Emma Roberts & Karah Preiss Interview: Tell Me Lies

The first three episodes of Tell Me Lies Season 1 is now available to stream on Hulu. Based on a novel, the series tells the story of a toxic relationship that impacts those around them as it plays out over the course of several years. Creator and showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer serves as an executive producer alongside Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss.

The cast includes Alicia Crowder, Grace Van Patten, Branden Cook, Jackson White, Sonia Mena, Benjamin Wadsworth, Spencer House, and Catherine Missal.

Screen Rant chats with executive producers Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss about adapting Carola Lovering’s book into a Hulu series.

EPs Talk Tell Me Lies

Screen Rant: How did you each get involved in the show? What led you to Tell Me Lies?

Emma Roberts: Karah read the book first, actually, and was like, “You have to read this book. I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t put it down,” and we both were like, “This is a TV show.”

Karah Preiss: Another EP on the show, Laura Lewis, sent me this book and was like, “Check this out. I think this would be a good series.” I checked it out… could not stop thinking of Lucy and Stephen, the characters, and knew that this would make for a very interesting dual POV two-hander of a show. And I sent it to Emma—Emma agreed. And then I guess the rest is history. Although Meaghan Oppenheimer was obviously an integral part in it as the showrunner and writer. She did an incredible job adapting the series. So we’re very excited.

Emma Roberts: And I knew that people were going to love the show, because I recommended the book to like five of my friends that are opposite people. And everybody was like, “What’s my next read? I finished it in two days. What’s my next read? Also, are you guys making this?” And I was like, “Okay.” That was my field research for this show.

Screen Rant: Since you mentioned that this is based on a book, what angle are you going for? Are you trying to align these two as closely as possible? Or are you trying to put a new spin on the series?

Emma Roberts: I was saying this earlier today—Karah and I are very hard on book to movie or show adaptations. And this is one that I think we can say we’re very proud of kind of keeping the relationship from the book, you know, into the show. And also, you can enjoy both. Obviously, there are some differences here and there, but I think it’s a really, really great adaptation that we’re proud of.

Screen Rant: Did you work with the author of the novel at all, when you were first making this?

Karah Preiss: So Carola Lovering, who’s the wonderful author of this book, and two others now, was the dream author to work with in terms of an adaptation. She was very open to letting Meaghan make choices, which people will see if they’ve read the book, for the show that are very different from the book. But I think for her, as a writer, this whole process has been quite surreal, especially because this story is very close to her is as much as I’ll say.

And I think for her…I don’t think everybody gets to see a version of their own college experience immortalized on television and I think she’s been incredibly generous and kind of open about Meaghan’s adaptation—and she talks about this. There’s an article she wrote where she talks about this experience of having a toxic romance, and so I think it was important for her that this show represent a very real experience that she had, and that I think a lot of young people do have when they’re in college. And so she was incredibly supportive and did not really stop us from doing anything that we wanted to do.

Screen Rant: Emma, while I have you I wanted to ask you about your new rom-com About Fate, which is coming out in September. Is there anything that you are particularly excited about with this release?

Emma Roberts: First of all, I loved making that movie. I filmed it with Thomas Mann, who is an actor who I’ve always wanted to work with, in Boston, and it was written by Tiffany Paulsen, who wrote Nancy Drew and Holidate. So it was so much fun to get a script and see her name on it, and her and I kind of have a shorthand, and I just love the way she writes characters for me. So it’s a really fun rom-com and I think it’ll make everyone smile.

Tell Me Lies Synopsis

“Tell Me Lies” follows a tumultuous but intoxicating relationship as it unfolds over the course of 8 years. When Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) and Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) meet at college, they are at that formative age when seemingly mundane choices lead the way to irrevocable consequences. Although their relationship begins like any typical campus romance, they quickly fall into an addictive entanglement that will permanently alter not only their lives, but the lives of everyone around them.

The first three episodes of Tell Me Liesare now available to stream on Hulu.