Grace Van Patten often gets asked the same question.
Are you and Jackson like that in real life?
“I get asked that a lot,” she told me at the NYC premiere party for the return of Tell Me Lies. “That’s the most frequent, crazy question to me.”
Even better is her usual response: “Yes.”
Of course, she’s kidding. “No, it’s very different. But I think it’s a compliment,” she explains. “This show makes everyone have a very visceral reaction and think it’s real.”
For its third season, Hulu convened the Tell Me Lies cast to SoHo hotspot The Corner Store on Monday night just hours before the first three episodes of the eight-episode season would begin streaming. Van Patten and co-star Jackson White — who are dating in real life ever since playing Lucy and Stephen, the tumultuous pair at the center of the series — were joined by the rest of the Baird College gang played by Catherine Missal, Sonia Mena, Branden Cook, Spencer House, Alicia Crowder and Tom Ellis, along with Katherine Hughes, Natalee Linez and season three newcomer Iris Apatow when they posed for photos and spoke with press about the buzzy series’ highly anticipated return.
“There’s a storyline where we could have shied away from something controversial or we could have dug into it, and we really went head first into it, which I think will be possibly polarizing but in a way that excites me. It was certainly polarizing in the [writers] room,” says series creator Meaghan Oppenheimer in her biggest season three tease, echoing when she told us ahead of season two that there was a storyline that might get her canceled.
Spoiler alert: that storyline did not get her canceled. In fact, Tell Me Lies has only gotten more popular as it’s become a hit for Hulu, as was evidenced by the on-brand premiere party awaiting the cast, creator and press inside The Corner Store. Upon entering, guests including The Hollywood Reporter were greeted with a bar sign demanding them to “Play it dirty,” as they nibbled on oysters and caviar and sipped dirty or espresso martinis on cocktail napkins reading “Now say you’re sorry,” which is a nod to a season three storyline.
Partyogers could find out what lies ahead in their own lives by sitting with a tarot card reader, or they could get judged like they were in a Tell Me Lies episode with an appraisal from The Bumbys — the anonymous performance artists who provide “A Fair and Honest Appraisal of Your Appearance” using analog typewriters and charming wit. But the most diehard of fans in the room could do something even more permanent — and actually get a “TML” tattoo (yes, a real one).
“It’s really hard to fool people on this show because they love to theorize, they love to predict,” acknowledges Oppenheimer about the viral nature of the social media-savvy series.
Of course, Oppenheimer knows exactly what she’s doing, as she’s set up several big questions in the dual timeline plot that spans eight years from college to young adulthood, with the biggest mystery heading into season three revolving around who is calling Bree (Missal) on the night of her wedding to college boyfriend Evan (Cook).
“It’s become a sort of fun challenge to surprise people [even the cast]. I think the most elegant way of telling the story is to leave 5 percent under the surface, and not over-explain things. But I tried to answer everything that I want to have answered,” she says of how this season ends. “I didn’t want to leave people hanging.”
Our conversation gets briefly interrupted when Oppenheimer’s lead, Van Patten, playfully bumps shoulders with her. “The only thing Grace was nervous about this year was the karaoke [in the premiere episodes], which I think is incredible. I was like, of all the stuff we make you do?” the creators points out to Van Patten.
The toxic romance between Lucy and Stephen will continue to play out, as the season trailer previously revealed. White says he’s not interested in making a case for himself when he’s constantly asked if he’s anything like Stephen. “No,” he says matter-of-factly. “He’s a pretty rotten guy!”
When he gets the scripts, is there anything he doesn’t want to do? “All of it,” he says, adding, “He’s a terrible, gnarly guy.
“It’s a challenge to play a character this many [seasons], I’ve never done that before,” he continues. One thing he can relate to, he says, is the college era of lacking a certain awareness about life: “Walking around without thinking about anything. You’re going through your life, you’re not dissecting or stopping to ask, Why did they do that? Why is this person like that? No one is stopping to ask that question. I was like that; I wasn’t stopping to ask those questions.”
Oppenheimer, whose real-life husband Ellis plays professor Oliver, has pulled from her own life for storylines, but jokes, “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say [which ones] because I don’t want anyone to sue me (laughs), but a lot of the feelings of humiliation and desperation are things that we’ve all felt in our personal lives at some point or another.”
She adds, “I probably have some exes watching this show who are mortified.”
Ellis says he wasn’t sure if Oliver would return this season, but that Oppenheimer found a “really interesting way” to bring back the professor who had an affair with Bree. “I’m the first to say that my character’s behavior is deplorable in this show,” he says. “It’s a lot, but I do feel it can be quite cathartic playing dark people sometimes. You can get it all out there and leave it at work.”
In speaking with the rest of the cast, Oppenheimer’s words about desperation could apply to any of the characters this season. When asked who surprised them most by the end of these eight episodes, White says all of them.
“There’s a huge surprise. A huge surprise that comes up [that I didn’t see coming],” he warns.
Crowder also says viewers will be shocked by the fourth episode. “I’m shocked at every turn,” she says. “I’m always surprised, always gasping.” And Mena says she didn’t predict how the season would end, describing the finale as chaotic, fun and satisfying. “Evan really surprised me this season. We start to see who he really is. He’s different than I thought he would be when I met him season one,” she says.
When last call came at The Corner Store, it was mainly just the cast left — hanging out together in a back booth like real friends from college, even when most of the bar had cleared. “These are some of my closest friends. I love these people more than anything,” says Mena.
Tell Me Lies is now streaming the first three episodes of season three and releases new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu.
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