Once Game of Thrones is over, it will be replaced by the new season of another must-see show on HBO, Big Little Lies, starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. HBO released a collection of new photos from the upcoming season Monday, showing the Monterey Five in action with one new face joining the cast.
Big Little Lies was initially planned as a limited series adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, but its success convinced HBO to greenlight another seven-episode season from creator David E. Kelley. Andrea Arnold, best known for directing episodes of Transparent and the award-winning films Fish Tank and American Honey, directed every episode.
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Before the new season kicks off on Sunday, June 9 at 9 p.m. ET, scroll on to check out the new photos from the upcoming season.
Photo credit: HBO
Reese Witherspoon
The first season followed the plot of Moriarty’s book, just moving the story from Australia to Monterey, California. There is a murder in the affluent seaside town, and it was only revealed who the victim and killer were as the series went on. It’s not clear where the show will go in Season 2, but we will likely learn how the town views the women after the scandal.
“The second season of this subversive, darkly comedic drama will explore the malignancy of lies, the durability of friendships, the fragility of marriage and the vicious ferocity of sound parenting,” reads HBO’s official description. “Relationships will fray, loyalties will erode…the potential for emotional and bodily injury shall loom.”
Zoe Kravitz
In the trailer, Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz) made it clear she believes their lie from the end of Season 1 will come back to haunt them.
“It’s gonna get us, it’s gonna get us all… The lie,” she said.
The murder victim in Season 1 was Perry (Alexander Skarsgard), Celeste’s (Nicole Kidman) abusive husband. Celeste, Madeline (Reese Witherspoon), Jane (Shailene Woodley), Renata (Laura Dern) and Bonnie kept their role in the murder a secret. But Perry’s mother, Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) now wants answers.
Nicole Kidman
Getting the most-Oscar-nominated actress in history for a TV series is a major coup. Streep has not starred on television outside of narrating documentaries, since she was in 2003’s Angels in America.
Kelley admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that the idea of having Streep play Perry’s mother convinced him that making a second season was a good idea.
“It’s a delicious character and I felt bringing her in was both liberating and daunting,” he said. “Daunting because she sets a high bar and you have to measure up, but liberating in that now the show’s not going to be compared to last year. There was freedom in that.”
Laura Dern
Kelley did not want to do a second season at first, considering how well-received the first season was.
“I didn’t think it was a very good idea,” he told THR. “We wrote it as a one-off, and we ended it in a way that was very lyrical. But we ended on a lie. I get so protective of characters and series, too, that I don’t want to damage them in any way, and I so loved how we ended year one and I thought, ‘Let’s just leave it at that.’”
Shailene Woodley
Although Perry is dead, Alexander Skarsgard told Jimmy Fallon he was on the set, but could not say what he was doing.
“I don’t want to get in trouble,” he said. “I was on set, yes, but I can’t disclose what I did on set. Maybe I was acting. I might’ve been just moral support, might’ve made coffee for the ladies, might’ve helped Meryl Streep with her acting.”
Meryl Streep
Streep was really excited about joining the show. She told Entertainment Weekly she saw the first season and was addicted.
“I thought it was an amazing exercise in what we know and what we don’t know about people, about family, about friends, how it flirted with the mystery of things, what was unsaid, unshown, unknown, was sort of the gravitational pull of the piece, and it was so exciting so… I wanted to do it to be part of that world,” the three-time Oscar-winner said.
The Main Cast
Season 2 will have a different structure, with the “Greek chorus” aspect gone.
In the first season, there were interviews with characters outside the main circle, giving their point of view. But as viewers could see, these became less frequent as the season became more intense.
