First Look: Big Little Lies

Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley star in Sky Atlantic’s Big Little Lies – a tale of three mothers whose apparently perfect lives begin to spiral out of control.

Jane (Woodley) hasn’t lived anywhere longer than six months since her son was born five years ago. Now, in her new tranquil seaside town, Jane feels like she finally belongs. She finds friends in the feisty Madeline (Witherspoon) and beautiful Celeste (Kidman) – women with seemingly perfect lives who hide their own secrets behind closed doors.

But at the start of a new term, an incident involving the children of all three women occurs. Whispers and rumours become vicious and spiteful, and truths blur into lies. It was always going to end in tears, but no one thought it would end in murder.

Based on the brilliant bestselling novel by Liane Moriarty, this seven-part series weaves a tale of murder and mischief, painting a picture of a town thriving on rumours and divided into the haves and have-nots, exposing the conflicts, secrets and betrayals that come between husbands and wives, parents and children and friends and neighbours.

Further cast includes Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, Generation Kill) as Perry Wright, Laura Dern (Jurassic Park, The Fault in Our Stars, Wild) as Renata Klein, Zoë Kravitz (Mad Max: Fury Road, Divergent) as Bonnie Carlson, Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) as Ed Mackenzie and James Tupper (Revenge) as Nathan Carlson.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, Demolition), Big Little Lies has been created by David E. Kelley (Picket Fences, LA Law, Ally McBeal, Goliath). The drama has been executive produced by Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, David E. Kelley and Jean-Marc Vallée, as well as Bruna Papandrea (Gone Girl, Wild, Milk), Per Saari (Rabbit Hole, The Family Fang, Monte Carlo), Nathan Ross (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, Demolition) and Gregg Fienberg (True Blood and Deadwood). It has been produced by Barbara A. Hall (Ray, Milk) and Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty.