PLAYING WITH FIRES

DUNAMIC DUO KERRY WASHINGTON AND REES WITHERSPOON TEAM UP FOR A RED-HOT ADAPATION OF LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE

- Samantha Highfill

In the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) is sitting down to dinner with her husband and four kids in the meticulously decorated dining room of her spacious home. Across town, single mum Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) is also having a meal with her daughter … at Lucky Palace, the Chinese restaurant where she just landed a waitressing job. Mia and Pearl (Lexi Underwood) are new to town, and don’t intend to stay long.

Eight-episode series Little Fires Everywhere (on Amazon Prime Video from Fri., May 22) is based on the bestselling novel by Celeste Ng (above with Washington and Witherspoon). It is about a tight-knit (and uptight) Midwestern community in the ’90s and what two very different mums bring out in each other. “They have this commonality, which is that they believe they’re doing what’s best for their children,” says showrunner Liz Tigelaar, who worked on the Apple TV+ series Morning Wars that starred Witherspoon as an impulsive TV reporter. “Through the story, that notion gets unravelled in both of them. They each hold up a mirror to the other, and the results change their lives, the lives of their families and the lives of the people in the town.”

“There was a desire … to play with the ending a bit so there could be surprises for people who loved the book,” Washington reveals.