The Cast of “Tell Me Lies” Breaks Down All the Season Two Drama
When Tell Me Lies debuted in 2022, the drama series—which chronicles the tumultuous entanglement of two college students who weave in and out of each other’s lives over the course of eight years—was lauded and derided in equal measure for its unflinching exploration of toxic relationships.
Two years later, Hulu’s guiltiest pleasure has returned with a supercharged sophomore season, shifting the central dynamic between exes Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco—played by real-life couple Grace Van Patten and Jackson White—from a love story to a “war story.” In doing so, the show not only makes better use of its young ensemble, but also deepens its depiction of female friendship—specifically through Lucy’s close relationships with classmates Bree (Catherine Missal) and Pippa (Sonia Mena), who must now wrestle with secrets of their own.
“The relationship between us three is one of my favorite parts of the season, even if it’s still complicated and just as convoluted as all the other relationships,” Van Patten tells Harper’s Bazaar in her first-ever joint interview with Mena and Missal. “It’s really frustrating watching, because you’re like, ‘You should be focusing on this friendship! Just be a good friend!’ But everyone is still so dishonest with each other, even if they’re trying so hard. Lucy is trying so hard to redeem herself and overcompensate for all the things she did last year.”
The actresses say they immediately clicked during the making of the first season, even offering to pool their stipends while shooting an episode on location to rent a lake house with the rest of the cast. But returning for a second season allowed them to deepen their individual friendships, which, in turn, made them feel safe enough to push each other on camera.
“All of our scenes together have to be so energized, which is really different from when the three of us hang out,” Van Patten says. “We put a lot of our [real-life] chemistry in [these onscreen dynamics], but what they’re talking about is so different. It’s so funny doing it, because it feels so unnatural saying these things, but the dynamic feels real.”
Below, the leading ladies of Tell Me Lies open up about how they approached their respective character arcs, the show’s use of the female gaze, and why they are more interested in playing relatable—rather than merely likable—young women.
Grace, the new season finds Lucy and Stephen not necessarily as tethered to each other as they used to be, but they’re still wreaking havoc in each other’s lives. What were some of the new layers that you were able to find in that dynamic this season?
Grace Van Patten: Honestly, I think they still are tethered to each other. It’s just different because they’re not in a relationship. But that’s why I think it’s so interesting—they are unable to escape this dynamic that they set up for one another; they’re just completely incapable of breaking that cycle, whether they’re together or not.
I really liked the arc of Lucy coming in [at the start of the season]. She’s really convinced herself that she’s okay, that she’s going to have a great year, that she’s going to be a good friend. I think she truly believed that she was over it and that she was delusional last year, and then you see very quickly that she’s not okay and that she still really is drawn to him and doesn’t know why—and she is frustrated by that. And that’s when the whole psychological warfare begins.
Jackson and I didn’t have a lot of scenes together this season, but each scene was so tense and so beyond the words we had to say to each other, which was fun to play with. Especially the first time we see each other at college [in episode one]—we’re just saying these pleasantries to each other, but saying so many other things in our heads. It was really fun to do that.
Why do you think they continue to go back to each other, in spite of all the hurt and all the disappointment they’ve had to endure in that relationship?
GVP: A lot of it has to do with Lucy never experiencing anything—and anybody—like that. She mistook a lot of this newness, desire, and lust for love, and she’s not able to disengage from it. There’s this realization that happens throughout the season that they both kind of understand each other.
It’s so weird to say something beautiful about this relationship—they should not be together, and it’s so fucked up—but they both realize that they see each other, in a really messed-up way. They accept the bad parts of each other and are kind of okay with them, because they’re equally as bad. And that’s what you want in a relationship—you want to be seen, and you want to see the other person. It’s just that in their version, they both get away with [being bad] with each other, and they’re both equally to blame. They both have things on each other, and I think what’s so addicting about it is that they could each ruin each other’s life at any given moment.
