Go Behind the Scenes of 'We Were the Lucky Ones' with Hadas Yaron
"Believe it or not," says Hadas Yaron, "this was a really fun project to make."
The actress is discussing the new series We Were the Lucky Ones, streaming now on Hulu, and any doubt about the good times she and her cast mates—including Logan Lerman, Robin Weigert, and Joey King—might have had on set would only come from the period piece's heavy subject matter. Based on the novel by Georgia Hunter, Lucky Ones follows members of the Kurc family, a sprawling Polish and Jewish clan, as World War II descends upon Europe and they find themselves separated and unsure of what fate might have in store.
Yaron, who plays the Kurc daughter Mila, says she was attracted to the part because "she has an incredible story of survival," but also because, "when the first episode begins, before the tragedies begin unfolding, we are introduced to this family and we see them as who they were then."
Here, Yaron opens her personal camera roll to T&C to share a behind-the-scenes look at We Were the Lucky Ones, and the moments that didn’t make it on screen.
"Being in hair and makeup is my favorite times on set, because it's a very relaxing time. It's an hour when I can switch modes from being at home to being on set; I come as me and the artists do their magic, and I come out this woman from the 1930s."
"Wearing a fake pregnancy belly is very heavy, and it's not comfortable. But although it's not convenient physically, it's also nice because somehow when you have the belly, even though you're not pregnant, you have that where you keep petting your belly. It's like a phantom limb, so in a way I loved it. Still, I was happy that I only had to wear it for one episode."
"In the first episode we have two Passover scenes, and we were shooting them when we were just getting to know each other. Here is Sam Woolf, Eva Feiler, and Amit Rahav, and there was no written scene for this part of the dinner, we were told to just eat and chat and have fun and it would be used without sound, so I took this picture sometime during that scene."
"This is in Spain when we were filming a later episode. We shot for six months in Romania, then had a week break, and then we were in Spain for the last month. My partner came to visit me, and Sam's partner came to join him, and then after we wrapped, the four of us traveled together for another week in Spain."
"We were really keen on playing games all the time. So, at night or on weekends we would go and play games, and we also brought board games from home and we were meeting each other to play at night. We had poker nights at Robin Weigert's place, and we had pool nights. It was the first time I played pool, and after someone explained [the geometry of the game] to me, it was really fun. Everybody was a very good player!"
"Our costume designer, Lisa Duncan, was so amazing. I really wanted to wear hats, but my character didn't wear hats at all; I think I only had one scene with a hat and that's it. For me, costumes really help with getting into character—you put on the clothes and something shifts in the way you are. I'm not the same person in costume as I am in my jeans and t-shirt."
"Here is a poker night, our first one at Robin's place. She taught us how to play poker, and the first night we didn't play for money. She also gave us cheat sheets that taught us the rules. A month or two months later, my brother came to visit and he's really good at poker, so when he won, he won money."
"Before we began filming, the entire cast had a Zoom meeting just to meet each other before we were on set. We all said hello and introduced ourselves, and one of the actors, Henry Lloyd Hughes, emailed us afterwards and was like, 'Who's up for tennis?' So the first week we were in Romania, we found courts and played."
"We had a day off, and Joey said, 'Do you want to go see some animals?' So, we went to this shelter and met all these dogs and cats and also goats. There were many animals there and we just fell in love. It's actually where Joey found her dog. This isn't her—this is another really sweet dog—but it's where Joey decided to rescue her dog from, and she's the sweetest and most soulful dog you can imagine. It was really unbelievable."
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