Flashback

Mia and Elena, there is a lot going on. And if you're not giving recent Carrey's reactions in every scene at this point, I don't know you. Today on the pod, we're going to be talking to a lot of incredible people. We'll be talking to production designer Jess Kender, who brought a Lena and MIA's passed to life, including rebuilding the

nineteen eighties art scene in New York. Will also be speaking with Liz tigg Lart, the Little Fires Everywhere showrunner, head writer, and executive producer, about building out this area of the show's world. But first, I was so excited to sit down with the two fabulous actors who played the eighties era Mia and Elena, Tiffany Boone and Anna

Sofia Rob, respectively. I got a chance to sit down with them ahead of the Little Fires Everywhere premiere, and if you've seen the episode, you know that they are incredibly talented, but guess what, they're also super nice. Here's a little bit of our conversation. Oh okay, So first, if you could both introduce yourself and just say your character, name of you wonderful, and then we'll just start talking. I'm Tiffany Boone and I play young Mia, I'm on

A Sophia Rob and I play young Elena Richardson. Awesome. Okay, So, Anna, Sophia and Tiffanya so excited to have you both here. This episode is being released the same week that we have now both met both of you. Um and your backstories. So I guess I wanted to start with what was your because um a lot. I mean, there's some of the Mia story included in the book, and none of the Elena story included in the book. So kind So what we're both of your reactions to first reading what

happens to your character? Yeah, so the young Elena storyline, it felt so natural though I think that's what I was. I mean, I wasn't surprised by that, but I thought the author the writers did such a beautiful job in

turning this sort of like snippets of Elena. I think there's like there's a passage of her talking about her relationship with Izzy, and we change it a little bit in the show to talk more about sort of um a slightly like unwanted pregnancy and then go deeper into that, and I think they really it's a it's such a different version of Elena, and we see her completely like unraveled and then have to like ravel herself back up.

And so I think it's a really good opportunity to understand why she becomes the way she does and her sort of like desperation to have control because she knows what will happen to her if she thinks about the

things that she could have been for me. There's certain things that are tangle in my brain between the book, in the script as far as um, as far as her story so um, but reading it, I was just like so interested in exploring how MEO, when she gets older, becomes this tough person to break through to, you know, and so to see all the challenges that she goes through, and it opens the audience up to like feel empathy

for her um finding out her backstory. And that's interesting to me to be able to like just to read that and learn that, and then to be able to bring at to life and hopefully bring even more humanity to the characters so that people can understand why she makes some of the choices she makes. That was just

really interesting to me. I mean, you both do so so incredible, and when you see your performances transition into Recent Carry, I feel like it almost for me double down and like, wow, they really killed it because the way that you both clearly took on the other actors mannerisms and their interpretation of the character, and you know, and and not even just doing like a copy paste of Recent Carry, but like it just it was so thoughtful and wonderful, and I'm glad that it was edited

in a way that really like showed what an amazing performance both of you gave. Thank you, right, I was like, I don't know when thank you? So I guess I guess the obvious thing that everyone is interested in is how did you prepare to play younger versions of Recent Carry. What was the prep process for that for both of you? For me, I keep saying that I feel like I had and I'm sure you feel the same way. Um to Carry. I've been a fan of hers for so long, you know, Like I have been a fan since before

she like everyone knew who she was. I watched her in this independent film called Lift and like two thousand five, and I would watch that film over and over again, and I've been a fan ever since. And like, I think she's a very specific actress. She takes a part of herself to every single character, but then like changes certain things, and so I've always kind of watched her process.

So when we started working together, I had a conversation with her about the way she looked at the character and you know, her thoughts on it and everything like that.

And then for two or three weeks I was just on set watching her scenes and taking notes of like her hand movements and her mouth and how she moved her head, and but trying not to mimic her as much, just like finding where the motivation for the stuff comes, because like I could just go in some hand movements or whatever, but I was trying to figure out, like choices that Carrie would make about the character, like, Okay, at this moment, she heard this line, and she took

it this way, and she thought of it this way. And so by the time we got to my first day of shooting, I kind of just felt like I didn't have to think. I literally felt like I was thinking as Carrie as she would think the character. That makes any sense. So I really just thought of it as getting inside of Carrie's brain in a really strange way and just trying to live there for three weeks. That sounds really cool and really intense. Yes, yes, yes,

