“Cruel Intentions” EPs explain why movie alum Sean Patrick Thomas plays a totally new character
"We weren't making the movie. To then bring that character into our new world would've been confusing," showrunner Sara Goodman says.
Sean Patrick Thomas is in a very exclusive (and not so secret) society as the only Cruel Intentions movie alum who is also in the upcoming TV show. But he won't be reprising his role as music tutor Ronald Clifford in the new series — he'll be playing a totally new character this time around.
The new Prime Video series is not a sequel or a remake of the cult classic 1999 movie that starred Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Selma Blair (which was based on the classic novel Dangerous Liaisons) but rather an updated version of the story about two twisted step-siblings who will do anything to get their way. The TV show version centers on Caroline Merteuil (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lucien Belmont (Zac Burgess), the most popular students in Greek Life on their college campus, as they make a bet that involves seducing innocent Annie Grover (Savannah Lee Smith), the daughter of the vice president of the United States who is an incoming freshman interested in pledging a sorority.
Related: Cruel Intentions exclusive first-look photos take you inside Greek life
In the 1999 movie, Thomas played the young music tutor who falls in love with Blair's naive Cecile Caldwell. But now, in the series, the actor is portraying Professor Chadwick, a history teacher at the fictional Manchester College near Washington, D.C. Yes, he'll still be teaching CeCe Carroway (Sara Silva), the character based on Cecile, but now in a much more formal and professional atmosphere.
Showrunners Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher tell Entertainment Weekly that they never considered having Thomas reprise his movie character in the series. "Because we weren't making the movie," Goodman says. "To then bring that character into our new world would've been confusing."
They also felt that Ronald "had limitations," both in what he could bring to this new Cruel Intentions world as well as the way he was written in the movie. "Instead, we like what that character represented," Goodman adds. "And we love Sean, so to be able to create a character that has his own journey that has a different kind of depth, that comes from and has his own history, and isn't just someone people are reacting to and using, it was more interesting to us to take what we loved about that character and make someone new."
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Goodman explains that they also wanted to give the actor a full, three-dimensional character with Professor Chadwick in a way that he didn't get in the movie with Ronald. "That was the goal," she adds. "Actually, we had created Professor Chadwick first, and then our casting director, Lauren Grey, said, 'What about Sean Patrick?' And we were like, 'Are you serious?'"
Fisher remembers being shocked that he was even an option for them to cast as Professor Chadwick. "'We can do that?!'" she says with a laugh.
"Yeah, we fangirled, for sure," Goodman agrees. "I think that was to his benefit and to ours because we wrote Chadwick as a full character who had overlap with the character he played in the original, obviously, but was a full-fledged part of our world and very important soul-beating heart of Manchester College."
"Some might say the moral center," Fisher adds.
The showrunners didn't consider casting any other Cruel Intentions film alums, either. "He was the only one that we reached out to," Goodman reveals. "I think everyone else would have to come back as the character they played — I don't think they could play someone else — and so that would have to be something that organically fit into our world that we were creating."
Cruel Intentions premieres Nov. 21 on Prime Video.