Big Differences Between The "We Were Liars" Series And The Book, Plus Other Behind-The-Scenes Details We Learned From The Author

In 2014, E. Lockhart took young adult readers by storm with her novel We Were Liars. It's a haunting, twist-filled novel about a wealthy, seemingly perfect family that summers on their own private island. At the center is Cadence Sinclair Eastman, a teenage girl struggling to remember the events of one traumatic summer that left her with memory loss, chronic migraines, and a sense that something is deeply wrong.

She returns to the island two years later and reunites with her closest companions — her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and Gat, the boy she once loved. Together, they were known as The Liars, a tight-knit group bonded by rebellion, idealism, and a desire to escape the toxic patterns of their privileged family.

As Cadence tries to untangle what really happened that summer, the story peels back layers of secrets, grief, and denial. Told in lyrical, almost fairy tale-like prose, the novel builds to a devastating twist that redefines everything. It’s a novel about denial, grief, and the lies we tell ourselves to protect what we think we love, and the people we think we can’t live without.

Now, more than 10 years after its initial release, the popular psychological family drama has been adapted into an 8-episode TV series, thanks to showrunners Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and Carina Adly Mackenzie (Roswell, New Mexico). And the world of The Liars was brought to life by series stars Emily Alyn Lind (Cadence), Shubham Maheshwari (Gat), Esther McGregor (Mirren), and Joseph Zada (Johnny). 

In honor of the show's release, I interviewed the author to learn more about the adaptation process. Here are some of the behind-the-scenes details, straight from E. Lockhart's mouth:

1. When you first heard this was getting adapted, what was your first hope — and your biggest fear — for what the screen version would get right or wrong?

EL: Well, We Were Liars has been in development since the book came out in 2014. First, it was for a feature. It had five different writers and two different directors. Then it was in development for TV at another [streaming service] that didn't end up going, and then it landed with Julie Plec and Carina Mackenzie. So to be truthful, all the upsetting versions I have already read [laughs], and it was really nice to hand the book over to two people who really loved the book. They were really connected to the book and to the themes of the book. And, of course, there's so much to adapt when you make something into a television show. But they were very much wanting to convey the core meaning of the book on television.

BF: Wow, I didn't know it went through so many screening processes.

EL: Yeah, development hell [laughs].

2. Book-to-screen adaptations often demand more ‘flesh’ for visual storytelling. Is there anything you were excited to add to the world of We Were Liars that wasn’t in the original novel?

EL: The novel, as you know, is a first-person story, very much from Cadence's perspective, and she is an entitled, imaginative, passionate heiress, right? So it's a limited perspective. She also has amnesia — even more limited perspective — and the show holds on to all of that. It also fleshes out stories of secondary characters and gives some room to their perspectives, most importantly, the character of Gat, who is her love interest. So the Sinclair family, they're all old money, white Democrats, and Gat and his Uncle Ed are middle-class New Yorkers of Indian descent, kind of intellectual, political, all of that. And we had a writer's room, as you do on a television show, and one of the things that [Julie] Plec and [Carina Adly] Mackenzie did was bring in not just a diverse group of writers, as you might have on any show, but also four writers of Indian descent who had all kinds of cool skills as storytellers. They had comedy chops, thriller chops, all of that, but they were also generous with their lived experience, and so they fleshed out the characters of Gat and Ed with a lot more nuance and authenticity. You hear a lot more from Gat and Ed in the show than you do in the book, and you understand their perspectives and how things feel to them much more deeply.

3. Having a diverse writer's room is important enough, but I applaud the team for taking a step further and allowing the input of Indian writers to be taken into account as well.

EL: They did not always agree with each other. That was also great, because it's not a monolithic point of view.

4. As you mentioned, The Liars (outside of Cady) were given a little more of a background story to really push their personalities forward, which we didn’t fully see in the book (i.e., Johnny’s anger issues and almost killing someone). How were those storylines constructed, and how much input did you have in that with Julie Plec and Carina Adly Mackenzie?