and then what about you? Weirdly similar, Actually, Reese has been one of my idols for forever. I am also a child actor, so like I watched her movies when I was a kid, and and so I feel like I like watched her sort of grow up, and so

like knowing her sort of mannerisms and her voice. And as soon as I got the audition, I listened to her book on tape and I would just like listen to her voice and her cadence and sort of like came on set, I would just sit at Video Village and watch Reese like I had a bunch of conversations with her, and she said, well, she's probably deferential to men, definitely like white privilege, and just in the sort of the intentionality of how she speaks, she made specific choices

like definitely with this character and watching her where she would sort of squint and it's like this judgment of like I'm judging you, but I still am your best friend. And I remember Reese saying, I feel like Elena would join any club, but she'd have to be the president of that club. That was really helpful for all the scenes where she's really put together. But then I was asking Reese about I was like, I'm not a mom. What is it like to have mass sitis? Have you

had like have you had postpartum? Like what is this? And she was just saying like, imagine just your hormones just being absolutely wild and literally like if she was like if anybody touched my baby, I would I would

scream at them and this sort of like explosiveness. And so watching her on set, listening to her voice, she also recorded her lines my my lines for me because I wanted to hear her sort of like, well, I was just like I don't want to this up, you know, I was like, I was like, I might as well just ask and see if she and she did, and I was like, this is absolutely amazing. So I felt I felt creepy, Like I felt like I would watch her like a creepy amount. Did you feel that way, Tiffany?

Like I just felt like I was just like shadowing her every move, listening to her voice, watching her face constantly trying to be respectful, but I'm also just trying to do my job. It'sionalon creepy them. I feel like a lot of times I would like not even tell Carrie when I was on set. I don't know if somebody else would, but I would just like I would never say I wouldn't even say hai to her. I just show up, watch and leave and that be it.

Because I also didn't want her to feel like she was being watched, you know, like I just wanted her to like totally have she just still had a job to do, you know. So I was just kind of like, Okay, I just want to make myself like a ghost pretty much. Like it's weird how I don't know. I had this experience on set, that imposter syndrome because you're playing a Verton or like playing a version of somebody who is one of my like idols and then I'm playing this character.

It was also just such a great experience. I was like, Okay, I'm going to watch Reese. I'm going to be able

to soak all of this up. But what I didn't realize is I've never been on a set with so many supportive women and having like challenging conversations about motherhood and about class and about race and figuring all of this stuff out and constructing these characters and what they want to do, and watching being able to sit there and like do my job as an actor, but then also thinking, wow, this is one of my favorite sets I've ever been on in terms of like watching women collaborate,

like so women. Yeah, yeah, I've never actually I have to actually amend this because I've said I've never been in a on a show that like where the video village was all women. I actually have one other time, but let me tell you it did not go like this. And it's because and it's because like it's not like they're not just having women there just to say they

have women there, you know what I mean. Like sometimes it's like, oh, let's fill a quota, and let's say like, oh, we're being so progressive because we have a bunch of women here and whatever. And it doesn't always work because the women don't work with integrity and they don't necessarily care about the work, and they don't necessarily care about supporting other women and like and like doing the highest

quality of work that they can. And these women, like, like you said, we're just so supportive, insanely supportive of what we were trying to do, trying to make sure that we were feeling our best and feeling like we were doing our best work, but also like just being like badasses and like running the sets so well and just it's one of the most inspiring um situations I've been in. Well, it didn't also, it didn't feel just like a, oh, we're making a TV show. It's where

what is this show saying? Letting every single character like speak for themselves, but having like empathy for each of those characters and bringing them to full life, which I think is is one of the best parts of the show.

And it seems like challenges for both of you specifically where you know you're you're each in this one episode and you have to pack so much empathy and moments where both of your characters aren't necessarily likable for the entire you know, quote unco quote likable and in the decisions that they make, because you're also playing a time period where I'm pretty sure neither of you were alive or but what was your initial in for being able to empathize with your character at the point that they're

at in the flashbacks? When developing roles, like growing up in theater, our teachers would always be like, you just don't get to judge your characters. That's all understood. You don't get to judge them because the second you start judging them, you're not going to be able to do them justice. I mean, I don't know if I'm delusional because I was playing the part, but every decision she made still make sense to me. But because I that's when I was living, you know, that's what I was

