Everybody’s Talking About 'Tell Me Lies' — Here Are Nine BTS Secrets You Probably Didn’t Know
It's the series that team ELLE UK can't stop talking — or, indeed, thinking — about; Tell Me Lies, which is in the midst of its second season, is the ludicrously sexy and deceptive series that has our minds in a chokehold. When we're not watching it, we're thinking about it, dissecting it, or convincing others to binge it too.
If you too have found your mind dominated by the show, which is produced by Emma Roberts, then consider this a little piece of Tell Me Lies trivia that may well plug the gap between now and the date that the next episode premieres on.
FIND OUT MORE ON ELLE COLLECTIVE
From tidbits of information about those sex scenes to the Tell Me Lies soundtrack, which is absolutely no coincidence, these are the BTS secrets you never knew you needed to know.
1) Jackson White and Grace Van Patten, who play Stephen and Lucy, are dating in real life
Although White has suggested that the pair were introduced by mutual friends years before their relationship became official, the couple have both dated their romance back to when they met over Zoom during the chemistry read for the first series.
2) Grace is extremely close with her onscreen besties Cat Missal and Sonia Mena, who respectively play Bree and Pippa
In fact, in interviews Van Patten has suggested that one of her favourite memories from set was eating boxes of Crumbl cookies with them every week. 'You'd eat nine Crumbl cookies in the dark,' White joked during an interview with ABC News. 'That was pretty much every Friday.'
3) Tom Ellis, who plays Oliver, is married to Tell Me Lies' creator, Meaghan Oppenheimer, in real life
In an interview with DeuxMoi, Oppenheimer confessed she cast Ellis in the role because she knew Missal would feel 'safe' with him.
'It wasn't initially my idea [to cast him],' Oppenheimer told DeuxMoi. 'We had the idea of Oliver; we hadn't started writing the scripts yet, but we had the kind of pitch of the season, and someone else suggested him. And at first, I was like, I don't think he's gonna want to do it. And then I couldn't get it out of my head... I just asked him about it, and he was like, "Well, what's the character?" So I talked him through it. It's very different than any part he's ever played and so far from him as a person that he was excited to do it.'
She added: 'It was really nice having someone I trusted in that role. It was so much to ask of Cat, you know, who plays Bree. You don't know who you're gonna get if you bring in some new actor who's 20 years older than the cast. And I knew that with Tom, Cat would be safe.'
4) Meaghan sought to make sure that every single sex scene in the show 'served a purpose,' especially because some are 'upsetting sex scenes or awkward'
Dr. Tiffanie Henry served as the series' intimacy coordinator, with Oppenheimer emphasising to DeuxMoi that nobody 'was ever even slightly pushed to do something they didn't want to do.'
'It was always a conversation,' she said. 'We really rehearsed everything out so there were no surprises on the day. It's like a dance, you have to choreograph it and it's actually quite mechanical when you get down to it.'
5) While filming intimate scenes, the actors use a rubber ball or some other tool and place it between the actors so they aren't actually touching
White confessed to Entertainment Tonight: 'You put a little rubber ball between your hips, and then it looks like there's thrusting, but there's actually a rubber ball in between you. Sometimes you use that, sometimes you don't... There's all kinds of junk.'
6) It was Meaghan's idea to have Jackson's actual mum, Katey Sagal, guest star as Stephen's mother
In her interview with DeuxMoi, Oppenheimer shared that, before pitching it to the studio she asked White if he was okay with it first. Then, on the day of filming, White said he didn't realise how 'challenging' it'd be to act beside his mum.
7) While Tell Me Lies is set in New York at the fictional Baird College, the series is actually shot in Atlanta
The cast film the school scenes of Tell Me Lies at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.
8) Because there was so much time off between seasons one and two, the actors were able to go into filming with the entire season already written
The WGA and SAG strikes that pressed pause on a lot of productions throughout Hollywood meant that the cast went into the sophomore season already knowing what their storylines were, which helped them to flesh out their characters more effectively.
Alicia Crowder, who plays Diana, said that it was this that helped her map out Diana's arc throughout the second season.
9) The Tell Me Lies soundtrack is very, very intentional
Make no mistake: the Tell Me Lies soundtrack is very much intended to shadow and mirror the episodes and arcs of the characters in the show. 'We have a few musical moments that are, sort of, where we bring things back that I was really excited to play around with. It was fun because I had two different editors for those episodes, and so one editor put that first version in the restaurant scene,' Oppenheimer said. 'When we were looking for songs for the [episode five] scene, that was one of the ones that was suggested. He didn't actually realise it had been in the other episode already. But I thought it was so cool because they're such different versions of the song — one feels so much more fun, and it's the beginning of the relationship, and it's exciting, and it's new, and it's sexy. The second one is heartbreaking. I loved how different the same song could feel.'
ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
You Might Also Like
