The Adaptation

executive producer, and head writer, the wonderful Liz Tigelaar. Liz was hand picked for this project after a successful career as a TV writer and producer, working on such projects as Brothers and Sisters, Life Unexpected, Once Upon a Time, Nashville, and Casual No Big Deal before being chosen to be

the heart and soul of Little Fires Everywhere. But first, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this podcast is airing after the first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere airs on Hulu, So if you're not caught up, just a warning, there's going to be spoilers for those first three episodes in the podcast, so don't at me if you didn't listen now today for our first episode of Little Fires Everywhere at the official podcast, I wanted to explore the idea of adaptation, because making

a really good adaptation takes a lot of great people working at the very very top of their game. So how do you turn a well loved novel into an amazing drama series starring two of the most talented actresses of their generation. Reason they're tuning, Carrie Washington. It's totally easy, you guys. I'm kidding, but you know we're going to find that out today. We're gonna get to know Liz Tigelaar even better in a bit. But today I want to take you from page to screen the old fashioned way,

So we're gonna start at the page. Liz, and I got a chance to speak to the woman who started it all, Celeste Ng, who published Little Fires Everywhere in based on her own experience growing up in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

The book was universally praised by readers and critics alike, not only for its complicated dual protagonists, Mia Warren and Elena Richardson, but for the sheer volume of controversial topics it dealt with with nuance and grace, topics like class and motherhood in the very rarely discussed shades of gray

on both sides of the interracial adoption process. The book absolutely captured readers, and it inspired Laura Newstatter, a producer at Rheese Witherspoon's production company Hello Sunshine, to get this whole page to screen process started. And we will be talking about that later in the episode. But first, Liz celest and I talked about seeing your work come to life, expanding on characters and ideas for the screen and more. Let's take a listen. So, Celeste, thank you for calling in.

I wanted to start with you. Have you ever had something of yours adapted to the screen before? And is it every something that's like in your mind as you're writing, like I wonder what this would look like on screen, or I wonder who would play Elena or Mia or so on. No, this is the first writing project of mine that I've had adapted it. When I'm writing, I'm basically trying to fool myself into thinking that nobody will ever read what I write, because otherwise I'm too nervous

to get it down. So the thought of adaptation or somebody else taking what I had and making into something new is was never something that had crossed my mind, got it and uh, and Liz, at what point in this process did you come in my understanding? As you were introduced to this project by Lauren Newstadter at Reese's production company, Hello Sunshine, and Reese had already gotten Kerry Washington signed on by the time you were brought in.

So basically, you know, celest book got to Lauren, Lauren, got it to Reese, Reese loved it, got it to Carry, Carrie wanted to play Mia, and then once it was at that point, they needed a writer. So eventually Lauren sent it to me and said, you know, you have twenty four hours to read this, and if you want it,

it's ears, um, you know, pending Celeste approval. And UM, I read it, and I loved it, and um, you know, there were just so many points of connectivity for me and reading it, and also there were just moments that I just felt such waves of emotion well up in me. Celest is such a beautiful writer, and and um, I just felt like, I don't know, this gift had kind

of fallen into my lap. And UM, I was like, yes, you know, I've said before, I felt like there was the book and then recent Carrier signed on to be in it, which is like the icing on the cake, but that's not really the icing on the cake. Those are like two separate cakes, and so it's like someone's like, here's three cakes, and I'm like, oh my god, that's amazing,

Like how did this happen? I like the book Andrey's and Carrie and so um, and I didn't really have to do anything to get the job, and so it was just it was amazing. UM. And then it was great because then we met and we kind of all met in a group, but Swst and I really got to talk and I was able to say, from reading the book, you know what I might do in an adaptation. That was like taking what was in the book and

then even getting to expand out on that. And the great part was that, you know, I knew we were going to have eight episodes to take all those things and expand them out in these episodes. So it felt really great from the start. And I've I've said about Celeste the whole time, like I would imagine anyone who writes a book like this feels extremely close to the material. Obviously, they're humongously personal elements in this book, um let alone, just based on the place that you grew up and

came of age. And so I think to give it over so generously and so freely with so much trust, I mean obviously spoke to the level of trust she had with recent Carrie, but also it meant that she had a lot of trust for me and for the writing staff I put together, and it gave us a lot of freedom to not feel handcuffed by the material. But at the same time, we all love the material so much. I mean, when Silus came to set, she said that everyone had like their dog eared copies of

the book. You know, everyone wanted her to sign their book. Everyone had dog eared copies of the book. Everyone had their highlighted passages. This was a book that was beloved. Um is beloved, and so I think that, um, we didn't want to honor the book because we had to. We wanted to honor the book because we wanted to honor the book because we all love the book. Yeah, And that was that was so clear from the beginning. And you made it very easy for me to trust you.

I mean, really from the beginning when you came to me and we're like, I'm thinking about taking this character and kind of extending her in this way, or I'm thinking about that this character might be exploring this in one of her plotlines. It was such a such a relief for me because I again thought, oh, some of those are things that I wanted to do. Others, you know,

things that you thought of, I wouldn't have it. I still just loved because I felt like they were always true to the characters, and they were always rooted in the themes of the book. And I feel like that's been true at every step of the process, that there's been such sort of love and respect for the book, and that's what allows this series to kind of take the book and move it in a very slightly different direction.

It's always been really firmly rooted in, like such a deep respect for the book, and as as an author, that's it's a huge It feels like a compliment to me, but it also feels really reassuring. It kind of gives me if you're gonna go, I trust you do do what you will because I know that you're going to do something that will be faithful to the sort of soul of this this story. And so lest you mentioned

things you thought about doing in the book but didn't. Uh, could you give us an example of something the show did get to do that you didn't have a real estate for in the book. Yeah. So, I mean, right up front, something that I had sort of wanted to explore in the book, but that um everyone in the show was able to explore in a different way was um MIA's ethnicity. Obviously, casting Carrie as Mia carries a black woman changes what's in the book, because in that book,

Mia is not specifically marked. But I I wrote her thinking of a working class white woman. But I had wanted to make her a person of color. Originally, I had thought that that would be another way of exploring these issues of race and class and really just privilege and power. But I didn't think that I could write a black woman's experience. I didn't want to presume that I could imagine fully what that was like. And so I wrote the character of Mia as a white woman.

And I was really happy when Reese and Lauren came into were thinking of casting Carry, because it meant that they were seeing the same themes in the book and that they were willing to kind of lean into that and explore those right up front, and so carry's casting obviously brings that right into the forefront of the story, right, and diversity of perspective is an important part of this

show on screen and off with the production staff. So yeah, So, so last, what was your impression of the writing team on the show You visited the writer's room during production, right, Yeah. I think the room that you put together was so diverse, not just in terms of race, but in terms of background, in terms of experience, and I think it really showed when I was reading the scripts and then when I got to see them on screen, that there is such

a level of nuanced understanding. Um. I remember you saying at one point that it was not like any everybody in the room brought one thing. Everybody in the room brought, you know, like five things. And it shows because these are really complex intersections of all kinds of different life situations about the race in the class and all of those kind of different intersections of all of those different

sort of privileges and struggles. It shows. And I think when I got to come to the room too, it was really fascinating to see people say, well, this was my experience, but like hold on, wait, okay, what about this, Well, when you're saying this, you know that's really different. And to kind of be able to look at an issue from many, many different perspectives. I think that's part of what gives these complicated moments in the show a lot

of their power. Um where nothing nobody is being flattened here, everybody is kind of being given many sort of different facets um. And that shouldn't be rare and TV, but sometimes it is, and it's really beautifully done. That's so coold. Did it make you want to be in writer's rooms? I mean I I want to be a fly on

the wall in the writer's room. I learned so much as a writer because as a novelist, it's really just me like I'm here in my office and I'm alone right now, right and I get to kind of decide stuff, and I can scrap stuff, and I can make decisions. I make many bad decisions, and there's nobody to stop me. Um. So I really enjoyed seeing that kind of collaborative process.

