Big Little Lies

Name: Big Little Lies
Genre: Drama
Rating: 8.3
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgård

A perfect life is a perfect lie.

Big Little Lies (2017-2019)

Seasons: 2, episodes: 14

Average rating: 8.3/10 538 602

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Everything about the series

Video 0

Photo 79

Actors and characters

Photo 79

Premiere

2017-02-19

Last episode

2019-07-21

Status

Ended

Country

United States

Network

HBO

Production

Hello Sunshine, HBO, Blossom Films, Pacific Standard, David E. Kelley Productions, Crazyrose

Genre

Drama

Website

http://www.hbo.com/content/big-little-lies

Creators

David E. Kelley

Actors

Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, James Tupper, Zoë Kravitz, Meryl Streep, Iain Armitage
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

David E. Kelley, T. Rafael Cimino

Producer

Barbara A. Hall, Gregg Fienberg, David E. Kelley, Nicole Kidman, Jean-Marc Vallée, Per Saari, Reese Witherspoon, Bruna Papandrea, Nathan Ross, Andrea Arnold

Camera operator

Composer

Editing

Jean-Marc Vallée, Maxime Lahaie, Sylvain Lebel
Whole Team (29)

Short description

The tale of three mothers of first graders whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder.

Seasons

Season	Episodes	Release date	Rating
Season 1 Based on Liane Moriarty's bestseller, this subversive, darkly comedic drama series tells the tale of three mothers of first-graders whose seemingly perfect lives unravel to the point of murder. Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley star.	7	2017-02-19	7.7
Season 2 In the wake of the tragic ending to Season 1, the "Monterey Five"--Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata and Bonnie--look to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Meanwhile, Perry's mother arrives in search of answers in her son's death.	7	2019-06-09	7.9

What's left behind the scenes

Liane Moriarty's novel makes no mention of Madeline's infidelity, which is played by Reese Witherspoon in the series. This plot point was added to the script with the author's permission.
To film the series, Reese Witherspoon turned down a role in Alexander Payne's film 'About Schmidt', and Nicole Kidman declined an offer to appear in Patty Jenkins' superhero action movie 'Wonder Woman'.
Nicole Kidman's character is a victim of domestic violence. The actress is a staunch opponent of violence against women, participates in global UN programs dedicated to solving this problem, and actively helps raise funds for various community initiatives aimed at combating domestic violence.
The novel upon which the series is based is set in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, but the screenplay changed the setting to America. The only Australians in the series' cast are Nicole Kidman and Gia Caride.
Bruna Papandrea is a business partner of Reese Witherspoon and a longtime friend of Nicole Kidman. It was Papandrea who convinced both of them to take part in the project 'Big Little Lies.' On her advice, Kidman read the novel and flew to Australia to meet with Liane Moriarty to discuss the screen rights.
Larry Sullivan and David Monahan, who play Oren and Bernard, are spouses and are raising an adopted child. They once appeared in a soup commercial playing a same-sex couple.
It was originally intended to be a feature film rather than a miniseries.
The first person to think that the character Ed Mackenzie would look good with a beard was the actor playing the role, Adam Scott.
During filming, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman became such close friends that Witherspoon even bought a house next to Kidman's in Nashville, Tennessee.
Laura Dern's fourth project produced by HBO.
The series was filmed in the cities of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, and Carmel Highlands, California.
Reese Witherspoon's life has much in common with that of her character. She married young, had a child, divorced, found someone else, and had another child with him.
Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman served as producers. Their companies (Pacific Standard and Blossom Films, respectively) acquired the rights to adapt Liane Moriarty's novel of the same name.
Liane Moriarty, the author of the novel Big Little Lies, suggested casting actress Rose Byrne in the role of Jane.
This is the first series in Nicole Kidman's career since 1989, when the gripping six-episode drama 'Bangkok Hilton,' directed by Ken Cameron, aired on television.
Filming took five months. Jean-Marc Vallée approached the raw footage and the plot as if he were shooting a feature film.
In other projects, Laura Dern has played the mothers of characters played by Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon. Here, all three play mothers whose children attend the same school.
Celeste and Perry are the only main characters of the series whose beachfront mansion is actually located on the Monterey Peninsula. The homes of the other main characters were filmed in Malibu, Calabasas, and Pasadena, California, USA. Almost all studio filming took place in Los Angeles.
In the scene where Madeline helps her daughter create a family tree, some of the photographs on the table feature relatives of Reese Witherspoon, who played the role of Madeline.
Reese Witherspoon, who had worked with Jean-Marc Vallée before, persuaded him to take part in the project. Vallée initially agreed to direct only two episodes, but ended up directing all seven.
Upon completing this project, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon joined forces again to acquire the screen rights to Liane Moriarty's next book, the novel 'Truly Madly Guilty'.
The rights to the series were contested by the cable and satellite network HBO and Netflix, a streaming media provider of movies and series.