What was your approach to making that digital behavior authentic? And why was it

important to get that right? It feels like it's such a part of love these days and the development of love and also friendship, just how we interact with people.

And I think so many... shows and movies ignore that element because it's so hard to get right and so hard to do it does take a lot of work um but we have a phenomenal team that made it work i do have to call out my fabulous writers liv and emmy who wrote a lot of the copy for uh for the instagram stuff for the texting stuff because anytime one character sends one text to another we need a whole text thread above it too because one of my pet peeves is when you see a like a text from one best friend to another where they've never texted before and you just don't buy it so that was really important to us on the show to really give the show and the relationships that authentic grounding

What made that the right first interaction between Hannah and Garrett for this adaptation?

Yes, that's a great question.

So we went back and forth on this opening a lot because, of course, the iconic moment in the classroom is the opening of the book.

And we do get there very quickly in the show.

But we wanted something to kick us right in and tell audiences, whether they're book fans or not, that this show is going to be a little steamier.

... that you knew fans would, would, would really need to see?

Well, the bounty board ended up being kind of the extra things.

The non-negotiables were already in there, which is, um, Hannah has a backstory and Garrett has a backstory that I don't wanna spoil too much, but it is in the books.

And they are...

They each have a little bit of a darker, um, relationship with, with...

Well, Garrett has a darker relationship with his dad.

That's not too much of a, a spoiler.

What's your, do you have a theory as to why that might be?

What were you guys trying to convey there?

Yeah.

So split screen was something that I came into in the script, and that our director, Silver Tree, who did the first two episodes, really built on.

Like, I didn't script every single split screen, but I did script a, at least one moment per episode, and then encouraged each structure, each director to find their own, um, flavor of it, because I really wanted there to be a visual element that feels like Off Campus.

And I also wanted to...

I wanted to make sure it didn't just feel like a gimmick or device, but I love the, like, the When Harry Met Sally split screen is iconic, and there are so many moments that we do directly mention in script, and then s- even more the directors found that I didn't intend in the scripts, that are nods to these old rom-coms.

Um, and I really wanted to, to acknowledge the genre that we're building on, and the split screen was one of those visual...

Mm-hmm.