Diksha Sundriyal
A toxic relationship ensues between Lucy and Stephen in Hulu’s ‘Tell Me Lies.’ The story begins in 2007 at Baird College, where a freshman, Lucy Albright, meets a junior, Stephen DeMarco. It is an instant attraction between them, but as Lucy gets to know him, she realizes that there is more he hides about him than he shows to the world. While falling for him, she gets caught in his web of lies and realizes that she is not the only girl he has in his clutches. Even with this, there is too much that ties Lucy to him, and she finds it impossible to let go. Through these two characters, we see a realistic portrayal of a toxic relationship.
Lucy and Stephen are Loosely Inspired by Carola Lovering’s Life
‘Tell Me Lies’ is a fictional story based on the novel of the same name by Carola Lovering. The author penned the novel while processing the fallout of a toxic relationship she’d been in for a long time. She revealed that it started when she was studying as an English major in her college. She met the unnamed man at a party in the college, where an instant spark was felt between them. From there, he pursued her intently, continuing to do so even when she tried to rebuff him. In this end, his ways got the better of her, and she ended up lowering her guard and falling for him.
Lovering revealed that the man displayed his obsession for her while pursuing her, but when they got together, she seemed to have gotten obsessed with him. This was unlike any relationship she had been in before, and all the attention that he showered her with morphed her feelings for him so that she found herself irrevocably drawn to him. This was when he already had a girlfriend. Still, Lovering felt that his feelings for her were real, and she decided to give him one chance after another.
There were times when it seemed she was done with him. She would swear off him, promising herself and her friends that she’d had her final straw and would never go back to him again. But then, she would find herself pulled back into his orbit. Before she knew it, she would be stuck in the same vicious cycle all over again. Describing him as the “blood from a cut that refused to heal,” The author said that even when he was in a relationship with someone else, he would make her feel as if he really did want a future with her and that they would eventually have it. After one point, Lovering seemed to have accepted the fact that, despite his promises, he was never going to leave his girlfriend, with whom he had moved in. She was so trapped in his schemes that the cycle ended when he broke up with her.
The Show Expands Lucy and Stephen’s Storylines and Backgrounds
It was in the aftermath of the breakup that Lovering was advised by one of her friends to channel her feelings into words and write about it. In the beginning, it started as a way to gain some catharsis, but once Lovering started to write, she couldn’t stop. Instead of making it a biography, she decided to give the story a fictional spin, though the core of it remained the same.
When the adaptation was put into the works, the show’s creators decided to expand upon the story rather than present it on the screen word for word. While they wanted to remain true to the core of the story, they also wanted the audience to know more about the characters than the book offered. The first thing they decided was to make Stephen’s character more sympathetic, if not likable. They wanted the audience to see why someone like Lucy would fall for Stephen and for them to have just as confused feelings about him as her. The humanization of his character was an important step taken by the show, where they wanted him to be three-dimensional rather than just some villain.
Because Stephen is such a complicated character, the show’s creators pored through the audition tapes to find the perfect actor for the role. It was after they found Jackson White that things started to fall into place for Stephen. He was chosen for the part due to his ability to balance the dark side of the character with the good parts about him, making him intriguing and alluring. This makes the audience’s task harder as they are polarised in their views about him. Further, this explains Lucy’s attraction towards him and gives more grounds to her dilemma about their relationship. For actress Grace van Patten, who plays Lucy, it was important to show that even the smartest people can tend to fall into the vicious cycles of toxic relationships. Things like these make otherwise fictional characters more relatable to the audience.
Read More: Tell Me Lies: Where Was the TV Show Filmed?
