Posted in: Hulu, streaming, TV | Tagged: Cheryl Strayed, hulu, interview, kathryn hahn, laura dern, reese witherspoon, Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things Author Strayed on Hulu Series & More: Interview

Tiny Beautiful Things author Cheryl Strayed spoke with Bleeding Cool about Reese Witherspoon & Laura Dern helping get the series made & more.

Cheryl Strayed has come a long way in her career as a successful author. It's been quite the decade as not only has she published four works, but two of them have been adapted to screen thanks to the creative & personal bonds she's formed over the years with the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Nia Vardalos, and others. Witherspoon and Dern not only starred in the 2014 theatrical adaptation of Wild, but they optioned her follow-up work Tiny Beautiful Things (compiled in part from Strayed's work on her "Dear Sugar" advice column) to Hulu, with Liz Tigelaar operating as showrunner. Based on the author's life, the series follows Clare (Kathryn Hahn), who is tasked to take over as an advice columnist for "Dear Sugar" as she's trying to make sense of her own crumbling life. Strayed spoke to Bleeding Cool about how the series became a reality, casting Hahn, and the advantages creatively of streaming and continuing her work on "Dear Sugar" online.

How Hulu's 'Tiny Beautiful Things' Became a Reality

Bleeding Cool: How does it feel seeing 'Tiny Beautiful Things' come alive as a Hulu TV series?

Strayed: I'm so excited. It's been a long, winding path to this moment. It feels miraculous, and I'm the luckiest woman in the world. I'm overjoyed, and we began talking about this idea. Laura Dern, Reese Witherspoon, and I became dear friends as we made 'Wild' together and started chatting. I said, "Listen, I have this other book, and I think it could be a TV show." The seed of that idea began way back then, and it's glorious that here we are now.

Was Kathryn the first choice to play the Clare role? How was the process of casting Sarah [Pidgeon] to play her younger counterpart?

We began writing the show a little more than a year ago. We had a Zoom writers' room, and we didn't at that time, when we started the room, know who our Sugar was going to be. We had a sense that she needed to be somebody who is exactly like Kathryn, who has this magnificent ability to express that full range of her humanity and somebody who seems real, funny, deep, smart, and messed up sometimes. Pretty immediately, Kathryn was at the top of our list. We asked her if she was interested, and when she said yes, we were like, "This is the character! This woman is the person we've been imagining all along."

What does a streaming platform like Hulu offer to tell your story creatively?

We always felt supported, and that's so important, but all of the people above advised us as we would turn in each script or idea. We always felt supported as we brought the book to life. This book is not G-rated, right? It's a book that embraces the truth of not just humanity but the gritty stuff about sex and sexuality, parenthood, and love in all its different forms. We wanted to convey that broad and deep sense of what it is to be an adult, to be alive in these times, and to be loving in losing, struggling, and all of these things. What that meant is we couldn't be bound by, "You can't say 'fuck,' or you can't say this. You can't have your characters do that." We were free to do that.

With the Dear Sugar segments, the podcasts, and evolution, is there a way to articulate how you feel and how you've grown since you started when it took on a life of its own? How do you make sense of it?

The way I make sense of it is life is a grand and wild adventure or, as I say in my Sugar column, "it's a great and continuous unfolding," and I also convey that in my title 'Tiny Beautiful Things.' When I said yes to Sugar, it was because I felt that spark within me that said, "Do this even though it doesn't make sense, doesn't it pay anything." It's anonymous. Do it because it sounds fun and interesting. As you said, it's led to something way beyond my imagination. I'm not doing the podcast anymore, but you're right. Steve Allman and I had a podcast from 2014 to 2018, and it was big

I still write the Dear Sugar column in my monthly Substack newsletter is taken on [a life of its own], and there was a stage adaptation by Nia Vardalos. Here we are with this Hulu show, right? I never imagined any of that, but that is the beauty of life is that you say "Yes" to the things that spark your heart that make you feel awake, alive, and excited. They will almost always lead to wonderful things. Here we are in this place that I couldn't have imagined, and yet I got here by following the path every step of the way.

This project is near and dear to you. How do you compare to your other work?

My work as Sugar is the same as my work as Cheryl. All of my books and work have many of the same characteristics, certainly the same voice. Sugar does have a special place in my heart in this one way. One is that I don't do Sugar alone. The experience is innately interactive, right? Every column is somebody out there, a stranger writing to me, and I'm writing back. I love the intimacy of that, and it's a literary exchange, right? I didn't write this book alone. This show wouldn't exist if it weren't for all those people who wrote to me, right?

I've always believed in the power of books to save us. I've always believed in the power of story to allow us to feel consoled or less alone in the universe. In my work as Sugar, I get to do that directly. I'm not writing a story that people say, "I see myself in that." I'm honestly giving advice. I never thought I would be anything in the self-help category. When 'Tiny Beautiful Things' came out in a couple of bookstores, they would put it in self-help, and I'd be like, "I didn't write self-help," but in a lot of ways, it is because through words, sentences, and stories, I am offering help to people, and I love that. It's useful in that way.

Tiny Beautiful Things, which also stars Quentin Plair, Tanzyn Crawford, Owen Painter, Merritt Weaver, Elizabeth Hinkler, and Michaela Watkins, premieres April 7th on Hulu. You can check out Strayed's column here.

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