speaker 1: between who that baby would thrive with, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think people said to me yeah, what did the
Speaker 1: parents do wrong? I mean, what does that woman want
Speaker 1: the baby back? And and then you go, okay, well,
Speaker 1: but isn't her biology it's her biological child. What would
Speaker 1: And it's a very fantastic conversation. Yeah. There was one
Speaker 1: day once that it was very I think it was
Speaker 1: her first day she was working little Baby Molly, and
Speaker 1: the call she had said m Mirabelle. And I saw
Speaker 1: I heard some folks on set reacting um, and so
Speaker 1: I went to our amazingly sensitive, phenomenal line producer, Mary Howard,
Speaker 1: who I worked with on Scandal for seven seasons, um,
Speaker 1: and I said, I think we need to change it,
Speaker 1: I think, And we started labeling it as baby m
Speaker 1: on the call sheet because like whether to put may
Speaker 1: Ling or marabel on the call sheet was a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's didn't know that that's amazing. Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: because people, even just in the hair and makeup trailer,
Speaker 1: people were like, why is it? Why is it Mirrabelle?
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, well, let me go see
Speaker 1: what I can do about that. That story like cuts
Speaker 1: to the quick of what you believe, like like people
Speaker 1: hear that story or see that story and you have
Speaker 1: an immediate gut instinct based on not necessarily things as
Speaker 1: negative as prejudices or even as um obvious as biases,
Speaker 1: but just um, just based on your own life and circumstances,
Speaker 1: you will have a gut reaction to that story. I
Speaker 1: am an adopted kid. When I opened up that book
Speaker 1: and started reading, I was like, the mccullas are the parents.
Speaker 1: There's no way you can't have a little bit. You
Speaker 1: can't have been with their parents for ten months and
Speaker 1: then be ripped away. But of course what you do
Speaker 1: then as and that's how I came into the room.
Speaker 1: Other writers came in in the complete opposite way. And
Speaker 1: I will say, by the time we got done with
Speaker 1: the story, not that our paths had crisscrossed in that
Speaker 1: we were saying the polar opposite thing, but I could
Speaker 1: no longer say that that was the mcculla's baby, because
Speaker 1: once you understand the circumstances in which BB gave had
Speaker 1: to give up her child, you can't say she should
Speaker 1: be penalized for circumstances that are beyond her control. Now
Speaker 1: that the whole series has aired, what do you hope
Speaker 1: that viewers take away from having watched Little Fires everywhere.
Speaker 1: I had to train for this movie once where I
Speaker 1: was with in C Double, a multiple time champions softball
Speaker 1: coach from U C. L A. I mean, I learned
Speaker 1: so much from this woman, y'all in four months. It
Speaker 1: was like she was like another mother to me in
Speaker 1: certain ways. She said something so profound to me. She said,
Speaker 1: what parents don't realize is that their children's minds aren't
Speaker 1: aren't a dry race board, Like you don't get to
Speaker 1: say something and then take it away. You write on
Speaker 1: your child's mind with a sharpie. And it was so
Speaker 1: profound when she said it to me. I had a
Speaker 1: little a seven year old, a three year old, and
Speaker 1: she said, be so careful with what you tell them
Speaker 1: about who they are, who you are, what is possible.
Speaker 1: And I've always taken that to heart. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that That's one thing. There's so many things in
Speaker 1: this show, but I do think be you know that
Speaker 1: that is a cautionary tale. Be be thoughtful of the
Speaker 1: things that you say to your children, because they they
Speaker 1: take them in. It becomes it's very real for them.
