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Big Little Lies fans learned last week that the show’s biggest, baddest lie had to do with who had creative control over the second season.
Acclaimed indie auteur Andrea Arnold was the director at the helm of filming Big Little Lies Season 2, but somewhere along the way, the show’s original director and executive producer Jean-Marc Vallée teamed up with writer and executive producer David E. Kelley to wrest that control back. Arnold was hired with the understanding that she would be able to shoot the show and edit it how she wanted, but as soon as Vallée wrapped Sharp Objects for HBO, he began taking over edits, and subsequently, 17 days of reshoots.
According to IndieWire‘s bombshell report, Arnold was “heartbroken about the experience.” Fans were outraged, leading to a viral hashtag, “#ReleasetheArnoldCut” taking over media Twitter. HBO issued the following statement in the wake of the controversy: “There wouldn’t be a Season 2 of Big Little Lies without Andrea Arnold. We at HBO and the producers are extremely proud of her work. As with any television project, the executive producers work collaboratively on the series and we think the final product speaks for itself.”
Television is indeed a collaborative medium, and the people with the most power are often not the directors, or even the writers. Power rests in the hands of the executive producers. Big Little Lies Season 2 has ten credited executive producers, including Andrea Arnold, Jean-Marc Vallée, David E. Kelley, and stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman. Not to sound like Mary Louise Wright over here, but I’m beginning to suspect that when Witherspoon and Kidman heaped praise on Arnold while promoting the new season, they might have left some things out.
How Much Did Reese and Nicole Know About Arnold-Gate, and When Did They Know It?
Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman are more than just vanity producers on Big Little Lies. In fact, the project started with them. Witherspoon’s former producing partner Bruna Papandrea discovered the book while working on another project and immediately envisioned it as an Aussie-set film starring Nicole Kidman. Papandrea told The Hollywood Reporter that Witherspoon read the book overnight and immediately “was like, ‘It’s amazing. We should do it in America, and I want to be in it, too.'” Eventually, the film evolved into a limited series, which then spawned a second season after the rapturous reception of the first with viewers and critics alike.
According to IndieWire’s report, the initial Big Little Lies Season 2 shoot went on with Arnold blissfully in the dark about Kelley and Vallée’s plans to supersede her power over the final edit. It’s not a stretch to presume the cast may not have known, either, and that Witherspoon and Kidman may not have been aware of any issues on the horizon.
During the Big Little Lies Season 2 panel at Winter 2019 TCA, a reporter asked about how bringing on a new director was changing the season. Kelley said, “[W]ith an ongoing series, you want it to be familiar but different. So, the audience is coming back to a show and a group of characters that they love, and they don’t want to be betrayed by suddenly seeing different people in a different world than what they fell in love with. So, you adhere to that vocabulary, but then you want to go places and mine centers of characters that you maybe didn’t get to mine first year and expand.”
He added, “Andrea’s brought a great skillset. She really mines the emotional center of character and story.”
This was in January 2019, and according to IndieWire, the battle over control didn’t really rear its head until the 17 days of reshooting in February. That’s when Arnold realized that she was there to serve Vallée’s vision and not her own.
February was a big month for HBO in other ways. At the month’s end, CEO Richard Plepler announced he was stepping down after a 28-year-long reign. His decision came almost nine months to the day that Time Warner completed its merger with HBO. Did the merger have anything to do with the situation? It’s impossible to say, Big Little Lies Season 2 was in production that summer, but it was originally announced — with Andrea Arnold at the helm — in late 2017.
However, the biggest sign that Witherspoon at least might have known more about the difference between what the cast thought they were shooting and what would wind up on screen is that infamous ice cream scene.
As of last summer, the scene in which Madeline (Witherspoon) pelts an ice cream cone at Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) was definitely in the show. This suggests it was in Arnold’s version. However, the moment was cut when the episode eventually aired. Streep told ETonline at the show’s premiere that Witherspoon had just told her — seemingly at the premiere!?! — that scene wouldn’t be in the show, but included in the DVD extras. That means that at some point between August 2018 and June 2019, executive producer Reese Witherspoon knew that Arnold wasn’t getting final cut. (But Meryl Streep was in the dark??)
Are Reese and Nicole “Team Arnold?” or “Team Vallée”?
Look, we’re not asking them to don a hip “Andrea Arnold” tee like co-star Laura Dern did a few days ago, but it would be nice if Witherspoon and Kidman weighed in on how they saw the reshoots and edits. However, we might have some semblance of an idea of where the executive producers fell on the Arnold vs. Vallée conversation — based on their own relationships, alliances, and business decisions.
