The headline, borrowed from Entertainment Weekly, is a bit misleading as it makes you think of Meryl Streep begging Mr. Kelley to be on his show, so let’s focus on his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which he spills the beans on the second season of “Big Little Lies” and Streep’s involvement: What did it take David E. Kelley to be convinced that a second season of Big Little Lies could work? An actress you might have heard of named Meryl Streep. Like many, the writer of HBO’s Emmy juggernaut thought it was best to leave the series as it was originally intended. “I didn’t think it was a very good idea,” Kelley told The Hollywood Reporter. “We wrote it as a one-off and we ended it in a way that was very lyrical. But we ended on a lie. I get so protective of characters and series, too, that I don’t want to damage them in any way, and I so loved how we ended year one and I thought, ‘Let’s just leave it at that.’” And yet, Kelley, along with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and the rest of the powerhouse cast, is back for the seven-episode second season, which is expected to premiere in 2019. So why the change of heart? “A multitude of forces, but mainly it came down to a creative analysis,” said Kelley. “[Big Little Lies author] Liane [Moriarty] wrote a novella of [new] stories, and most of them we’re using. But the genius one was introducing this character who’s being played by Meryl Streep. It’s a delicious character and I felt bringing her in was both liberating and daunting. Daunting because she sets a high bar and you have to measure up, but liberating in that now the show’s not going to be compared to last year. There was freedom in that.”
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