Speaker 1: A phrase that I love is don't compare your insides
Speaker 1: to other people's outsides. This idea that you know, you
Speaker 1: just don't know what's going on for other people. And
Speaker 1: I love that, particularly in episode six, you really learned
Speaker 1: that Mia and Elena are much more similar than anyone
Speaker 1: They were like each other there in their younger lives.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important for us, particularly now, to
Speaker 1: have this understanding that there's more going on for people
Speaker 1: than we could have imagined, and that that could be
Speaker 1: a reason for us to be more patient with each
Speaker 1: other and accepting of one another rather than more kind
Speaker 1: of fearful and judgmental of one another. Absolutely, I think
Speaker 1: there's this idea that like, look, these two women were
Speaker 1: so immeler um, I mean, so different in so many
Speaker 1: ways but similar, and that they fiercely wanted to do right.
Speaker 1: They didn't see what they were doing that was so destructive.
Speaker 1: But the point is you teach your children what you know,
Speaker 1: and you hope that your children are going to take
Speaker 1: that and be even better than you were. And I
Speaker 1: think what's so beautiful about the and and then by
Speaker 1: that you are raising them to be better even with
Speaker 1: the good and the bad. And what I think so
Speaker 1: beautiful about this story is the end result is these
Speaker 1: two women raised these brave kids to not only transform
Speaker 1: their lives, but to go back and to transform the
Speaker 1: lives of their own mothers, to give them hope and
Speaker 1: give them what they're longing for, which is certain kinds
Speaker 1: of freedom and choice. And that's beautiful. I just hope
Speaker 1: that this is a conversation for people you know and
Speaker 1: and and that they if you identify as one character,
Speaker 1: that you're seeing the reality of a different character. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the real beauty of this show. I
Speaker 1: think it is really eye opening too, you know, as
Speaker 1: we become even more switched into our little bubbles. Remember
Speaker 1: there's there's others. There's so many different people out there
Speaker 1: doing the best they can with what they've got where
Speaker 1: they are. Well. Thank all three of you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us, and congratulations on such a beautiful show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Handsome She.
Speaker 1: Thank you again to legends Carrie Washington, Greese Weatherspoon, and
Speaker 1: Liz tag Alre. I now know what it feels like
Speaker 1: to be star struck over Zoom. And for the record, yes,
Speaker 1: of course I did uh fully dress up because I'm
Speaker 1: a professional, but yes, total honor. And I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see how recent carry collaborate next question mark, but
Speaker 1: white listeners, there is more more In addition to reason carry,
Speaker 1: Liz take a Laura Night got to speak with Rosemary
Speaker 1: de Witt, who plays Linda may Link's adoptive mother in
Speaker 1: the Little Fires Everywhere series, and she made some time
Speaker 1: out of her busy Quarantine schedule to catch up with
Speaker 1: us after the finale of the show aired on Hulu.
Speaker 1: Rosemary de Witt is a veteran actress and an adoptive
Speaker 1: mother herself in real life, so she has some truly
Speaker 1: amazing insight into Linda's storyline and character, and so I
Speaker 1: was very thrilled to speak to her about that, the
Speaker 1: finale of the show and more. Let's listen to our conversation, Rosemary, Liz, Hello,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us in in Quarantine. So, Rosemary,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction to the finale of of the
Speaker 1: story and particularly where where Linda ends. I appreciated that. Uh.
Speaker 1: For me, it was surprising the ending and it was complicated,
Speaker 1: and especially as far as a storyline that I was
Speaker 1: involved in. Maitlan has two mothers and you know that's
Speaker 1: there that's left standing at the end of the show.
Speaker 1: Going back to when you first read the book, what
Speaker 1: drew you to this part and to this project I
Speaker 1: was really also for me, I think I was drawn
Speaker 1: into Linda's journey with her sort of pregnancy and child
Speaker 1: loss because I think that often gets swept under the rug,
Speaker 1: you know, and it it often defines a mother not
Speaker 1: only how she builds her family often but how she
Speaker 1: then parents. So that's really what pulled me in to it,
Speaker 1: Like that's what was so heartbreaking to me was when
Speaker 1: she had to give birth to a stillborn baby and
Speaker 1: then you know, and she definitely it's what drives the
Speaker 1: fight of just not being able to endure that loss again.
