Big Little Lies

HBO’s 2017 show keeps much of the structure and themes of Moriarty’s Big Little Lies while adapting the story’s characters and setting. The limited series won eight Emmy awards, including Outstanding Directing (Jean-Marc Vallée); Outstanding Lead Actress (Nicole Kidman as Celeste); Outstanding Supporting Actress (Laura Dern as Renata); and Outstanding Supporting Actor (Alexander Skarsgård as Perry). Reese Witherspoon, who played Madeline, and Shailene Woodley, who played Jane, also received Emmy nominations. For the novel, Moriarty modeled the fictional Pirriwee Peninsula after the affluent Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. The HBO series takes place in Monterey, California, a setting that retains the text’s examination of suburbia’s socioeconomic tensions and the less than idyllic realities of seemingly enviable lifestyles. 

The HBO series also made key changes to the novel’s characters. Showrunner David E. Kelley added an arc in which Madeline has an affair with a community theater director named Joseph. This change was made at Witherspoon’s request, who explains that, in the original script, she “didn’t have anything to play but perfection” in contrast to the intense inner struggles the rest of the main characters grapple with (Birnbaum, Debra. “‘Big Little Lies’: Inside Reese Witherspoon’s Twisty Foray Into Television,” Variety, 31 Jan. 2017). Additionally, while Renata is mostly an antagonistic figure in the novel, the show offers a more sympathetic portrayal of her character, expands upon her backstory, and uses her arc to examine “the issue of working vs. stay-at-home mothers” (Birnbaum, Debra. “‘Big Little Lies’: Inside Reese Witherspoon’s Twisty Foray Into Television,” Variety, 31 Jan. 2017). In a major shift, the show ends with Bonnie, Madeline, Jane, Celeste, and Renata keeping Bonnie’s role in Perry’s death a secret from the police, a change from the novel that further emphasizes the story’s message of female solidarity. In 2019, HBO released a second season of Big Little Lies, which was based upon an unpublished novella that Moriarty created specifically for the project. This season builds upon storylines established in the first, such as Bonnie’s traumatic past, while introducing new threats to the “Monterey Five,” such as Perry’s mother’s attempts to seize custody of her grandchildren. The official second novel of the book series, Big Little Truths, was published in 2026.