After breaking things off with Evan (Branden Cook), Bree ends up falling for a charming academic named Oliver, who happens to be the husband of one of her professors—and who is played by Tom Ellis, who happens to be the husband of the show’s creator, Meaghan Oppenheimer. Catherine, what did you make of that storyline, and what were some of your biggest takeaways from Bree’s character arc?
Catherine Missal: I think she is coming into her power, and, doing the press for this season, I came to a realization after shooting that maybe the power is in her manipulation tactics, [like] we see in a lot of the other characters. That’s something that is maybe more in the undercurrent of what I was trying to [play], but it’s scary the way that it all plays out. I was shocked when I got the scripts for it. I wasn’t expecting this kind of relationship to happen to Bree, but I know [a younger woman falling for an older man] was a theme that Meaghan wanted to explore for this season. Tom and I both wanted to approach it with some caution and care, because there’s a pretty intense age gap between them and definitely a power dynamic playing out.
But let’s not beat around the bush here: You were given the tall order of having to be intimate on camera with the husband of the creator of the show, in order to tell a story about a young woman who has an affair with her professor’s husband. That must have been a surreal experience.
CM: [Laughs.] It’s definitely a strange kind of position to be in as an actor. At first, it was like this big unknown, but I was really grateful to work with somebody who is older, who has done this before. He even said that years ago, they didn’t have intimacy coordinators on set, so I think that’s such an important piece of doing these intimate, intense scenes. You need to make sure that everyone is safe, and I would even argue that there should be somebody on set checking up on mental health as well. As actors, you have to walk a fine line sometimes [between fiction and reality], especially being in a city where you’re isolated for months at a time and thrown into this [fictional] world. I think that would be really helpful. But with this situation, there was lots of communication, just to make sure that everybody felt comfortable. It was definitely strange, but we got through it, and I hope that the level of commitment to the work shows.
What exactly does Bree see in Oliver? Why does she pursue him in the way that she does?
CM: She’s just looking for validation.
GVP: And a daddy.
CM: No! [Laughs.] She’s just really desperate.
Sonia Mena: Wait, what did you say, Grace?
GVP: That she’s looking for a daddy.
SM: Oh, I thought you said, “She’s looking for the D.”
GVP: Both things can coexist!
CM: Well, besides that … [They all laugh.] She’s raised in the foster care system; she didn’t have parental figures.
I think what I’ve gotten from this whole season is that a lot of the other characters seem to lead with this defensiveness, this edge, and this armor that they wear, and Bree is this soft, heart-on-her-sleeve character. I think because this situation is so manipulative, she kind of does a 180 with this man. She is getting all of this false hope and these promises. [She believes] this man is going to come in and basically save her from all of the disappointment in her life, and then [she experiences] the shock of realizing that it was just this big game. I think there may be a shift in her [going forward], and who knows what that’ll lead to in the future between these two time frames? That could lead her down some precarious paths.
Sonia, early on in the season, viewers get the sense that Pippa was sexually assaulted by Lucy’s best friend Lydia’s brother, Chris, at a party, but Pippa doesn’t seem to want to discuss what happened with anyone—not even her closest friends. What were some of the most important considerations that you had in mind for Pippa’s storyline?
SM: [Sexual assault] is a topic that’s very important to me, so doing it justice and getting it right was really important to me. It is a little scary just to dive into that—both in a larger storytelling sense, but also as a person just taking it on and holding [that headspace] for four months. There’s the assault that happens with Chris, and then there’s this strange, subtle thing [that happens], which is also pretty representative of what happens to a lot of people [who find themselves in that situation]. You don’t really know what people are going through—they’re hiding it, and they’re in denial.
Pippa gets fucking pummeled [emotionally] this season. This happens with [her ex] Wrigley, with [his brother] Drew, with her friendships, with Lucy. As she’s moving through it, the weight just adds up. [The writers] have set her up in this really interesting position where she hasn’t really taken a lot of action or had any really real catharsis, but she’s so set up for it. We know that in the future, she’s kind of fine. This is a show about people who do really wild things to process [their trauma], so I’m really excited to see how they find that journey for her because she’s just [operating] at 150 percent. Touch her, and she’ll fucking explode.