Speaker 1: Were there any storylines, whether it was yours or others,
Speaker 1: that were particularly challenging. We have like all these different
Speaker 1: stories of actors and crew members going in with one
Speaker 1: opinion on an issue and then coming out with like,
Speaker 1: oh god, I don't know. And I was so moved
Speaker 1: by the young performers on our show, like they're all
Speaker 1: so talented. And for me, when I watched the show,
Speaker 1: I thought the breakup scene with Elena's eldest daughter and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, like that just broke my heart, you know,
Speaker 1: like you realize like a lot of people's hearts are
Speaker 1: in the right places, and the executions terrible or they
Speaker 1: were taught you know, maybe values that were suspect or
Speaker 1: you know, or they're just all working through and and
Speaker 1: just in general, the kids, you know, the children and
Speaker 1: the story just are really struggling to have their own identity.
Speaker 1: Liz and I can speak a little bit to just
Speaker 1: the kind of the Linda in the book, and then
Speaker 1: how Rose came in and like I think even elevated
Speaker 1: and deepened and made her even more nuanced. I think
Speaker 1: the Linda in the book, like her blind spots were glaring.
Speaker 1: Do not I did not like Book Linda at all.
Speaker 1: I don't think you root for Book Linda. When Rose
Speaker 1: came in, I mean, she is so winning and root
Speaker 1: for able anyway, but I felt like she brought this
Speaker 1: this humanity to this character and a care to this character.
Speaker 1: This was one of those where I never saw a
Speaker 1: writer work harder on a script in my life, Like
Speaker 1: the script was never finished in anything that popped up
Speaker 1: in the courtroom or any discovery, or if Carrie improvised
Speaker 1: a line or set a line in a certain way,
Speaker 1: and that could change the whole like where it landed,
Speaker 1: and then we could go over and whisper by the
Speaker 1: monitor and then say, I think Linda has to have
Speaker 1: a retort to that when she takes the stand. And
Speaker 1: so it was always very much in a live vital
Speaker 1: um process, and I think that really helped infuse it
Speaker 1: with a lot of truth because you both have experiences
Speaker 1: with adoption in your actual lives as well. I'm but
Speaker 1: that scene in particular of how did you approach that scene?
Speaker 1: The whole storyline has been polarizing and challenging for viewers,
Speaker 1: but that is where it kind of at all climaxes.
Speaker 1: How did you prepare for that? On on the writer's side,
Speaker 1: for you, Liz, and then for for your performance. I
Speaker 1: will say that courtroom scene, as long as it was,
Speaker 1: it could have been twice as long. It doesn't feel
Speaker 1: long though it flies by. It was one of our
Speaker 1: longer scenes, you know. I think the Lexie Brian breakup
Speaker 1: was our longest scene of the series, and the courtroom
Speaker 1: scenes were probably right up there with the longer sequences.
