(continued)
I’m continually amazed by how the show continually manages to depict very human, authentic stories within a fantastic mystery and that equal weight is given to both.
I personally think that’s what makes this show so special. It’s not just a hard-driving mystery. It’s a hard-driving mystery with characters that we’ve all fallen in love with. I fell in love with them when I was writing the pilot, and now feel more invested and more in love with them then I every have been.
I love watching their stories unfold. I love watching these girls make some good choices and bad choices and then have to deal with the consequences to everything they do. The characters are very well drawn in the book and I think we succeeded in bringing that to the screen. For all of us here who work on the show, as much as we love those jump-off-the-couch moments, those very fun ‘aha’ mystery moments, we love watching these characters go through their emotional journeys.
There is that great balance but sometimes I watch and think the girls must be exhausted from dealing with A’s machinations. Will they ever get a mini-break where they just focus on their personal lives?
Well, it’s definitely payback time. Our mantra for writing this season is “no victims please.”
Love it. Emily’s coming out story has been especially important and really wonderful since her mom also began to accept Emily’s being gay. How has her story impacted you?
It’s really the icing on the cake for us. When I very first read the book, and just in theory, you see the poster for pretty girls -- a show about pretty girls who lie. Who would have thought that we could also have this fantastic positive impact on young people, and I will just say, all people who watch this show? We want to make the sexuality somewhat irrelevant in our world. Emily is just another Pretty Little Liar and that’s the stance we took from the beginning, and it’s the stance we continue to take.
Was there a conscience decision - or was it because Shay is so lovely, sweet, and charming – that Emily became such a lady-killer?
(Laughs) Well, there was a conscience decision to make sure she was a ‘Pretty Little Liar’ just like the other three.
Right.
Shay is stunningly beautiful both inside and out, and there wasn’t a type we were looking for physically with Emily. Emily was the last character we cast in the show and we met with so many people, wonderful talented actors… But really, once we got Shay we felt like, “Ok. This is the pretty outside Emily and inside that we had been looking for.”
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