I Genuinely Can’t Watch “Pretty Little Liars” The Same Way Again Now That I Know These Behind-The-Scenes Facts
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·6 min read
1.Ali's last name, DiLaurentis, is an anagram for "Liars united".
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Kind of fitting, because the first season saw the four main girlies re-unite to figure out what happened on the night Ali died/disappeared.
2.Kylie Jenner was meant to appear on the show.
3.Rosewood looks a lot like Stars Hollow... for good reason.
4.Janel Parrish originally went for the role of Spencer.
5.Troian Bellisario knew about her twin from Season 5.
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Though many PLL fans think that the show's twist ending was pulled out of a hat at the last minute, showrunner Marlene King did do some forward-planning. Troian, who played Spencer – and her evil twin Alex Drake – told Elle that she'd known about the plot for two years.
"I was first told in the beginning of Season 5," she said. "Marlene took me aside and told me, 'I have an idea, but I don't know if the network will let me do it...' Then she sat me down and explained this whole ending to me. "
6.And she kept spoiling the ending in interviews, but no one believed her.
7.Ashley Benson chose the show's theme song.
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Ashley – who plays Hanna – found the song "Secret" by The Pierces, and thought it would make a great theme song. She played it for Marlene King, the showrunner, and the rest is history.
8.And the iconic 'shh' at the end of the opening credits was ad-libbed.
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"[My] shushing the camera was actually a spur-of-the-moment idea that happened to make the final cut," she told Cosmopolitan. She later tweeted that she hates how off-center her finger is in the shot.
9.Toby should have died in Season 1.
10.Though Toby was played by a totally different actor in the pilot.
11.Sasha Pieterse was only 13 years old in Season 1.
12.And she originally wanted the role of Hanna.
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When Sasha auditioned, she was only 12. Showrunner Marlene liked what she saw, but was worried about her age. “I knew what Hanna was going to do and I was like, ‘Do we really want a 12-year-old doing those things?'” Marlene told Variety.
“But also, they can only work a certain amount of hours under the age of 16. So that’s when we just said she’s Alison. She read with a few of the girls as Alison, she was several years younger than all of them, but she scared the hell out of everyone in a good way.”
13.Troian Bellisario's now-husband got a minor role on PLL to win her back after a break-up.
14.On set, the doors you see in Aria's bedroom actually leads to Emily's bedroom, which leads on to Spencer's house.
15.Two whole seasons of the show took place over a single six-week period.
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The Halloween episode of Season 3 took place on October 31st. Then the Season 5A finale is on Thanksgiving, while the Liars are still in their senior year, and there's also a Christmas special in Season 5.
As one confused fan put it: "Everything from the night of the lodge fire, to Charlotte abducting Mona, all took place in one month."
16.Sasha really hates that yellow top.
17.PLL was the most tweeted-about show for two years straight.
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It was then surpassed by The Walking Dead.
18.Lucy Hale and Ashley Benson both starred in How I Met Your Mother as younger sisters to different main cast members.
19.Each of the four main Liars cheated on their partner at least once throughout the series.
20.Spencer and Ali are the only Liars who don't kill anyone in the whole series.
21.And finally, the scene where Spencer confronts Toby about being A was supposedly filmed on the same alleyway set as the iconic Spiderman upside-down rain kiss.