Speaker 1: And I think it was because there was so much
Speaker 1: to me. There was a balance of all the things
Speaker 1: we wanted to get across, and then there was a
Speaker 1: structural balance and arc to the scene that had to
Speaker 1: be like story balanced, you want, like a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: not like h E kg. It's so yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's incredible. Like whereas what were you pulling
Speaker 1: from and how did you prepare for seeing that? Like
Speaker 1: it's just so intense. Well, the writing was so good
Speaker 1: on our show, it was so the prep was usually
Speaker 1: really easy. What was tricky It was more the mindset
Speaker 1: of to now and what Like you said, both Liz
Speaker 1: and I have real life experience with adoption and just
Speaker 1: how much resource there is now and how much we've learned,
Speaker 1: And it was just kind of keeping that um mindset
Speaker 1: and not judging it and not making the characters seem
Speaker 1: not smart or ignorant, just because we've come so far,
Speaker 1: you know, around transparency and child's rights and truth, you know,
Speaker 1: and and um. So that was just tricky just never
Speaker 1: to sort of tip it too hard, because you know
Speaker 1: she did. Linda did have to have a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of slip ups, Like she had a lot of
Speaker 1: time to prepare are for this trial, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, she still had to have her blind spots,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like she couldn't become enlightened
Speaker 1: in that moment, you know, who knows what where she'll
Speaker 1: be um after you know, now that this audience knows
Speaker 1: what what happens, like, who knows what she'll take away
Speaker 1: from the experience, But in that moment, she can't know
Speaker 1: what she doesn't know. So that was always that was
Speaker 1: the delicate balance for just not tipping it. For you, Rose,
Speaker 1: if you could now go to the Linda character in
Speaker 1: n and and tell her anything, any any hot tips,
Speaker 1: I guess because my experience as an adoptive mom is
Speaker 1: so different, I would say that there is enough room
Speaker 1: for everyone at the table that you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: you don't have to fear of losing your child by
Speaker 1: having too many people love them. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: really amazing saying, crazy rich, complex landscape. So there's all
Speaker 1: these factors socioeconomic and privilege that are that are exacerbating it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would just tell her that, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be so scared. And then of course,
Speaker 1: you know, we have all these other forces. We have
Speaker 1: me as doing what Elaine is doing, which is ratcheting
Speaker 1: up the tension for these these poor women. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now that the series has aired and viewers have gone
Speaker 1: on the full journey with you, Liz, What are you
Speaker 1: hoping that people take away from um? From the series?
Speaker 1: From Your Baby? There's a lot of things. I mean,
Speaker 1: one thing is what we're talking about, which is there
Speaker 1: is no there is no perfect mother, UM, And we
Speaker 1: would never we never asked the question like who's the
Speaker 1: perfect father, who's the better father, who's the more deserving father?
Speaker 1: Like this is language that is is unique to the
Speaker 1: predicament of mothers, Like the way we judge mothers is
Speaker 1: so harshly and in essence, society tells us that to
Speaker 1: be good mothers we have to put every other part
Speaker 1: of ourselves away. Um, that all of that is rivaling
Speaker 1: our ability to be good mothers instead of fueling how
Speaker 1: we mother. And so you know, there are a million
Speaker 1: takeaways I could think of from the show, but I
Speaker 1: think that's one of them, that that the question of
Speaker 1: who's a better mother is is the problem? The same
Speaker 1: question to you, what are you hoping that people take
Speaker 1: away from the show at large? And also just Linda's
Speaker 1: storyline and journey. I always hope that an audience sees
Speaker 1: themselves in some of the characters or or feel seen.
Speaker 1: I really responded as well to me as storyline, just
Speaker 1: to that balance of the mother and the artist. Um,
Speaker 1: it definitely like just seeing all the struggle and the fight,
Speaker 1: we could all just you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: chill out just a little bit, like our kids are
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. Thank you so much, rose Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Liz Tigler and to Rosemary DeWitt for
Speaker 1: her time and her incredible, deeply moving performance. And in
Speaker 1: the interest of things going full circle, much like the
Speaker 1: series itself, I'd like to finish Little Fires Everywhere the
Speaker 1: podcast with the woman who started it all, Celeste Ng,
Speaker 1: who wrote the novel and later was a producer on
Speaker 1: the limited series. This is an interview that Liz, take
Speaker 1: Laura and I did with Celeste Ng from shortly before
Speaker 1: the series began airing, and now that everybody knows how
Speaker 1: the series ends, I am excited to share some of
Speaker 1: celeste thoughts on episode eight, So let's go back in
Speaker 1: time and take a listen. I think Lauren brought up
Speaker 1: the idea that you might shift how the the very
Speaker 1: very end of the show please out versus the book,
Speaker 1: and I was a little bit apprehensive, but I also thought, okay,
Speaker 1: this is it should be its own thing. I kind
Speaker 1: of like the idea that it might go differently, um,
Speaker 1: And so I was open to that, and there were
Speaker 1: a couple of different ideas flitting around, and I remember
Speaker 1: that I didn't actually know what you had decided. So
Speaker 1: I didn't know until pretty late whether it was going
Speaker 1: to be exactly like it was in the book, whether
Speaker 1: it was going to be unit sort of idea number one.
