For as long as we can remember in the pop culture zeitgeist, books and TV have long been a healthy marriage, with the latter fueling the primetime landscape and changing it for the better. But when it comes to some book-to-screen adaptations, it’s important to retain interest through slight changes to creatively expand on the original idea in a new way, like Apple TV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me, starring Jennifer Garner and Angourie Rice, adapted from Laura Dave’s bestselling novel of the same name. While fans of the book might recognize Aisha Tyler’s fearless character Jules, the brave and helpful journalist, the award-winning actress reveals to Collider in an exclusive one-on-one interview there are some changes ahead that fans will be pleasantly surprised by.
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The limited series kicks off spring with a bang on April 14, with a two-episode premiere followed by the final five dropping on a weekly basis until May 19. Based on the novel of the same name, The Last Thing He Told Me follows the story of Hannah Michaels (Garner), a woman prompted to forge a deeper relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bailey (Rice), after her husband, Owen — and Bailey’s father — played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, has mysteriously disappeared. Created and made for the screen by Dave alongside her husband and co-creator, Josh Singer, Tyler’s role is a well-fleshed-out character in an “intrigue-driven” series that gets a lot more personality than the pages allow, as fans of the book might recall. But she’s not the only one with more depth as she tells Collider in our exclusive Q&A how another character gets a TV makeover, opening the door to a broader landscape for inclusive storytelling.

Image via Apple TV+

COLLIDER: Congratulations on the show! I was so hooked from the start with this. It is so twisty and mysterious, I loved it so much. When this came your way, how much did you know about the production and the book?

AISHA TYLER: I actually didn’t know the book. So it was really exciting to be introduced to the material and find out that it was this massive bestseller, and also that the show was going to be both an expression of the book and then something bigger and broader. To have Laura Dave as the writer and Josh Singer — the woman that created the book, then writing the show — to me, it was an opportunity for her and for all of us to explore this world that she had built and, honestly, to flesh it out even more, because Jules is actually a much more robust character in the series than she was in the book. And so that was really exciting for me.

Yeah, I love that part. I’ve read the book, and I loved seeing that there was more of a personality and liveliness to Jules, and seeing her take so much charge and decisions and choices, and being there for Hannah. I love that so much. Your character, she’s incredible, and I love how she’s fleshed out in this; she’s a hardworking reporter who really lives by the truth. Was that something that really attracted you to the role when they put it on paper, and they showed you, “Here’s who Jules is going to be”?

TYLER: She was just smart and tough, and the kind of friend that any of us would want in a crisis because she wasn’t just the kind of friend that was there to make Hannah feel better. She was the person who was going to tell Hannah the truth. And I think as this story unfolds, and Hannah’s telling herself, “Well, I know it’s going to be okay,” she’s telling herself a certain story about what’s going on with Owen, Jules is like, “Listen, I got to tell you something. This doesn’t look good. And I love you enough to tell you the truth.” I loved that about the character. She was tough. She was no-nonsense. She was smart. She was the kind of person that was going to help Hannah unravel this mystery but also the kind of friend that any of us would want in our lives. Because I always say this, I like a good time, but I am not a good time friend. I’m going to be a real friend to you. And occasionally that means that I got to give you the truth, and I respect and love you enough to tell you what’s really going on.

Image via Apple TV+

There were some very questionable scenes with Jules that legit had me scared for her well-being. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, and I didn’t know because there were certain changes in the book, so I thought maybe they would kind of change things in this direction too. But she’s fearless in the face of all of it, and I just love that so much. Did you learn anything about yourself when playing a character like this?

TYLER: Oh, wow. That’s a good question. I mean, Jules is really fearless, and I liked that about her. I don’t know. There was nothing that happened in the series that I thought I wouldn’t do in real life. But I don’t know. Maybe if I was being pursued by mysterious and dark forces, I would take a vacation. I have no idea. I like to think that I would be the kind of friend who would fight as hard as Jules fights for Hannah. And also, because she is a journalist and she’s gone through so much in her own personal life, I think that gave her a toughness and self-awareness that really propelled her forward, and helped propel Hannah forward, which I really loved about her. But we all think we’re going to be a superhero in the face of danger. But honestly, I have no idea. Maybe I’d hide under the bed.

Oh, same! But I thought it was so nice also that we saw Max, sort of different from the book. In the book, she’s a male. Here we get to see it’s a same-sex couple and you guys are very close, working together and collaborating to help Hannah. I’m wondering, how was that sort of dynamic working with her on set and having that character and building a relationship, like a backstory to that?

