Meet Hollywood's Most In-Demand Writer

She’s the brains behind cult TV show Big Little Lies and counts Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman as fans. Polly Dunbar meets Liane Moriarty.

- Polly Dunbar

LIANE MORIARTY is well aware that anyone she speaks to right now has a one-track mind. We all want to discuss Big Little Lies, the brilliant, game-changing TV adaptation of her best-selling novel of the same name, and probe for any clues about the story she’s written for next year’s second series.

Sadly, though, she’s not spilling the beans. ‘I don’t actually know everything that happens,’ she insists. ‘I wrote the story but not the screenplay, so it could go off in different directions. I could have read the scripts but I chose not to. I’m just as excited to see it myself.’

She’s especially eager to see her favourite actress, Meryl Streep, as the character she created especially for her: Mary Louise, mother-in-law to Nicole Kidman’s Celeste. ‘When I told the producers I was imagining Meryl in the role, they teased me and said, “Oh, you’re so Hollywood now,”’ she laughs. ‘I didn’t think it would happen.’