In an interview, the duo spoke about their decision to share all of the season’s secrets with their actors in advance, and how that impacted what fans see on screen. They also revealed what about the show made Lauren drop everything to read the original Surface script. Plus, Veronica tells viewers what she learned from working on NBC’s hit series Chicago Fire that she’s utilized to make this Apple TV+ drama one of the best mysteries on television.
CBR: Lauren, you and your colleagues at Hello Sunshine focus specifically on female-led narratives, and this is head and shoulders above most of them. What was it about Veronica’s writing or vision for Surface that made the show and its characters exceptional to you?
Lauren Neustadter: I had the privilege of reading this as a pilot spec script, which basically means Veronica sat with her thoughts and wrote it out and then sent it out to different producers. I got this script, and our agent actually said, I never tell you to drop everything and read a script, but I am telling you to drop everything and read this script. And so I did, and it was just unforgettable. I thought Sophie was such an incredibly compelling character.
For us at Hello Sunshine, we’re always looking for women at the center of the story — who, in unconventional ways, are the heroes of their own stories. And I think one of the things that this show does so well, and that Veronica does so well in her writing, is really showcase dimensional characters who are not clearly the hero or the villain, but who really hold all of these different complexities inside of their character. And then the plot takes you to these places that reveal all the different sides of them, and I just think it’s thrilling.
Speaking of plots going to interesting places, Veronica, you previously were a co-executive producer and writer on Chicago Fire, which is known for its wild plot ideas. What’s been crazier, the stories you got to be a part of on that show or the plot twists you’ve gotten to come up with here — and did you learn anything from Chicago Fire that you wanted to implement on Surface?
Veronica West: Definitely the plot twists I get to come up with on this show. Chicago Fire is not serialized in any way — so what always bugged me about working on Chicago Fire was, you never got to see where the stories went. Somebody was in a terrible accident, you never saw them again. I worked really hard to get to a point where we could tell our own stories.
