Aisha Tyler Talks 'The Last Thing He Told Me' and the Series’ Major Changes From the Book
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.
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.