Speaker 1: You'd had our idea number two. And Lauren actually said,
Speaker 1: don't let anyone spoil it for you. Wait, wait until
Speaker 1: you see it on the screen. And so one of
Speaker 1: the big changes is that question of who set the fire? Right. Um.
Speaker 1: In the book, it's you know, I tell you in
Speaker 1: the first sentence that is he set the fire, and
Speaker 1: everybody kind of assumes is he set the fire? And
Speaker 1: then is he set the fire? Um? This is because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not a mystery writer. Um, I it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: In the first sentence, you know, is he burned the
Speaker 1: house down? Everyone assumes, as he burned the house down,
Speaker 1: and then at the end, is he burn the house down?
Speaker 1: And in the show it's much more open. At the
Speaker 1: very beginning, you don't know who burned the house down
Speaker 1: at Actually that present moment at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: show ends with you know, do you know anyone who
Speaker 1: would do this? And that's kind of the question that's
Speaker 1: hanging over the show, and Liz, I really like the
Speaker 1: choice that you all made to change how it goes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to talk about how
Speaker 1: you landed on that and why you decided to do it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we felt like you know, in reading it, I definitely,
Speaker 1: I mean I felt a couple ways about it. One is,
Speaker 1: I felt like it was maybe worth considering, not surprising
Speaker 1: the audience completely, but adding some elements where they thought
Speaker 1: it was going in one direction and then was going
Speaker 1: in another direction. I think, you know, just thinking about again,
Speaker 1: in a book, it's kind of one thing, but in
Speaker 1: thinking about adapting a series, you know, a central mystery
Speaker 1: can be a propellant, good thing to have, and of
Speaker 1: course in this book, I earned this adaptation and the book,
Speaker 1: I feel like in the book you have the mystery
Speaker 1: of me as secret of why she's helping Babe Um,
Speaker 1: and of of why she came to this town in
Speaker 1: the first place, and why she moves around, so you
Speaker 1: have an underlying secret of the book. Um, but we
Speaker 1: don't know that secret right away in the teaser of
Speaker 1: the pilot, and so we felt like not answering the question,
Speaker 1: leaving an open ended of who would do this would
Speaker 1: create one propellant mystery in the book, only to reveal
Speaker 1: slowly another building mystery. But then also I liked the
Speaker 1: idea of honoring the book in the way of, yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks it's easy. You know, lu thinks it's easy. Um,
Speaker 1: we're sort of ledge to think that it's easy, because
Speaker 1: she seems like the obvious suspect, right she she she
Speaker 1: singers her hair in the first episode, right where there's
Speaker 1: should we see her playing with fire? There's all these
Speaker 1: clues I like, not only surprising the audience in some ways,
Speaker 1: but I feel like what you came up with makes
Speaker 1: sense for the show as it's put together and as
Speaker 1: you get to see everybody's strands a little bit more
Speaker 1: developed that in some ways, everybody in that house had
Speaker 1: a reason to to want to kind of start things over.
Speaker 1: Everybody in that house had this sort of simmering resentment
Speaker 1: that they needed to kind of get out, um and
Speaker 1: let burn out in a way, And metaphorically, I like
Speaker 1: the idea that Izi has been this outcast in her family,
Speaker 1: she has never felt like they've supported her or that
Speaker 1: they understand her. And by the end of the show,
Speaker 1: when you see her siblings kind of acting in solidarity,
Speaker 1: it's almost like they are apologizing to her. It's almost
Speaker 1: like they're saying, you know, now we get you in
Speaker 1: some ways. It's almost like they're all standing together. And
Speaker 1: I really liked that idea that in the show, because
Speaker 1: Zi's arc is sort of more clearly defined um through
Speaker 1: the stories about her sexuality and scenes of her kind
Speaker 1: of arguing with her mother, that her siblings have finally
Speaker 1: understood her in a way that they hadn't understood her
Speaker 1: before exactly. And so then by the end you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: if this kid has been isolated and has been an
Speaker 1: island in this family except for Moody and really her
Speaker 1: connection with her father, which was also something we really wanted,
Speaker 1: then we thought, how can then at the end the
Speaker 1: siblings really change to see how Izzie has felt. How
Speaker 1: do they see their family through Izzie's eyes, and how
Speaker 1: do they see themselves through Izzie's eyes? And I thought
Speaker 1: about this kid who felt so adrift and this idea
Speaker 1: that they would do this as almost like a smoke signal,
Speaker 1: like this idea of like we're going to make it
Speaker 1: safe for you, like we are we are a unit,
Speaker 1: like we are going to be better than our parents were,
Speaker 1: which is what any new generation thinks. And then I
Speaker 1: also really loved telling a story. Well two things. One
Speaker 1: that Elena takes responsibility for starting this fire, not that
Speaker 1: she literally means I should be love that, but that
Speaker 1: she she recognizes that ultimately the responsibility kind of comes
Speaker 1: to her, that all of the things that have led
Speaker 1: all of her children to to kind of to do
Speaker 1: this really at a certain point it's rooted in her.
Speaker 1: And there is that sort of moment of of sort
Speaker 1: of like delayed realization, which really I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: one moment right in in real time, but it spans
Speaker 1: the whole show. It goes from the very opening moments
Speaker 1: to the very closing moments of the show. That's how
Speaker 1: she realizes that she has been sort of the architect
Speaker 1: of her own destruction. In that way, I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: And we talked about that idea of that space between
Speaker 1: when he asks the question and when she gives her
Speaker 1: answer as her memory, and that this whole show has
Speaker 1: been seen through the lens of her memory and understanding
Speaker 1: that she started the fire. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: great like kind of into the woods quality of it,
Speaker 1: where it doesn't make anyone solely responsible, but everybody is
Speaker 1: accountable because you know what, Bill started the fire too,
Speaker 1: and so did Mia by coming to this town, and
Speaker 1: so did correctly, and so did all those kids, and
Speaker 1: everybody started and so did Elena's mother by being your mother,
Speaker 1: and and I think that was it felt um, it
Speaker 1: felt global, and it felt like this kind of umbrella,
Speaker 1: like thematic umbrella that could be over the whole show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll I think it'll be really fun too for people
Speaker 1: who have seen the book too in some ways be
Speaker 1: be surprised by this in the same way that the
Speaker 1: characters I think are surprised by that. And and it'll
Speaker 1: be fun for them also sort of to go, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, why did they do that? To think about
Speaker 1: what that means and and all of the sort of ramification.
Speaker 1: As for the show, it is this moment of solidarity
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen in the book. In the book, is
Speaker 1: he is really much more alone? I think her brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters maybe get her, but she doesn't know that
Speaker 1: they do. And in this in the show, it's sort
Speaker 1: of gratifying that there is this this moment where she
Speaker 1: realizes that they're with her and that they support her,
Speaker 1: and that she isn't maybe as alone as she thought
Speaker 1: she was. Thank you again to Liz tiggle, our In
Speaker 1: Celeste In, as well as Rosemary DeWitt, Reese Weatherspoon and
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington and my gosh, everybody that marks the end
Speaker 1: of Little Fires Everywhere, the official podcast. I've been your host,
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, and I want to thank you and everyone
Speaker 1: for taking this behind the scenes journey with us to
Speaker 1: this incredible limited series. You can still follow us for
Speaker 1: all things Little Fires Everywhere in terms of updates at
Speaker 1: Little Fires Hulu and until next time, we'll always have
Speaker 1: Shaker Bye. It's got a prisident at coming in the
Speaker 1: d again.