TYLER: I just loved how that relationship unfolded because Max and Jules approached this whole thing very differently. I even think that Max, she’s a bit more skeptical of what’s going on. Jules has this tie to Hannah, and so she’s really driven to help Hannah. It doesn’t mean she’s going to compromise her values, but she’s leaning in a little harder than Max wants to at the beginning. And then Max and Hannah really do come together in a way that I think is competent and smart and built on trust and built on a desire for the truth. But Max also wants to protect Jules. She’s like, “Listen, I don’t want you getting tangled up in this. This guy looks like he’s a crook. You know what I mean? And you’re a journalist. You need to protect yourself, and you need to protect us.” But I do like that both Jules and Max really step outside of themselves to help someone who’s going through a crisis and make the kinds of personal sacrifices that I hope I would make on behalf of a friend if they needed me.

I love the friendship between yours and Jennifer’s role, Hannah. Your characters are lifelong friends. But you have great chemistry. How did you prepare for that? Did you know her prior to filming? How did that work out?

TYLER: One of the weird things about being in this industry is you feel like you know everybody personally, even when you don’t, which I guess maybe you have some people who love somebody from afar, too, like, “Oh, I feel like I know Jennifer.” But we essentially met on the show and had to be best friends right away. But she’s such a warm, lovely person to be around that it was a very easy role to fall into. She’s a blast. She’s just so good at her job, so confident. So confident and really makes me feel at home when you step on set. So it was very easy to pretend to be her best friend [laughs].

Image via Apple TV+

Yeah. I honestly thought you guys had worked together because there was such ease there. I was looking through your IMDbs, and I’m like, “No, they haven’t!” And I’m like, “That’s crazy!” But you guys work really well together. And even with Angourie, too, I felt like there was such a nice relationship there. Jules is sort of like a surrogate aunt to her. What was that like working with her? She’s such a wonderful young actress.

TYLER: Angourie is such a great actress, and I also felt like she was somebody that I knew right away as well. Then it was so funny because I was like, “Where do I know Angourie from?” It was, she played the daughter in the movie, The Nice Guys. I went back and watched it again. She’s so good. She’s such a good actress. I mean, we had several scenes together, but we had this one really beautiful moment where we got to talk about what she was going through. She’s a delight to work with, a really, really accomplished young actress. And a part of your job as an actor is to support the other actor in your scene, to really lift them up and give them the energy that’s going to help them do their best work, and hopefully, it’s vice versa. And she’s just incredibly generous and present, and just so peachy. She was a blast.

Yeah, I love that. And knowing Laura Dave helped develop this for TV, and it’s so clear to the series, too, I’m wondering, obviously, there have been TV shows based on books that have expanded past the story, so if we ever got a Season 2, would you be up for it? And where would you want to see your character?

TYLER: Oh, wow. I mean, I would love to revisit these characters again. It was so much fun, and it would be so interesting and intriguing to see what would happen in a second season. It’s so great that Laura Dave is an integral part of the show because it’s her world. She built it. So I would be super excited to see what’s cooking in her mind, what’s percolating in there in terms of where we would go with a second season. And anything more that I say will give too much away about the first season. But—

Don’t want to spoil it.

TYLER: Yeah, I mean, I love this world. It’s so rich and intrigue-driven and there’s so much more that could be done here. And Laura and Josh, they have incredibly creative minds, and it would be a blast. It would blast to revisit this world.

I would love that so much, really. Finally, this is such a beautiful story of love and loyalty, and it stuck with me for days. But I was still thinking about it, and I’ve binged the show twice already. I’m wondering what is the biggest takeaway you want audiences to carry with them from this series.

TYLER: What’s interesting about this show is that it’s constantly changing and evolving. This is really obviously very twisty, it’s very intrigue-driven, it’s a psychological thriller, but it’s really about loving someone, maybe not in spite of who they were before, but because of it. But we can never really know everybody fully. Really, it’s a leap of faith. It’s really an act of faith to love someone. And you just decide, “I’m going to jump in with both feet.”

I think some people don’t want to fall in love because they’re afraid they’re going to get hurt, but that’s no way to move through the world. And whether it’s a day or a week or a month or a year, like the old poet, “it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I think there’s a line that Hannah says almost immediately in the show, which is like, “I don’t know what this guy’s done, but I know who he is.” And I think we all would like that kind of love from someone that will help us transcend who we were in the past and make us a better version of ourselves.

The Last Thing He Told Me is now streaming on Apple TV+ with a two-episode drop and a new episode every Friday until May 19.