I don't know if I could do it, because I feel like I feel like it's it's such a skill to be able to talk those things out, whereas my usual method is I just sit there and stare at my computer screen and kind of uh inadvertently make faces and like tug at my hair and and then eventually

maybe I come up with an idea. Um. But it gave me a new way of thinking about how to approach plot and character um, seeing the way that the room was really thinking about arc and thinking about, Okay, what is each character's are Over the course of the entire show, there was this giant rainbow colored um chart up on the wall, which I took a picture of as an inspiration for myself, um about how to kind of keep each of those threads there and make sure

that nobody falls through the wayside. I mean, that was a whole different way of storytelling. And so if I could just kind of quietly eavesdrop on on you know, every writer's room in the world, that would be that would be the best. Sounds like this one pretty well. It's really been, I think a charmed experience. I mean every interview they're like, how did it go? Did you

like it? Where you defensive and I always feel like there's a secret part where people sort of hope that I'll say it was horrible, because that would be you know, that's a juicy story. But the truth is that I feel like everyone working on this production, UM, really came to the book with such respect and yet also with such energy and so many ideas about how to translate

it to the screen. And it was this sort of really charmed experience where, UM, I feel like it's set a really high bar for whatever I work on in the future. UM, that I'm going to kind of expect this level of sort of love for the book and this kind of synergy to happen. Um. But it's it's it's a hard example to follow because everybody did seem to be bringing their a game and it seems to

have just clicked together in a really beautiful way. Yeah, I felt so you know, across the board, I felt like there was just so much passion, um and heart and it felt you know, look, it was it was a privilege to get to go into a writer's room and to be able to talk about things that felt so vital. You know, you don't sit around, especially as a white person in everyday life, talking about race and

class very often. Um, you don't. You're not forced to kind of confront what you think, and you have the luxury of not thinking about it sometimes probably most of the time, and so to go into a room where that is our task, and then to also talk about through the lens of motherhood when a lot of us are mothers. I think it just it felt. It felt important in a way where I don't mean like the work is so important and the show is so important, although certainly they are to me and I hope they

will be to others. I mean to say that I think the experience of doing the work felt so important, and I think the other part of it, and I hope one of the reasons that it went so well, and I believe this is that most of us are moms, and you know, moms know how to do a bunch of things, but many of which which are be efficient, um collaborate and take care of something you love, and those qualities I think are um are part of what's

made this such a great experience. So I hadn't I hadn't thought about it that way, Liz, But I'm thinking that, you know, if there's a parenting lesson in the book, and it certainly is not intended to be any kind of parenting manual, and anyway, I don't want to pretend I have any answers, let alone that they're in the book.

But I do think you know, one of the things I think a lot about and that works ex wain to my writing, is this idea that your child is a separate being from you, and that even when you maybe want a particular thing for them for very very good reasons, a lot of times you have to recognize that maybe that's not what they need, and you have to give them the space to get what they need

and to figure out who they are. And I think there is a parallel there um, certainly for me in thinking about, here's this book, which is my baby, one of my babies, but I'm gonna let it go out and grow up into something else, right, And and I think that sharing sort of sharing a responsibility which is sort of like I'm going to support you, I'm going to push you in the ways that I think you need, but if it seems like you need something else, I'm

also going to respect that. And that was the attitude that I think everybody working on this production that I've talked to had. They had ideas and visions where where I wanted to go, and then if they saw that that wasn't quite right. They were willing to core, suggest and listen to project the way I guess that you hopefully listen to your child as they start to grow up and tell you who they are and what they need.

