Imagine being a mother and unable to care for your child. Imagine the pain your entire body, mind, and soul feels when you realize that you have to give your child up for adoption because you can’t afford the responsibility of caring for another being. You can barely take care of yourself.
Knowing your child is in a better place with people who can offer the care you can’t, but you spend every day hoping for a reunion. There isn’t a day you don’t long for your child. The weight of regret weighs heavy.
Then one day, a co-worker tells you, they’ve found your child and you decide to fight for custody. This singular action forever changing the course of not only your life but the lives of an entire town who pick sides, questioning your motherhood and sanity.
In Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, neighbors are pitted against each other, families clash and picture-perfect worlds shatter.
Tackling race, economic class, the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger in believing that following rules can avert disaster, this miniseries thrives on tension, passion and unspoken desires.
The Koalition interviewed director Nzingha Stewart about how she shaped episode 6 “The Uncanny” and episode 7 “Picture Perfect,” and more.
Keeping viewers on the edge of their seats comes easy to Stewart who has directed episodes of Pretty Little Liars, Grey’s Anatomy, How To Get Away With Murder, and Unreal.
“For me as a director, one of the most important functions of my job is making sure a scene has tension. It’s something I thought about even when we’re on the train scene. I got to shoot the subway scenes first. New York City subways back then, the lights would flicker on and off. I think that would make it scarier. I think that’ll add to the tension. Those scenes are a little bit scarier because the lights are always flashing on and off and things can happen in those moments of darkness. So even thinking about lighting and how it adds to the tension is really important to me.”
“I think the writers really smartly withheld a lot of information until you get deeper and deeper into the series. Just not knowing why, for example, Reese feels this way about her daughter or what’s gonna happen when Pearl finds out about the truth about her father? What is the truth about her father? Keeping that information literally keeps the audience in the dark and adds to tension because any second that information can spill out.”
To hear more about Little Fires check out the full interview below.
