Big Little Lies is an American dark comedy-drama HBO miniseries created and written by David E. Kelley, based on the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty. The series began filming in January 2016.
- HBO won the rights for the series in a bidding war against Netflix.
- Laura Dern has previously portrayed the mother of her two co-stars Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon. In this she plays a fellow mother at the primary school.
- Nicole Kidman was once engaged to Lenny Kravitz, the father of her co-star Zoë Kravitz.
- Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman became very close during filming, to the extent that Witherspoon bought the residence next to Kidman’s home in her hometown of Nashville.
- Filming took five months. The crew shot four pages a day, just like a feature. Director Jean-Marc Vallée treated “Big Little Lies” as if it were a theatrical movie, breaking the five-month shoot down into two chunks and shooting for 88 days.
- Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman also both serves as producers of the show. They acquired the rights for the book adaptation in a collaboration between their own respective film companies Pacific Standard and Blossom Films.
- In order to work on this project, Reese Witherspoon backed out of Downsizing (2017), while Nicole Kidman turned down a part in Wonder Woman (2017), both because of scheduling conflicts.
- The novel is set in a seaside suburb of Sydney, Australia, but the setting was changed to America for the series. Nicole Kidman is the only Australian among the cast other than Gia Carides.
- Reunites Laura Dern, actor/producer Reese Witherspoon and director Jean-Marc Vallée who all previously collaborated on Wild (2014).
- Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern previously co-starred in The Fault in Our Stars (2014), while the series also reunites Woodley and Zoë Kravitz, co-stars of the Divergent (2014) franchise.
- Bruna Papandrea is Reese Witherspoon’s producing partner and a childhood friend of Nicole Kidman. She got the two united over the project. After she approached Kidman about the novel, Kidman read the book overnight, and later went to Australia to sit down with author Liane Moriarty to obtain the rights to the book. She received it 48 hours later.
- After collaborating on this project, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon re-teamed to obtain the rights for an adaptation of “Truly Madly Guilty”, also a novel by Liane Moriarty.
- Jean-Marc Vallée’ was approached by Reese Witherspoon who personally called her former collaborator to offer him the project. By the time she called him, the production was rushing towards a start date, without a director attached. He jumped on board in order to direct only two episodes, but finally directed the entire show, and approached it as one long movie.
- The series is being filmed in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, and Carmel Highlands, California.
- Nicole Kidman’s first television series since Bangkok Hilton (1989).
- Liane Moriarty, author of the novel, suggested Rose Byrne for the role of Jane.
- Adam Scott was the one to suggest the beard for his character.
- The song “Something Stupid’ has been sung by both Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon in a separate official recording of the song. Kidman collaborated with Robbie Williams and Witherspoon sang alongside Michael Bublé.
- Originally envisioned as a feature film.
- Larry Sullivan and David Monahan are also a couple in real life and have one daughter together. They previously played a married same-sex couple in a commercial for Campbell Soup.
- Laura Dern’s fourth HBO production.
- Ivy George and Kathryn Newton played in 2 different Paranormal activity movies. Kathryn Newton in Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) and Ivy George in Paranormal Activity The Ghost Dimension (2015)
- Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Dern both starred together in Wild.