It’s important to understand that Reese Witherspoon, who has grown into one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, is the one who brought Vallée into Big Little Lies in the first place. After all, they had already collaborated together on Wild, and she’s made it clear through social media posts that the two are friends. Or, at the very least, that she feels “so privileged” to get to work with him. (For the record, Witherspoon posted a photo of the Big Little Lies cast (almost) together and not a birthday wish on Arnold’s most recent birthday, April 5.)
Kidman is a tad bit less dishy on social media, but she was the one cast member who shouted out Arnold’s praises during the show’s panel at Winter 2019 TCA. Kidman specifically was fascinated by what Arnold’s gender would bring to the show. “It’s interesting having a woman. So, I mean you talk about the male gaze and the female gaze. Obviously, this is a female gaze because we have a woman now behind the camera. But it’s the way she enters into all of us is — you’ll see,” she told the press.
Interestingly, when Kidman and her producing partner Per Saari signed a major deal with Amazon Studios last year, Kidman admitted to Variety that she did so in part because she wanted to work with a female executive like Jennifer Salke. “How do you help other women succeed in the industry? You throw your support behind them,” Kidman told Variety. “You jump on board, and you go, ‘I’ve got your back.'”
In the run-up to Big Little Lies Season 2 premiere, Kidman was interviewed for a Vanity Fair cover story. In that piece, Kidman shares that she and Saari were collaborating again with David E. Kelley on the HBO limited series The Undoing. Emmy-winner Susanna Bier will direct. When asked about working with Arnold, Kidman said, “[Jean-]Marc [Vallée]’s still very much the father of the series. His vocabulary was set in the first one and then Andrea got to mine us for different emotions.”
It is difficult to find any other reference to Arnold’s work in interviews that Kidman and Witherspoon did immediately ahead of Big Little Lies Season 2.
Was Andrea Arnold Doing a Bad Job on Big Little Lies Season 3?
We can’t say whether or not Vallée and Kelley’s actions were necessary to save the show without feasting our eyes upon the legendary “Arnold Cut.” That means we’ll never know if Arnold was going well out of bounds with her version or if she was simply not doing what Vallée would prefer to do. However, we do know, again from IndieWire’s reporting, that both Witherspoon and Kidman “were said to have loved with with Arnold and trusted her intrinsically.”
We also know, thanks to an Instagram post, that Arnold ran the set in such a way to inspire creativity, thus leading to one of the premiere’s best moments.
Kayvon Esmaili is a Monterey Bay-based photographer who played a version of himself in the Big Little Lies Season 2 premiere; he’s the guy taking photos of Renata. As Esmaili notes, “This season is directed by Andrea Arnold, and the set was run by a predominantly female crew. It was a beautiful thing. I felt honored and privileged just to be present and make my small contribution.”
He adds, “Laura Dern’s bit in this scene about women in power being demure was completely improvised. She made it up on the spot and didn’t repeat it again. The script just had me directing her and her posing before her husband interrupts.”
Although it’s just an Instagram post, it provides insight into how Arnold was working, and by this account, things were going great! Not only that, but Dern was allowed to improvise one of her character’s best moments of the season so far! Renata’s “It’s My House” scene wasn’t in Kelley’s scripts nor did it come from Vallée’s editing. It happened because Arnold clearly encouraged the actress to improvise and had the good sense to keep it in.
The Legacy of Big Little Lies Season 2
Big Little Lies Season 2 has been receiving good to mixed reviews, with many critics finding fault in the later episodes of the season. After last week’s penultimate episode, IndieWire‘s Ben Travers wrote, “Without a single grounding force, Big Little Lies has gone totally off the rails.” However, it’s worth noting that on Rotten Tomatoes, Season 2 episodic ratings ranged from 100% to 94% fresh, until last week’s episode, which is still fresh at 79%. Episode 6, “The Bad Mother” was coincidentally the first episode to air immediately following IndieWire’s report.
After this week’s Season 2 finale, it’s doubtful there will be a Big Little Lies Season 3. Witherspoon and Kidman both have a number of other projects in development. Kidman, again, is working on The Undoing with Kelley at HBO and has her own development deal at Amazon. Witherspoon has the splashy Apple TV+ series The Morning Show (co-starring some nobodies named Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carrell) and Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere. So, they’re busy.
As for Andrea Arnold, the auteur has remained mum since IndieWire’s report went up on Friday. However, the news sparked a rabid appreciation for her work, the likes of which demonstrate the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s got a lot of fans. One particular admirer? Powerhouse producer and director Ava DuVernay, who inked a $100 million overall deal with Warner Bros. TV last year.
Sassy Renata, ice cream battles…What else would we have seen in an Andrea Arnold-edited Big Little Lies Season 2? We may never know. And perhaps the question we should be asking is what will Andrea Arnold show us next?