EL: There was a development room for this show before Plec went off to write the pilot. I was in that room for 10 weeks, and that was really a room for conversations about what all the options were for making this into a television show. How was it going to be best structured? What were the pitfalls that we wanted to avoid? What were the most important themes? How could these characters be fleshed out and still stay true to the spirit of the book, and so on? But once that was done, they went away and created the real writer's room and wrote the show. I came in just to write the finale. So I came into the writer's room for two weeks, worked on the finale structure with the writer's room, and then went off to do my writing.

I wrote a second novel in the We Were Liars universe that's called Family of Liars, and that novel is the story of what the moms in We Were Liars did back when they were teenagers. It basically answers the question, "Why are these women such hot messes?" And so Plec and Mackenzie created new narratives for those characters, but it was always true to the story that they had read in Family of Liars. So they built those characters from Family of Liars into these complicated women that you see on screen, and I think that it's a multi-generational family soap. 

5. Can you take me behind the scenes of the casting process and chemistry reads? Our readers love hearing about how actors are chosen.

EL: There was an open casting call on my Instagram; it was on Carina's; it was also in Backstage magazine, and some other places that actors might look, basically for anybody who was interested in playing one of those four lead teenage characters. It was only an open call for those four parts. I don't know exactly what they sent in, but let's say it was a headshot and a resume that they had to send to the casting directors, and then the casting directors sorted through all of those, and we got thousands of submissions, and they invited people who had maybe the right look, maybe the right vibe, maybe some interesting experience, to send in audition videos, and one of those people was Shubham Maheshwari, who plays Gat. 

He had never been in a show before. He'd been in student films. He was graduating from college with a degree in economics and ready to go to work in an office. He sent in his picture, or whatever. Then he sent in a video. The video was good enough that we saw it. We liked him. He kept coming back. He came back, you know, approximately 1000 times. He got better every time. He was auditioning from his dorm room in college, and in the end, we chemistry read, shoved together with, I think, three or four other guys that we were interested in. I remember there was a little group chat going on — hopefully we weren't typing while the actors were auditioning — but in between actors and chemistry reads, I remember writing, "I'm so relieved to see Shubham." I'd seen him so many times, but I'd seen all these guys a lot of times, but I just felt like we were coming home [with him]. You know? Instead of people who didn't feel like Gat, I felt like, "Oh, he's here." I just remember this feeling of like, "Oh, okay. He's really got it. He's got this character. He understands this guy, he's and he's really magical on screen." I hope you feel the same.

6. I love that casting directors and whoever else is involved in the process are willing to take a chance on someone who doesn't have proper training or professional experience, because they're putting a lot of faith into these actors. I just think that's so special.

EL: Oh, yeah! And with Emily Alyn Lind, she was one of the first actresses we saw in a callback. I can remember her callback very vividly. She was stunning and witty and complicated and relatable and entitled and smart, and she was kind of all the things, but it was the very beginning of our process. And so we just kept seeing people. We saw many wonderful, wonderful people, but we did kind of keep returning to Emily Lind, and we never stopped talking about her. I think we just kind of couldn't believe that we had already found Cadence so early in the process. And finally, we were like, "Okay, it's always been her." So, that was a different kind of journey. She's a very experienced actor. She has been in a lot of things. She's been working since she was quite young. She's worked with big movie stars. She's been a series regular on TV. So, I think we also knew that Emily would be a good scene partner for Shub as he was learning the ropes, you know? We knew he would have the scene support with her. And I know from talking to him that she was very generous, encouraging, and open for rehearsal. She took the time to make him feel at ease and get to know him. I think that really paid off.

7. The book came out in 2014, and you mentioned that it was going to originally be turned into a movie back then. Were there any actors during that time who you imagined playing these roles?

EL: I didn't have anyone in mind. We never got... We had directors attached at different points, but we never got to the casting [portion of it].

