“Big Little Lies” has officially ended its second season, but that doesn’t mean the drama is over. As you might expect with a series that scores big ratings for HBO, talk of a third season has been rumbling, particularly coming from the show’s stars. However, there’s also the added layer of drama surrounding the directing situation with Andrea Arnold and Season 1 helmer Jean-Marc Vallee. Needless to say, there’s plenty of ‘BLL’ topics to discuss.
Speaking to EW, series star and producer Reese Witherspoon spoke about the series, and particularly about the creative issues that have been making headlines with reports that Arnold had her vision for the series changed without her input by HBO, writer-producer David E. Kelley, and Vallee. And if you’re a fan hoping that Witherspoon would come to the defense of Arnold or at least dispute a little of HBO’s claims, then you’re out of luck.
“Andrea’s wonderful,” said Witherspoon. “I feel like she was incredible. The thing that is perplexing to me, as Nicole and I experienced on season 1, is how TV is a completely different medium. It’s a collaborative medium; it is very much different, driven by writers. I’ve seen this more and more as I have done more TV shows since.”
She added, “Not only was it just one person, say David E. Kelley or a Jean-Marc or an Andrea, it was actually all of us collaborating every single week, every time we got a script in, every time we saw a cut. It was one of the most creatively collaborative experiences in my whole career. Everything was discussed as a creative group and entity. The thing that was confusing to me was that anybody would say people took over because it was always a very creative process. For Nicole and I, we were involved in every single conversation.”
Witherspoon spoke openly about the controversy, but was clear to say that HBO executive Casey Bloys was spot on:
“In our minds, there is no controversy. We just love the show. We had such a great time doing it. There was a lot of misinformation and no credited sources on any of the information. This was an incredibly collaborative process for all of us and the idea that anyone was mistreated and not communicated with is completely not true. I was glad that Casey spoke so clearly about that and we are thrilled with the collaboration that yielded this season. It could have never been this show had it not been with these particular artists collaborating on this particular material.”
As we’ve said before, it does appear that there’s more to the situation than the company line that HBO (and now, Witherspoon) is sticking to. But it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever really get the full story. Until then, fans of the series can still hold out hope for Season 3, as unlikely as that may be.