I thought about it like that, But it's actually a pretty good analogy, absolutely, I know, I think, and I I even felt that way from script form into production, into editing and now on the cusp of kind of having it out in the world, like I felt those

moments too. And there is there's like a beautiful Mary Oliver quote which I won't even be able to say the whole thing, but it it has to do with like, to live in this world, you have to do three things, and one of the things I think is like holding fiercely to what's yours or what you love the most, and then when the time comes, knowing when you have

to let it go. And I do feel like and I mean it res me, even though of course I have now butchered the quote, um the quote and it's and it's it's rightful place rex me and I think that there is something about this it's similar. And I know the writers felt that way when they wrote their

own scripts and even just had to give them to me. Um, I know I felt that way and in giving it over too, and I'm sure of course you felt that way, celest And I think that that is a I think that that is in our in our best hopes as parents or mothers, that you can see something kind of getting its legs and taking its shape and being what it's going to become, and then helping guide it to

become that without getting in its way. And I think that, um, I I think part of the reason that this experience has been so so great is because of because of the motherhood aspect, both in the story and both in the people who have who have brought it to life.

You know, celest first and foremost, it's sort of recognizing that you are a big influence, but one of the influences on this thing and this thing's life, and then also giving it the space to become what it's going to be, um, even if that wasn't what you thought

it was going to be originally. Yeah, yeah, totally. I was in awe of the enormous just numbers of people working on this project because this is my first experience in film, but seeing everybody kind of click in Um, everybody's got their own job, and everybody's got their own particular visions. But there's this moment where all the gears kind of clicklick, click, click, and then it'll go and they all turn a bunch, and it was pretty amazing

to watch. Again, as a novelist, it's usually just me and so to get to see that kind of collaboration and that kind of collaboration working really well was was pretty stuying. That was celest Ng. We will be hearing more from in our next episode, speaking on her experience growing up in the real life Shaker Heights, Ohio in the nineties. So now you know where the page to screen process begins, and from here, Liz take a Lar becomes absolutely critical to the project. A showrunner is well,

they run the show. They're involved in every facet in a creative sense, and they become the spiritual center of the project itself at every phase of production. And for a show like Little Fires Everywhere, this was no small pressure. But Liz, as you're about to hear, had more than enough heart and determination and talent to make this show something truly special. So what you're about to hear is an interview from the second time we ever met, so you will be able to hear me actively developing a

friend crush on her. Hi, how are you good? How are you good? Good? Just to start things out. What I'm really curious about is adapting such a well loved work. You go into this process knowing some basic adaptation changes you want. You have your two leads, and then you're building your writer's rooms. So what were you looking for

and how did you sort of build this team? So I knew it was really important to me that the ChIL landscape of the upper level writers of the room matched the book, because I felt like that's the only way that we're going to be able to encompass all the voices of the book and accurately tell the story.

And so that's what I focused on putting together. But of course, as I feel used on doing that, I kept meeting with people, and every time I met with somebody, I felt like they would be perfect for the show and how could I do the show without them? And so what was going to be a maybe three person staff or maybe four ended up being a seven person staff because I just felt like I couldn't live without anybody. I actually wanted an eighth writer, but there weren't enough episodes.

I knew I wanted mothers in that upper level position. I knew I wanted, not that I wasn't open to men, but it's a story about mothers, and I felt like, who better to tell it than mother's um. And so that was really what my hopes were for assembling the room. I ended up with all these wonderful writers, half of which I had worked with before, and then half of which were new to me. And we did hire one guy, Harris sano Um, because yes, he was our token man

and our token white man, and he was incredible. ABC was like, don't you want one man? And I was like, does it ruin the picture? And and I'm like, it doesn't need to ruin the picture. And if there's any man who should be in this room and would thrive with all women, is Harris. And so we ended up

just assembling this great room. And it was the best room I've ever been in terms of what everybody had to offer from their own life perspective, and how everybody just cared so deeply about the material, you know, and different people advocated for different things that at different times, and Carrie included talking about like what do we want to say with these characters. We didn't want to imply that Mia only had an issue with Elena because she

was white. We wanted to make it clear that it was the wealth and just the privilege and the lack of understanding somebody in a different position. And this question of because you can afford to be a great parent, does that actually make you a great parent? One of the things that I've really loved. We get these moments with Elena and Mia that we didn't get in the book. That means that we get recent carry on screen, which is what everybody wants. So how did you approach those scenes?

