2 weeks Ago
INDIANAPOLIS — "Toxic relationships, college and a lot of bad, bad behavior." That's how Sonia Mena ("Artist Unknown," "The Deuce") describes "Tell Me Lies," which just wrapped its second season on Hulu. The first season introduces college freshman Lucy (Grace Van Patten) and junior Stephen (Jackson White) as their relationship quickly turns toxic and affects everyone around them.
Mena plays Pippa, who becomes best friends with Lucy at college. "Pippa has a gnarly storyline. She has a pretty intense thing happen to her very early on in the storyline, and we see her navigating that," Mena said.
"She's just trying to survive as best as she can. She finds surprising alliances. We see her let her guard down less so because she wants to do more, but she doesn't have the energy to be around all of that.
" And although "Tell Me Lies" is incredibly captivating, it brings to light major issues on college campuses, such as rape, power struggles among young couples and the dangers of drinking alcohol and the decisions that follow. "It's a very heavy subject matter," Mena said. "To be honest, I meditate before set, which is the most actory thing I've ever said in my whole life, but it's true.
" Fans of the first season will certainly notice the change in Pippa's physical appearance in the second season: blonde hair. "(Showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer) came to me pretty early on while they were still writing and said, 'We want Pippa to come back different. We're thinking short hair.
' I was like, 'That to me signals, very like queer, especially in that time period.' I didn't feel like she was in that place. And I was thinking, it was really not cool to have short hair for a lot of people, and she's chasing acceptance and male validation so much," Mena said.
"I have been blonde many times in my life, and I was like, 'What if we go blonde?' And then it was Meaghan who – because she wanted differentiation between me and Lucy – was like, 'Yes, but we're gonna go platinum blonde.'" It's evident Mena truly loves working with their co-stars, as Pippa's storyline continues to grow with Lucy (Van Patten), Wrigley (Spencer House) and Diana (Alicia Crowder). "It's so fun.
Alicia's so great. She's so precise and a hilarious person, so it was really fun to do those," Mena said of working with Crowder. "There's such small scenes, so trying to sneak in as much details and layering was just a joy to work with her.
" RELATED: 'Tell Me Lies' actors discuss 2nd season of Hulu's bingeworthy drama "It's so fun. Spencer is the best. It was really nice to have those longer scenes and deeper moments," Mena said of working with House.
"It's a very particular weird texture between them because it's a lot of lonely people in pain not talking about it." "Grace is actually one of my very close friends, and me and her at Cat (Missal) hang out a lot," Mena said of working with Van Patten. "Those are my favorite days, to be honest, of shooting, the three of us because we would just work ourselves into a full mania.
For us, we were trying to get the crew laughing, get ourselves laughing and get as much energy in the scenes as possible — even when they're sad." Seasons 1 and 2 take place across two semesters of one year at college; however, there's foreshadowing to 2015, where audiences are trying to guess how the characters got to where they are then. "They don't tell me anything," said Mena on how many seasons it's going to take to get to the foreshadowing storyline.
"I think there's so much that needs to be settled up." There are plenty of places for Pippa's character to go, regardless of how many more seasons we get. "The writers have done such an interesting job of setting her up, but we really haven't seen her act on anything.
She's been holding everything in and taking care of things," Mena said. "Pippa has a lot of processing. She's got so much rage, just a lot to figure out, and we see later, she's happier.
You don't really get there just by thinking about it." Both season of "Tell Me Lies" are available to stream on Hulu. 'Rivals' cast previews scandalous British drama TV series 'English Teacher' actors reflect on 1st season of critically acclaimed comedy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón, cast preview psychological thriller 'DISCLAIMER*'.