8. What has been one of your favorite moments from set?

EL: In episode seven, all The Liars are tipsy, and they're alone on the island in this big house, with no staff, no parents, no littles, nobody else is there, and they get into the whiskey. At one point in the script, it says that Johnny (played by Joseph Zada) slides across the dining room floor in his socks and knocks a statue over. When the other liars are like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "I'm doing the Tom Cruise Risky Business slide." And that's all it said in the script. Joe was like, "I can do better than that." So, at his initiation, he planned out this iconic Tom Cruise dance number homage, which he does, in a pink shirt and all that. It is super, super delightful and funny. And it really came from him, his joy in performing, and his understanding of this character, and how this character goes all out to the max, even when he's alone in a room. That was just such a treat to see him bring it. It was also the middle of the night. We're all tired. We've all been doing night shoots, we're exhausted, you know? And there he is just dancing his heart out. It was great!

9. If the book is a quiet psychological storm, then TV is often louder and more literal. What’s something internal about the story that you’re hoping won’t get lost in the shift to screen?

EL:  Nobody has asked me that. That's a good question.

BF: Thank you!

EL: I think a lot of my books, We Were Liars, included, ask the question, "How do you live with yourself, and what do you do if you have done something terrible?" I think this is a very relatable question. We don't all do things that are as terrible as what they do, in We Were Liars, or as terrible as what we see in lots of TV shows, or that's in lots of my books, but we often are filled with regret or shame about something that we have done. And the question is, "Do you bury it? Do you confront it? Do you forgive yourself? Should you forgive yourself? Can you make any kind of reparation? Or, you know, what should you do?" In the last scene between Johnny and Cadence, when they're standing out on the porch of Cuddledown. He says, "You can go on and live a life where you do good things, and that doesn't erase the bad, but the good will be good, right? You can go on and do those good things and live a good life, and I cannot." That's something I hope people take away: There's no one answer to anything, but we're wrestling with that question, and I think the book wrestles with it and the show wrestles with it. And if people key into that scene, they'll really understand what the heart of the book and the show is. 

10. In the book, the incident takes place during Summer ‘15, but in the series it’s switched to Summer ‘16. Was there a specific reason for that?

EL:  Nobody wants to watch underage people making out [laughs]. If that's what you want to watch, you are not my friend. So, we cast actors who are all fully of age, and we wanted them to look a little bit older. Also, it's a sophisticated show with sophisticated themes, and so it made more sense for them not to be two years apart in the two different time periods, but to be only a single year apart.

11. Was there a moment in the adaptation process when you saw something — a scene, a performance, a line — and thought, “That’s it. That’s exactly how I imagined it.”?

EL: Everything was kind of bigger, brighter, more luxurious, more beautiful...grander than I ever imagined. But in episode four, I think it's four, there's the lemon hunt. The lemon hunt is actually in my novel Family of Liars, which is the prequel to We Were Liars. This lemon hunt that they do every year, where they hide 100 lemons and a single lime, and there are prizes. It's in the evening, and everyone wears white and yellow clothes, and they have lemony food, and then they go out with these baskets. In Family of Liars, it's really, honestly, just an excuse for people to find each other in the dark and make out. In We Were Liars, the TV show, they brought the lemon hunt into the first story. The first day, when I saw the set decoration and the costumes for the lemon hunt, and everyone in their costumes — I had seen the costumes before, but they were through emails and different people in different outfits at different times. To see the whole family in these incredible yellow clothes and carrying these baskets and seeing just this incredible display of beautiful lemon-themed food laid out on lemony tablecloths, that was a real moment where I was like, "Wow, this is something that used to exist only in my head, and now I'm standing in the middle of it."

12. Grief in the story is silent and isolating. And it’s explored in so many ways. Death (which is what most people connect with grief) is at the soul of the story, but you also have characters grieving relationships, life’s expectations, and more. How did you tap into that kind of pain authentically, and what did you learn about it while writing from Cady’s perspective?

