JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS ALISON

IN THE NEW HULU SERIES CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, ALISON OLIVER AND HER COSTAR JOE ALWYN SPARK AN ONSCREEN CHEMISTRY TOO INTENSE TO IGNORE.

- LAUREN PUCKETT-POPE

Perhaps Alison Oliver and Joe Alwyn don't look like they would be lovers. In early marketing materials for Conversations With Friends, the upcoming Hulu series adapted from literary wunderkind Sally Rooney's debut novel, Alwyn, 31, seems almost to loom over Oliver, 24, as she slouches on a rocky precipice along the Croatian shore. Alwyn, suntanned and blue-eyed with the precisely tousled hair of a Hellenistic sculpture, has the movie-star aura, as well as the burgeoning repertoire: You might recognize him from his turn in the Oscar-winning period piece The Favourite, or perhaps as the lead from the military drama Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Meanwhile, Oliver is a Hollywood newcomer, having recently graduated from Ireland's Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College (where Paul Mescal, star of the TV adaptation of Rooney's second novel, Normal People, also earned his degree). With her slight nose and unfu brown hair, Oliver looks every bit the curious twentysomething she plays in Conversations, though with a much sunnier disposition.

Apart, they might seem a strange match; together, Alwyn and Oliver create a delicate chemistry. Oliver plays Frances, a Trinity College student of immense intelligence but little self-regard, whose ex-girlfriend, Bobbi (Sasha Lane), is now her platonic performance partner and best friend. When the two meet Melissa (Jemima Kirke) after one of their poetry readings, she invites them home to meet Alwyn's Nick, her quiet, aloof husband, who works as a B-list actor. As Bobbi unabashedly flirts with Melissa, Frances turns to Nick, and soon afterward, the two begin an affair. As the clandestine couple, Oliver and Alwyn strike an uncanny cadence, and the differences between them, age, economic, social, and otherwise-slip into the background.