Yahoo Lifestyle Cruel Intentions EPs Explain Why They Moved the Story’s Setting — Plus, Grade the Series Premiere
It’s a cruel world… in Greek sororities and fraternities.
Prime Video on Thursday debuted its Cruel Intentions series, which transports the iconic 1999 movie that starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon to the Washington, D.C.-adjacent Manchester College.
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Sorority president Caroline Merteuil (played by First Kill’s Sarah Catherine Hook) is determined to have Annie Grover (the Gossip Girl reboot’s Savannah Lee Smith), the daughter of the Vice President of the United States, join her sorority, thereby saving the Greek system from being dismantled after a violent hazing incident. So Caroline tasks her womanizing step-brother Lucien Belmont (One Night’s Zac Burgess) with seducing innocent Annie and getting her to pledge. If he succeeds, Caroline will give him what he’s always wanted: her, for up to an hour. If he loses, she gets his beloved car.
It’s a familiar plot — with some noticeable tweaks, perhaps most notably a different setting that introduces the politics of Greek life into the step-siblings’ twisted tale.
“It’s our version of the Dangerous Liaisons royal court, or the Cruel Intentions Upper East Side,” co-showrunner Phoebe Fisher tells TVLine. “It’s this new sort of peek behind the curtain into a rarified world that we don’t usually get to be on the inside of. And it’s got its own social hierarchy built in, and its own rites and rituals and traditions that was really a great backdrop for the manipulations and dynamics that we see play out in the show.”
The writers were also cognizant of the fact that another teen drama had already successfully explored the world of rich teens in the Big Apple and didn’t want to retread familiar territory. So they moved the story from the movie’s New York prep school for high schoolers to a college environment, with slightly older characters, giving the writers “a little bit more leeway,” co-showrunner Sara Goodman says.
“Gossip Girl really already did the high school, Upper East Side version of that for television, and we wanted to make a different world,” Goodman explains. “They’re still young, they’re still acting as adults, but they don’t live at home. I think it was important for us to not have them live at home, but obviously, we brought parents in. We brought families in, which the movie doesn’t do either.”
More importantly, the showrunners wanted to establish that “this is a new chapter,” Goodman adds. “In Dangerous Liaisons, they’re full adults. They’re not in high school at all. And so, I think this was our version.”
Another challenge facing the creative team was the casting of Caroline and Lucien, whose movie counterparts are so synonymous with Gellar and Phillippe’s indelible performances. Despite her uncanny resemblance to a young Witherspoon, Hook’s character is not somehow related to the film’s Annette Hargrove (but wouldn’t that be quite a twist?).
“I think she thought she was going to read for the Annie character in our show,” Goodman shares. But “we sensed it in her, that she was a Caroline, through and through,” Fisher adds with a laugh.
Hook acknowledges that she probably “naturally” and “not even by choice” drew inspiration from Gellar’s portrayal, but “was told to really make her my own,” the actress says. “Even just from the audition breakdown, they said, ‘No copying Sarah Michelle Gellar. Please, we don’t want a copy-and-paste performance.’ So that alone really intrigued me.”
Burgess, meanwhile, was told to bring a lighter, smiley energy to Lucien than Phillippe’s serious Sebastian, who is teased by Annette about his somber demeanor.
“It was a conversation that I had with Sara and Phoebe. They wanted him to be likeable. And so, there was a lot of times, like, ‘Hey, can you just smile for us really quickly?'” recalls Burgess, who admits that he still hasn’t seen the movie because he didn’t want to mimic Phillippe’s choices.
What did you think of the Cruel Intentions premiere? Grade it below, then hit the comments!
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