living as, and it made sense to me. She was desperate and you know, was losing so much all at once. She's young, and she's you know, so dedicated to her art, and she wants to prove herself, and you know, all she's falling in love. All these things are happening. I think what was helpful for me is visualizing Elena's story is this sort of tightly wound little like spring, and then there's this part in her life that just like you know, she's she goes to college, she has this boyfriend,

her plan, she goes to Paris. Then there's this period in her life where she thinks it's going and then it just like completely just like unravels. It's just like splatter paint. How do you clean that back up? Like what would it feel like if I had a baby and the baby needs to eat and the baby won't eat and my boobs won't give it, Like it's nothing is working the way that it's supposed to, and feeling like everything is just on top of you and crumbling

and you're fully coming apart. Absolutely, I really loved that edition of Elena having difficulty producing milk and like you're saying, her body not working quote unquote the way it was supposed to in these circumstances, because that really connected her too. I think e b and her storyline and it's like that's something as we the audience now, like, oh, Elena

and Bibe have so much in common. They would have so much to talk about if Olenna, we're willing to have that conversation within the series, we're talking about motherhood, but it's also motherhood in class and like, so she's life is hard for her, but it's not as hard for her. It's like, oh, her, she's getting a remodel in her kitchen. She can still afford to get as much formula as she needs. But it's just, UM, it's

that failure to see the other side. I've been asking everybody this question towards the end of an interview because I'm just everyone has a slightly different answer that I think is very interesting. UM, coming from your perspective of um, where you come into the show and what your connection to the character is. What do you hope that viewer

takes away from watching this show. I feel like, if there's thing is about a certain character that upset you, tease that out, like with a friend, or talk about it and be able to sort of have those hard conversations about motherhood or about like if you can afford to have a child but you don't necessarily want to, how are you judging that character? Like that is a very sensitive, hard conversation to have, But I think it's worth rather than just like watching it and going and

moving on with your life. I think it's meant to sort of be talked about in a broader sense, and I think there's so many moments like that throughout the series. Yeah, I just feel like it raises so many really hard questions about class and race and intersectionality. Like it's just like it raises so many questions that I think are really hard for women to have, especially like black women

and white women. Yeah, I think it's really hard for us to have conversation stations about our experiences where we don't get defensive when we're really listening to each other

without bringing guilt into it. You know. It's just just from the point of view of playing Mia and a young black woman who comes into this world where she thinks she's the only one, the only outsider, and she's struggling to find her play and she has no money, and there's so much just in this this one character, and every character has that much going on, which is

so amazing, you know. I mean, I just really hope that people who don't normally see themselves in a person of a different race or uh, different sexuality, you can watch this and go, oh, okay, I can see myself in this character, and maybe that will open them up to reaching out to someone who doesn't look like them or isn't in the same classes them and opening up a conversation and having those hard conversations and hopefully doing the work to you know, build their community out from that.

That's so you both killed that answer. Yeah, and and thank you so much for sitting down with me. I truly cannot compliment both of your performances enough. You were both so wonderful. So congratulations. Yes, amazing job, and thank you so much for making the time to sit down with us. Thanks so much, thank you, thank you, Thank you so much to Anna, Sophia and Tiffany for talking with us. And oh my gosh, what performances. It takes more than masterful performances to sell the fully fleshed out

flashback world we see an episode one of six. It also takes incredibly detailed production design. So next I decided to speak again with the Little Fires Everywhere production designer herself, Jess Kinder, who took on not just making an older version of Shaker Heights, but of New York City as well. Through some of our conversation. I'm Jess Kinder, the production designer of Little Fires Everywhere. Hey, Jes, how are you good? Okay? I am so excited to be talking with you again.

I mean, there's so much to discuss. I mean, I have a lot of questions about the production design process. You're not just creating a period piece. You're creating a period piece twice because you have nineties Shaker and you have eighties Shaker. So I guess to to backtrack a little, what was your research process for building out this world?

I felt like the script was very, very clear on who the characters were, and so it was just as soon as I read it, I could see in my head what things should be, and it was a matter of just finding a way to present to the group like this is what I see. And so I ended up for Elena what I really felt like because my my dad was raised in Cleveland, we would go every year. Um. He actually had a paper out and Shaker heights, um.

And so in my mind, the sort of level of affluence that we were trying to go for is this group of people who, while they're in the Midwest, they emulate almost more of sort of the New England vibe.

