Katherine Heigl Says Role In New Netflix Drama ‘Firefly Lane’ Initially Scared Her

The new Netflix
NFLX
drama Firefly Lane is an homage to best friends the world over. The 10-episode series, which premieres on February 3, is the perfect binge for viewers looking for an escape from our current reality.

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke are each superb in their respective roles as Tully and Kate, two best friends who first meet as teenagers in the seventies and remain close for several decades until a betrayal threatens to rip them apart.

The series is based on the novel of the same name by New York Times
NYT
bestselling author Kristin Hannah, who serves as co-executive producer. The story follows as the pair meet at fourteen-years-old and, though opposites in many ways, quickly become inseparable. Tully is the confident and outgoing girl you can’t ignore, while Kate is the shy introvert many overlook.

The viewer tags along as the pair overcome many of life’s challenges over the course of three decades. Tully becomes a wealthy, famous talk show host while Kate chooses marriage and motherhood.

In a joint phone interview with Heigl and Chalke, it became immediately apparent that the two became friends in real life while filming the series. Prior to working together, they were acquaintances via a mutual friend. So, when Heigl, who also serves as executive producer, was cast and filming was set for Chalke’s hometown of Vancouver, the two connected over the phone to discuss where Heigl should move her family. As fate would have it, Chalke was cast roughly a month later.

The two laughed throughout the interview and would finish one another’s sentences. As show creator, showrunner and executive producer Maggie Friedman said in a separate interview, the chemistry on screen between them is real.

When asked if she’s anything like the bold, fearless Tully in real life, Heigl laughed. “I wish I was more like Tully! I just really admire and respect her self-confidence, her self-worth and that she just doesn’t take any bulls**t. I was not anything like that in my twenties but I am getting more like that in my forties because I feel like once you get to forty that’s allowed. When you’re the twenty-year-old girl-next-door you have to be sweet and agreeable but by your forties they expect you to be an a**hole. I feel I have a little more hutzpah now that I can stand up for myself a little better and with a little more grace.”

Heigl explains that taking on this role was a bit stressful at first. “Tully was a little scary for me. One reason was that she could come off as unlikable. That kind of confidence often treads on other peoples’ toes and certainly treads on Kate’s. I tend to like to play the really likable characters. I want people to like me,” she adds, laughing.

As women, both she and Chalke agree, we want people to like us. “Yes, it’s like an illness! So, it was scary in that way but it was also incredibly freeing. I loved playing her. I’d leave set and it would take me a minute to shed her,” confides Heigl.

Friedman tells me how this series came to be and it all began at a lunch meeting about two years ago with executive producer Stephanie Germain, who had the rights to Hannah’s novel.

At the time, Friedman admits, she wasn’t familiar with the book. “Stephanie asked me if I’d read this book, and I hadn’t but when she told me about it I thought it sounded amazing and I wanted to make a show that would tell this story.” So, she went home and immediately read the book.

“I tore through it and I still have the copy she gave me that day. It’s filled with dog-eared pages and notes in the margins. I fell so in love with the story. It really spoke to me and I felt a personal connection to these characters. It felt like a world I wanted to live in.”

Friedman had to tell this love story of true friendship in large part because she has that one friend she’s had since childhood. “My best friend Joanna is still the first person I want to call when something amazing happens, or when I’m sad. I identified so strongly with that relationship. Our lives have taken very different paths. She’s a teacher in Maine and I’m a TV writer in L.A. but she’s that person to me.”

Heigl concurs that she has a group of friends she calls “The Sacred Six” that she’s had since grade school and Chalke met her best pal Jen in kindergarten.

“Relationships made in those formative years just feel so effortless,” says Heigl. “You know one another so well it just feels like family and you can be your absolute truest self and you’re still going to be loved. My mom is also my best friend, though she drives me nuts and bosses me around and tells me what to do,” she laughs.

“I feel really lucky to have her. There haven’t been many days in the last decade when we haven’t spoken,” says Chalke of her friendship. She tells the story of how the pair packed-up Jen’s truck and moved from Vancouver to L.A. so Chalke could pursue acting and Jen could attend film school and become a producer. “I wouldn’t have made it without her. It’s a Kate-Tully drop-everything-for-the-other type of friendship.”

This theme of friendship, adds Friedman, is a universal one. “Most people have a friend like that, or wish they did. A platonic soulmate is an experience we’d all want to have.”

No spoilers here but the series ends with quite the cliffhanger between Tully and Kate. Will there be a second season? Friedman hopes to have a chance to unravel this tale further. “If we get to continue to tell this story there will definitely be a lot of twists and turns.”

Rounding out the cast are Ben Lawson, Ali Skovbye, Roan Curtis, Yael Yurman, Jenna Rosenow and Beau Garrett.