SPOILER ALERT: This piece lightly spoils the entirety of We Were Liars now streaming on Prime Video.
Alongside Cadence Sinclair Eastman (Emily Alyn Lind) and Gatwick Patil (Shubham Maheshwari), Esther McGregor’s Mirren Sinclair Sheffield and Joseph Zada’s Johnny Sinclair Dennis make up the core four group in Prime Video’s television adaptation of We Were Liars, based on the bestselling book by E. Lockhart.
In Lockhart’s book, told from the perspective of Cadence, or Cady as her cousins Mirren and Jonny and best friend Gat affectionately call her, the other three liars are mainly constructed from memories that Cadence constantly looks back on, but she herself is an unreliable narrator because of a traumatic head injury that has left her with amnesia about the circumstances leading up to how she got hurt. The show takes the characters out of Lockhart’s and Cadence’s minds and brings them to life in a new way complete with the actors’ performances.
“I feel like the script brought them from the book, into more real people and less as perspective, told by someone,” McGregor told Deadline ahead of the show’s launch. “They seemed to be the authors of their own story, which helped.”
In the below interview, McGregor and Zada, who will soon portray Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping coming to theaters in 2026, discuss the cruxes of their characters, individual and group dynamics and relationships and more.
DEADLINE: Esther, the painting scene with Ebon (Dempsey Bryk) for Mirren, felt like a big moment, and really brought her more out of Cadence’s imagination and mind. Could you could talk about filming that scene?
MCGREGOR: It was a really fun scene to do. Working with Dempsey was amazing. He’s such an amazing human being. Very easy to work with, great actor. It was just fun. It was an exciting one, because I do feel like it’s the first time you see Mirren letting go a little bit and chilling out and trusting herself a bit more. It’s the first time that you also see her counter the act of perfection. It’s a very transformative scene for her because she ends up quite liking, I think, not being perfect all the time, and Eben shows her that. It’s definitely good for her. Thank you Ebon.
DEADLINE: Joseph, Johnny has quite a demon in his past, as we learn. But you also have scenes like the one where you’re dancing — it reminded me of Hugh Grant in Love, Actually…
ZADA: We stole it from Risky Business, from the Tom Cruise—
MCGREGOR: The Tom Cruise scene.
ZADA: Sorry I just —
DEADLINE: No, that’s okay. That’s the right reference. How did you want to balance the fun, upbeat parts of him and then his darkness?
ZADA: I just thought that it was just like a secret that I could carry with me the whole time. And it made him more energetic, I feel, because he’s trying to put up a little bit of a front. He always is a very exciting and energetic character, but I think that even more so in summer 16.
DEADLINE: For both of you, what went into filming the goodbye scenes with Cadence for both of your characters. I feel like, there, we see your characters have a special bond, as well as throughout the show. Could you speak more to that?
MCGREGOR: Well, I think Johnny and Mirren are very similar, and also let each other be a lot, I think, and pass no judgment in terms of our lives. I love that about them, so I do think they’re quite close. And then seeing the relationships between singularly, separately, with Cadence and Emily, that that was a whole different relationship, we found a different kind of serenity and safety in that, at least I did. And that last scene was real. That was our last week of filming. I was already starting to get distraught about leaving.
L-R: Esther McGregor and Joseph Zada in ‘We Were Liars’ on Prime Video
Prime Video
ZADA: Yeah. It was really, really upsetting. It was like it was our characters saying goodbye too but, yeah, it was more than that. It was also us saying goodbye to each other. So it was really sad.
DEADLINE: For both, what would you say was the most challenging part of bringing your characters to life, from this beloved book, and they’re kind of described in memories. So what did you want to do to get them to the next level?
MCGREGOR: My biggest challenge was jumping between both years. I had mapped it out timeline-wise, on both fronts, and then having conversations with these guys before going onto a scene, and knowing exactly where we were was important. I’d never had to do that ever with a character. And obviously a lot happens and we grow and we change as human beings, so it’s important to make sure you know where you are in your life.
RELATED: ‘We Were Liars’ Star Joseph Zada On Playing Haymitch Abernathy In ‘Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping’: “I’m So Ridiculously Nervous”