So I pulled a lot of like Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley and those type of vibes, and I tried to think back to when I was graduating college in n and like what was popular then, And so I started looking at like the Ethan Allen's because it's sort of this level of they don't have quite the level of money to go outside of the normal box you would look within, but they have enough money to go

to the higher end places. Um. And when I started pulling those, I was actually pulling reference of interiors of actual Shaker Heights houses on like the MLS. And one of the times where I was like I am on the right track as I pulled a photo of a dining room from Shaker Heights that had the exact same dining set as the Ethan Allen ad I had pulled to pair with it. Oh, So it was like You're like, oh, it's it's totally spot on that this is what they're

emulating exactly. Is a very like I don't know even and I feel like it reads so well in the sets that you designed of just like a very like Clinton era upper crust wealth look. Yeah. So I guess this is still this applies to the nineties and the eighties. But you shot the show in California, So how did you how how does that work? Cutting because it's you would never know. I mean you literally brought Ohio to California. Where do you start, Well, you start with a great

location manager. So we have Baroni Vowel, who's fantastic UM and she's been doing it for decades, and so if you say we need to do east coast, Midwest here, she knows where to go. I've been lucky that I have also been working only in l A because I had two kids and decided I wasn't going to travel, and so I've been on a few shows that have done that, so you already know the basic pockets that can pass. And then we needed to sort of fine tune it down to Shaker Heights, UM. And so we

actually scouted Ohio. Uh, so we didn't even have to just go off of pictures and honestly, I've been going there since I was born, UM, and so we knew already what type of house we were looking for Elena, and we knew general area where it might be, and so we just scouted around until we found it. Um. In fact, that started with Jason Kaplan, who was trained by Vernick. She came on just a little bit later. Yeah, so he found that um, and then we sort of picked.

It's funny what we ended up with our Shaker Heights is almost a little more idealistic than the actual Shaker Heights. UM. It's we picked an area that when you picture in your mind sort of the most beautiful, warm, friendly downtown, you know, with the clock, and it would have the church people, and it would have all those things. We found that made it into our Shaker Heights where their square is. Actually it's not quite that, it's almost one

step below. But we were sort of creating this ideal world that then you find out is getting eaten away from the inside right right where you're just like it's it's so perfect that it almost comes across a little sinister sometimes. So we we talked a little bit in our last episode about your choices about setting this Shaker in the nineties. So then when we do the flashback episode, we also get a glimpse, you know, around the time that Elena is pregnant with Izzy, so you just sort

of you know, d aged the place. So what is that process of we know what this place looks like in okay, how did it look in four? So what I loved about that is, honestly, the exteriors remain basically the same, except the cars in front of them change because exteriors don't age in the same way that interiors do things. I don't think the car is yeah, but the interiors was fantastic because we got to see the apartment as MIA's apartment and then what it looked like

in Elena's world before Elena fully came into Elena. So we got to play around with eighties stuff, which was fun, but for me seeing the apartment have a different character was almost more exciting. And then when we went into her house to see it as her mom's, we took that back more to like the sixties seventies, which is super fun time period to do, and watched her and the control that we see that she normally has, Like if you look around, she would never be in that kitchen.

What we did to it, it was fun to see her dropped into that environment. And then even I mean I liked the addition by by the writers, but the way that you brought it to life was so cool of like the remodel where you literally see the constructed world from the nineties. Her in the process of making that happen is like such a cool character beat to visually see. And then and then we have this whole other set piece of New York in the eighties that

sounds like another huge kind of undertaking. So when you read the script of Okay, this is where we are in New York, this is this is the scene we're in. She's a student. What was your preparation process for bringing that to life? Well, the the great thing there was So I was raised in Jersey, right across the bridge from Manhattan, so I came up in the eighties. Um and And Zingard, director for that episode, has a super clear vision of ways we were going to accentuate the eighties.

