Nia Peeples Plays Against Type in 'Pretty Little Liars': Exclusive Interview

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So those were aspects of her life that you did not know ahead of time?

You have to remember I didn’t know; a) if I was married; b) if I had any other children and; c) if we even lived in the same house. So as they began to introduce the storyline – that we were a military family, and that my husband was gone - I went, “Ok.” I see a little bit of the form there, and her clinging to honor that is defined in a specific manner, meaning in a military manner.

I am so thankful in this second season for Pam that they allow her to explore the difficulties that she has with Emily’s sexuality. Like Emily coming out of the closet-- she can no longer live in denial. Now she has to deal with it. So the truth I was able to connect to was that Pam absolutely loves her daughter and wants what is best for her and is trying to lead her in the right direction.

I was the parent of a teenager, and I have another one coming up. I have a 12-year-old and a 21-year-old, and the one thing we know for sure, is that when you’re 16 or 17, you don’t know what you think you know, but you think you know it more than anybody else. It is a time of great, great passion and you feel things perhaps more deeply than at any other time in your life.

If Emily had brought a boyfriend home and said, “I love this man, this is who I want to be with for the rest of my life,” Pam is going to say “no it isn’t. You don’t know that at 16. What do you know?”

As a mother, regardless of what the daughter is bringing home and saying she knows, the mother is automatically going to go “whoa, whoa, whoa. You don’t know that for a fact because you’re only 16.” But what Pam has to accept is that her daughter has to look at these things and ask those questions, and she has to support that.

photo credit: ABC Family

Pretty Little Liars has this whole surreal mystery element to it that essentially relies on the viewer to watch with a certain amount of abandon. But at the same time the storyline for Emily is being told with such dignity and care.

Well, I think that’s the reason the show is so successful. Ultimately what locks people into something like this isn’t just the mystery. I mean, that keeps you hanging on the edge, but it’s in the investment in the characters themselves. The more poignant they can make the individual characters’ storylines, the more connected to those characters the audience is going to be. They have done such a great job of doing that, and that is what makes the writing so good.

Shay Mitchell is just such a wonderful young actress. How has it been working with her?

Awesome, she is amazing. She is a relatively new actress and really willing to learn. It’s interesting coming onto a set at my age. She is starting now; I started at that age, so I have traveled that journey for 30 years. To watch her take it on with such grace and willingness to do the work is wonderful. Shay really has it together. I have a great amount of admiration for her. It’s fun working with her. Its actually kind of fun no longer being the ingénue, but being the old hag [laughs].

[laughs] I wouldn’t exactly put you in the ‘old hag’ category but…

Well, I have been using that expression since I was 30 just because its fun. I can actually now. When I am watching her, sometimes I’ll understand what they need to get at, what the director is trying to get at. Because I have been acting so long, I can play tricks and force that out of her, without her even knowing it. It’s fun, it’s what acting teachers will sometimes do.

Shay’s under a lot of pressure. Suddenly you’re on a huge hit show and you’ve got to deliver. There is a lot of learning to be had. But she is so open and she is willing, so you can play those little games and everybody learns together.

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