Often, we’ll hear people talk about how likable a main character ought to be—but it’s not lost on me that this conversation seems to apply much more to female than to male characters. Was likability ever a concern when you were bringing these characters to life? And how do you feel about being part of a show that digs into the messier side of what it means to come of age as a woman?
GVP: I was less concerned about Lucy being likable than I was about people having empathy for her, so that people can hopefully understand her. It’s the same with all the characters, because it makes them less evil. I think it’s really cool that this show is dealing with these young people with real feelings. It was important for me not to judge Lucy, but to try and understand her as best as possible. I don’t justify a lot of her actions, but I can relate to and empathize with being young and making mistakes, with not knowing who I am or what I want, with losing myself at times.
SM: What’s hard about shooting this show is that it’s a lot of people not saying what they mean, and a lot of people avoiding each other. It’s really fun to watch, but when you’re making it, it’s also scary because there’s not a lot of time when you’re alone with characters, where you get to see more of what they’re really going through—at least I think that’s true for Pippa. I have to trust that what I’m hiding is still reading [to the audience] as I’m still pushing this other thing that the character is doing forward. I think a lot of what they’re hiding is their heart and, like [Grace] said, their reasoning for doing things.
CM: I guess on the surface, my character is very likable. She’s probably the best of the group. She’s not really backstabbing anybody; she is just looking for friends and, in a sense, a family. This season, it was fun to break out of that a little bit more—to show that there’s such a naivet about these characters, but there’s an understanding [among them] that comes from [going] through trauma.
Most of these characters have dealt with their own level of trauma, and they’re approaching [their actions] from that place of knowing better, but dismissing and burying that [knowledge]. You see that come up a lot—and that’s a lifelong thing. I don’t think it’s [specific to] being young. I think you deal with that [desire] to do better forever. And unless you go to therapy, I don’t know you will truly ever heal. I don’t think anyone ever truly does. But I think it’s really interesting watching all of these characters go through that at the same time and relate to each other in that way.
How would you describe the evolution of the relationships between these three women as they navigate their individual issues this season?
CM: We experience a lot of each other’s bad sides more. Before, especially with my character, I was a little bit just on the outs, just sticking in my own lane. I think there’s an [even deeper] understanding of each other, but we don’t talk about it.
GVP: Lucy becomes both Bree’s confidant and Pippa’s confidant until everybody knows about everything, but I feel like Bree and Lucy develop this honesty where they both get to say how they feel about the situation. In the beginning, Lucy’s walking on eggshells because she doesn’t want to upset Bree, and she’s just trying to be a good friend and put the blinders on, when she’s feeling so many other things about the Oliver relationship. Lucy is just trying to support Pippa through [her ordeal] and thinks she’s doing a good job, but clearly does not know how to handle and navigate that. Just speaking for Lucy, she is then being left not knowing where she stands with both of them.
SM: There’s a lot of lying by omission. There’s some lies that Pippa tells, but it’s a lot of her choosing the whole season not to share things with her best friends.
GVP: Everyone’s so scared.
SM: They’re really bad communicators, and they’re really scared. But I think what is interesting is you make a lot of “fair-weather friends” when you’re that age, but they’re still friends in 2015. That, to me, says that there is a depth to their friendship. If it was just like, “I only knew these girls my freshman year at college,” they wouldn’t be bridesmaids, so there’s something there that sustains them.
Let’s talk hypothetically: How do you think Bree would react to the big secret that Lucy slept with her soon-to-be-husband Evan when they were all at college?
CM: I would hope that they just brawl.
SM: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Let’s just bathe in the blood of Stephen. [We’ll have] swords, take him down.
GVP: A duel!
CM: But on a serious note, I’m not sure, because also, we haven’t really discovered what else happens between these two timelines. So who the hell knows? I don’t know how much it would affect her with Evan, but obviously, the betrayal coming from Lucy would be such a backstab.
GVP: Yeah. I’m already making theories myself. Has Bree already gotten her revenge? Does Bree already know? I think it’ll be fun to hear theories.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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