For example, if you look, we kind of controlled the color palette. They're a little bit more like it's much more black, white and red, which is sort of what I think of. You know, it's funny. I actually we originally had some scenes that were going to be in the Bronx, and I thought, you know, it's like the

Boogie Down Bronx time. Except it turns out that came like one year after we were doing But it was one of those where it's such an evocative time when New York was still dirty and still gritty, and uh, there are so many strong visual references um with and Zinga leading it. It was. It was a very easy translation to see, you know, graffiti everywhere, but let's play with these highlights and this rawness and it it came together really easily. Absolutely, thank you so much for taking

the time, Jess. We appreciate it. Thank you again to Jess Kender, creator of Worlds. And to round out this flashback themed episode, I wanted to talk to Liz Tigelaar again. So if you don't remember, she is the wonderful showrunner, head writer, and executive producer of Little Fires Everywhere and put a lot of care and thought into building this

flashback world that doesn't really exist in the book. So Liz was kind of enough to sit down with me recently and walk me through what that process is like, and I wanted to share it with you. Here's our conversation. One of the things that was so cool about the book obviously was the like humongous reveal of the mystery of me as backstory, and I think we knew when we did UM, when we got to that episode, we knew we needed an equal reveal of an Atlanta back story.

So that was something that we really talked about. And in terms of jumping around in time, like you said, UM, we always wanted to do these kind of unique nonlinear cold opens to start to get us in this feeling that we could be jumping around in the beginning, and of course that cold open would be resonant to what the theme or um, the plot of that upcoming episode was or whose character story was featured and UM, so that by the time we get to six, it's our

flashback episode. And what ends up happening is you start with your nonlinear cold open, and our idea was that you just never come out of it. So you're we're telling the audience that it's going to feel one way, and then all of a sudden, it's like, why are we still in the eighties? Why are we still in the eighties? Um? And originally we had had Elena's whole story in the eighties being episode six, but then we really and we had a different opening to five. This

was still in the writing process. This is in the writing process, and this was. This was pretty far in the writing process, but we felt like we did have this whole New York story with Elena in five where she goes to New York and in the book she has an ex boyfriend named Jamie that's given a few lines.

That was something that we really wanted to take from the book and then just be like, Okay, how can we take this little seed that's ce Lesque planted a backstory and like grow it in to an entire backstory for Elena? Yeah, I mean, what were were there other contenders in terms of I mean, because like you're saying, it's it's just a real like nibble of information that Celesti gives you in the book and you turn it into a really thoughtful, um, you know, centerpiece for Elena's background.

Were there other things in that were contenders in the writer's room of oh, maybe we could show this side of her, this side of her? What? Um what drew you to that specific storyline and expanding on it. I feel like we maybe talked about a couple of different things, but that had always emerged very early as what we wanted to focus on because I felt like in the book and I mean, what is in the book is that Elena has always had a complicated relationship with Izzy.

And in the book it was discussed about how even Elena's pregnancy was hard, and that when Izzy was born, she was in the nick you and she was a sick kid, and that Elena was always so worried and so fiercely protective, and that that dynamic really colored their relationship and shape their relationship. And Izzy was kind of a fearless kid and Elena was so fearful of her and then almost and did the energy that Izzy required.

And we thought, you know, how could we how could we take that spirit but maybe folded into something that

could involve Elena's backstory and a broader sense. So we thought if instead of dealing with this idea that Izzy was a sick kid and Elena was protective, what if we what if we took from what ends up being the Lexi story and and took the backstory of like this, that there's always been this fratt nous with Izzy, and we used it to explore abortion and choice and um and what your parents teach you and who who's allowed to do certain things and who's not allowed to do

certain things, and how could we tell a story of Elena not wanting to have a fourth kid and having a resentment towards that kid because she couldn't do something that she wanted to do, which was make the choice

to not have a fourth kid. And how could we show that her own daughter while still while still learning um uh, I don't want to say learning not great things from her, but but while still echoing Elena's beliefs, maybe in a in a way that's not involving a lot of critical thought that she still is different than her mother in the idea that in the nineties, in her situation, she does have the agency and and does have the confidence and access Yeah, yeah, most importantly access

to make that choice. Thank you again to Liz Tiggler, and you can look forward to hearing more of her later in the podcast series. And we've only got two more episodes before this podcast series wraps up, because I guess what, there's only two more episodes of Little Fires Everywhere and things are heating up. So that's gonna do

it for us this week. Next week, I'm gonna be talking with the team cast of Little Fires Everywhere about their experiences on the set and an in depth discussion about the issues raised by the adoption storyline on the show, so a lot to look forward to their In the meantime, you can follow Little Fires everywhere across all your social media's at Little Fires Hulu and watch new episodes every Wednesday on Hulu, with episodes of our podcast being released

shortly after. So subscribe now so you don't forget, and I will see you next time. Sweet Shaker Rights m