That's a good question. I mean, we definitely said they have to be in scenes together, and they have to have a story that pings off each other. They can't be siloed into their own worlds and not cross because, like you're saying, their relationship is are in some ways love hate story of you know, of the of the theories. So it's they're the couple that were the most interested in and I think that meant moving up a lot

of things in terms of structure. I knew I wanted to have Mia in that house or agreeing to be in that house by the end of the pilot, because I felt like that launched what their dynamic was going to be. And then to find moments that felt really truthful, you know. I think in episode two we talked a lot about how does Mia really feel about Elena and when is she truthful? And when is she playing a game?

And and I say playing a game, but really what I mean is doing what she needs to do to not have her secrets revealed and to keep, you know, to keep Elena basically off her trail. It's her walking this line between setting her boundaries but not having Elena's antenna raised about her, and then if it is, having to figure out how to diffuse the situation and get Elena feeling okay again until it gets combative and hostile

between them, which are very truthful moments. Liz and I had so much more to talk about, but we don't want to give too much away. Uh So, to close out this first podcast episode, we're going to talk to the executive producer team about a lot of stuff, um some of the page to screen elements, and about one of my favorite aspects of the Little Fires Everywhere team,

which is at the top level. It's all women, which is a very very rare thing in the television business, or if you exist in the world in any business. So Lize and I are going to have a chat with Laura Newstatter of Hello Sunshine, Reese wisp Into Production Company, and Pilar Savone of Simpson Street Productions. Carrie Washington's company Nay along with Reese, Carrie, Liz and director Lynn Shelton are the executive producers on Little Fires Everywhere. So we're

going to talk about that and more. Let's take a listen. So, Laura Nippolour, thank you so much for being here. What I'd really like to talk about is the collaboration that happened on the production team in this. It's I think one of the only shows I've ever seen that has all women at the top of the packing order. Is this I mean working on an all female producer team. Is that something that you had experienced before? And yeah,

like I imagine, it only makes life easier. So I would love to hear, uh, I love to hear everyone speak to that. Speaking from the Hello Sunshine side, I would say, we strive for representation and we want to make sure that there are always women in the conversation and at the front of the conversation. This team was a total dream team. Um. It was so carefully curated at every step, and I think we just became a family.

And we had so many conversations that were inspiring, so many conversations that were hard, um, so many conversations that were really about how do we tell this story in the best way, in the most thoughtful way, in the most authentic way. And I think without every member of the team, we could never have done what we did. Amazing. Um. Yeah, from my point of view, it was I grew up in in the man's world on this in this business, so it was actually a really new experience to be

working with all women and it was amazing. Um. But it's different. It's definitely different when you have a bunch of women sitting down and trying to figure things out. It's more thoughtful, it's sometimes as easier. Um. We laughed, we cried. Um, we just really dug in in a different way as opposed to having a man just come in and um. But it was super important to all of us, and we made sure every step of the way that we were including women and other diversity and

and just being really thoughtful and all of it. And men we always wanted to in the conversation because it wasn't about only having women in the conversation. It was just about it was about telling authentic and representative stories. And this is really one. Yeah. I mean, we made sure there was one man in the writer's room. We made sure that we were meeting male directors. Um. We had an amazing director, Michael Weaver, who directed episodes two and three. Liz brought him into the fold and he

became such an important part of our family. And in Zinga Stewart, who directed six and seven was incredible as well. We had we had a great group of people, and our production manager was a man which I think was really fun, Brad, who was kind of like our dad, you know. I mean, when Brad walked on set, it was like time to go, let's wrap it up. He was kind of the he was our dad. And our dps were incredibly brilliant men. Okay, so I have time for two more questions. So first I wanted to ask

what was your involvement in the casting process? Um, where you know, you go into this process knowing, okay, these are our two leads, Let's build a family for them, and let's build a world around them. Um, Lauren, how did you know when you had found the family? We were intensely intimately involved. David Reubin, our casting director, is tremendous and we were so intentional about choosing these amazing kids who could really deliver the arc of the performance.

