Meryl Streep invited herself to Big Little Lies season 2

By Britt Hayes  |  November 20, 2018 | 5:37pm
Aux Features Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies was always meant to be a one-off miniseries, and despite how great it was, Liane Moriarty’s source novel left little room for an additional season. That is, until Meryl Streep entered the picture. Whatever Queen Meryl wants, Queen Meryl gets—and she wanted to join the second season of the hit HBO series, script be damned.

Variety has a new profile of Big Little Lies star and Streep’s fellow queen Nicole Kidman, in which the actress revealed exactly how they managed to land Streep for the second season. As it turns out, they didn’t even have to ask. After Big Little Lies won a Golden Globe for best TV limited series, Streep invited herself—as only a queen can. According to Kidman, Streep sent an email (an email!) to her and Reese Witherspoon following their big Golden Globes win:

She goes, ‘I suppose now I have to join you.’ And we were like, ‘What?’ The two of us were just shocked.

Kidman goes on to explain that Streep “hadn’t even read” the script yet when she asked to join. “That’s how much she wanted to support us,” says Kidman.

Streep joins returning cast members/queens Kidman, Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley for the second season of the series, which also stars Adam Scott, Kathryn Newton, and Robin Weigert. Streep will play Mary Louise Wright, mother-in-law of Kidman’s Celeste, and given how the first season ended, we can probably expect a fair amount of tension between the two.

Andrea Arnold (American Honey) directed all seven episodes of the new season, which premieres on HBO some time in 2019.

 
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