EL: Well, in writing, I think one thing that's really different about being a novelist as compared to being an actor is that I can be very vulnerable on the page, but I really only have to do it one day. I just have to nail it the one day. And in the case of We Were Liars, the novel, it was pretty late in the process that I really got the emotion of the ending of the story onto the page. My editor kept kind of coming back with the last few pages and saying, "Go deeper." Finally, one day, I kind of, I don't know why, but I could do it, and I did something that I was proud of, and that's what you see in the book. Actors, they do it all day, every day, on demand. They come back, and they do it again the next day. These actors... There was one day when we filmed them around the Scrabble table, and all four of them cried for about five hours straight while filming, like they just never stopped crying. I just felt so amazed at their skill and their generosity of spirit and their vulnerability as actors. I really understood that. The vulnerability is the same, but as a novelist, you are doing that protected, at home, one time.

13. The book leaves room for reader interpretation. How do you feel about fan theories, especially the ones that go a bit off the rails? Do you enjoy that ambiguity, or ever wish you could set the record straight? There’s a lot of talk about whether Mirren, Johnny, and Gat are ghosts or hallucinations. Mirren refers to herself as a ghost in the series, but I wanted to know where you stood with that debate.

EL: I do not think the meaning of a work of literature or a work of filmmaking lies in the author.

14. I don’t know if you know this, but this book had such a resurgence on TikTok. What does it feel like having your book be such a talking point, 10 years after its release? What do you think teens today, especially Gen Z, might take away from this story that’s different from what readers took in 2014?

EL: There was a huge resurgence on TikTok in 2020, during the pandemic. I think the biggest reason that happened was that this is a book full of big feelings, and some people threw the book across the room. Other people sobbed their eyes out. Other people had some other kind of reaction, but it was always a big reaction, and I think especially during the pandemic, when people were isolated from the big feelings, from the drama with their friends, from the big romances that crash and burn or swoop them off their feet, they were really craving that big amount of emotional feeling from their books. And that was also true of books like Song of Achilles, or They Both Die at the End. Those are also books that became very popular at that time through TikTok videos, because they made people feel, and so I think that's what our show is offering, which maybe is different from other YA shows, or even Succession-type rich family politics type of shows. I love both of those shows. Our show is going to be really, really emotional. And I think people are looking to feel. We can have fun all we want, watching TikTok videos and Instagram reels, and I do that as much as the next person, but if I'm going to watch a show or read a book and give you eight hours of my time, I want to feel something.

15. Lastly, you wrote the final episode. Is this your first time writing a screenplay or script? If so, what was that experience like for you?

EL: I have written a couple pilots for streamers, but none of them have ever been made, so, this is my first piece of filmed television writing. I was on set for all of the filming and had the most amazing time with director Erica Dunton, who did episodes seven and eight. It was just a fantastic education in seeing how all these little pieces of a big action set piece that are filmed separately from one another can then be threaded together into a seamless piece of storytelling. We had five different versions of that blue and red dress, some with big, wide skirts; one that was a breakaway; one that the stunt person was going to wear; one that got put on a dummy and lit on fire, and so on. All those happened at different times, and yet, what you see is Emily Lind running through the flames and out onto the lawn. All this took several weeks at all these different points — seamstresses staying up all night, and designer fabric brought in from the US (we were filming in Canada). When you're writing a book, everything is made of words, but when you write a teleplay, you start by making something of words. Then everybody from seamstresses to camera people, to set decoration, to actors, to stunt people, editors, of course, and music supervisors... There are so many components. So, it was really wonderful to see all those come together.

Thank you so much for chatting with me!

Be sure to check out all eight episodes of We Were Liars, which is currently streaming on Prime Video. And to dive even deeper into this domestic drama, you can read E Lockhart's books, We Were Liars and Family of Liars.