And I think David was an amazing leader in doing that. And then really and truly every single one of us and Reese and Carrie were intimately involved in watching the tapes, talking about it together, making sure that we brought kids back. If we didn't see something that we needed to see that we wanted to see because we knew where the character had to go, we really dug in. I mean, all of these kids are so amazing. It is a

dream come true. We also did a bunch of chemistry reads, you know, to make sure that they all worked well together. But I also think having recent Carrie kind of always be that last step to make sure as actresses that they saw it in them as well, and these were the people that they wanted to be in scenes with every single day. We're really really helpful and we really wanted the kids to be the ages of real teenagers that we wanted them to be the ages of the

characters they were playing. We didn't want to like nine O two and o it, you know, with a bunch of twenty year olds. We really wanted them to feel like authentic, you know, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, you know, eighteen year olds, and and I think that they do. Yeah, it feels very they are. It's always so yeah, like cool slash almost jarring. When you see someone who is the right age as a teenage you're playing a teenager,

You're like, yeah, that is what a teenager looks like. Yeah, okay, last question, I will make it quick. Um, after you know, taking this whole journey with the story from start to finish, Liz, what do you hope viewers take away from watching Little Fires Everywhere? I hope that they initially see themselves, and then I hope that it leads them to examine themselves and what their initial biases or gut reactions were, and then how they critically think about them having seen the

rest of the show. Um, I'd love it if people

took that away. Cool, Lauren, Mine is very similar. I think when you watch the show you will this really connect with a character, and I would invite our audience to go on the full journey with the character that they vis really connect with, and then afterwards honestly examine the assumptions that they made at the beginning and the way that they feel at the end, and then really just take that away and walk into the world and see the world through a slightly different lens and maybe

ask more questions, maybe come with a little more curiosity and fewer assumptions, because I think we all have an opportunity to grow and be a little bit better, and I hope this show inspires everybody to do that. Cool And what about you, pl Yeah, I mean mine is similar. I mean I think we just want everybody to go on a journey with these characters and their lives. And I think that we were all teenagers at one point. Um, we all have parents or we're parents at one point.

I think we all relate to there's a kernel in all of this that we all relate to, whether it's your relationship with your mother or your father, or your boyfriend or your girlfriend. Um, there's insecurities, there's um striving

to be better. So I think it's it's really digging deep and asking those questions of yourself and then also just really having conversations with the people that are also watching it with you, and and talking about um, some of the issues that we bring up UM and also just having I mean just having a great time watching it. I mean, it's so on. I was going to say, en favorite juicy. It's really juicy, and it only gets

juicier as the show goes on. Well, thank all three of you for making the time and coming in to talk to us. Thank you, thank you. And I've heard from the executive producers and I hope that this episode gave you a better idea of how an adaptation of a novel is brought to life on screen. But make no mistake, we have many, many more people to talk

to to get the full picture. So for the next five weeks we'll be talking to actors, composers, writers, real people in Shaker Heights today, the artists behind me as working the show, many many more, and of course more of the lovely lizt tig Alur. So next week we're going to be exploring Shaker Heights, Ohio, inside and out.

And in the meantime, you can watch new episodes of Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu every Wednesday, and listen to us here on Little Fires Everywhere at the podcast every Thursday, and remember to subscribe to us on I Heart Apple Podcast, Spotify, stick your or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow at Little Fires Hulu on all platforms. My name is Jamie Loftus and we'll see you next week and shake your hides