Everything I Know About Love follows four friends in 2012 London as they navigate romance, friendship, careers, and more during their early 20s. Based on the novel of the same name by Dolly Alderton, the new series aired on BBC over the summer and is now available on Peacock. Everything I Know About Love was created by Alderton and stars Emma Appleton as Maggie, Bel Powley as Birdy, Aliyah Odoffin as Amara, and Marli Siu as Nell.
Maggie, Birdy, Amara, and Nell are all at turning points in their lives, finding new loves, new career paths, and more all while living together and dealing with life in a quintessentially 2012 way. Reminiscent of the HBO show Girls, Everything I Know About Love is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.
Screen Rant sat down with Appleton, Odoffin, and Siu to discuss all things Everything I Know About Love, including the cringiest moments of the show, what it was like working with Alderton, and more.
Screen Rant: Maggie is such a great but obviously complicated character. What attracted you to this role, Emma?
Emma Appleton: I mean, I'd never read a character like Maggie. I'd never read a character so close to myself, but also with very big differences. Just so nuanced and complex and in this time that I don't think is explored as much as it could be in TV and film of being in your 20s. Being so excited and ready for the world and having such an appetite for it and then suddenly feeling like, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, or I'm actually feeling a bit lost. Or maybe this isn't everything they thought it was going to be.
You're seeing this friendship [with] Birdy being like the main romantic love story, and then you've got this group of girls living in London together, and they've all got different dynamics, and it's just the most relatable and funny thing I've ever read.
The friendships are the backbone of the show and I thought they were so special. Aliyah, how did you guys sort of build that dynamic and build that bond and come together on set?
Aliyah Odoffin: I reading the script and reading all the bits about them, like in the club. And like, there was this one specific moment where I think a song comes on. And I think Amara grabs Maggie, and they run to the dancefloor. And I being like that is so relatable, that's literally me with my friends when I go out. So there was, first of all, this joy to be [in] a true friendship with whoever I was going to go into work with and just like depict this reality, and [there was] this need to depict it really truthfully on screen.
And then as soon as I met all the girls the first week, we were like rehearsing together and the same commitment I felt when I read the scripts, I felt in all of them. When we were in the room together, the first thing we had to do was dance with each other. Incredible icebreaker, I recommend it if you ever need to get to know people really quickly. We basically had to all be in the same room and go in the middle of the circle and like do dance movies that we think all characters would do on the dance floor, because dance is a big part, socially, in the show.
I think as soon as you do something like that, and you feel the commitment from every single person, it was just so easy from then on, and it just kind of got better and better.
It's so great because I feel like the relationships were so heartfelt and then there were so many cringe moments that they were there for each other for. Marli, is there any particular scene or moment for your character or any other character that you read, and you were like, oh my god, secondhand embarrassment?
Marli Siu: I mean, I can't say it for another character because that's mean [laughs].
Emma Appleton: I know mine [laughs].
Marli Siu: Maggie's got a lot to deal with in the show. When I read the script, I was like oh my god. Maggie really reminds me of one of my very close friends. And like, there were so many moments where I was like, I need her to see this. Like this behavior. I love you. But you don't do yourself favorites, babe. But it's very, very relatable. And it's fun to see that on screen.
I didn't realize it was a memoir until after I watched and then started doing the research and Dolly [Alderton], the writer of the memoir, was the creator of the show. With Maggie being the main character, what was that collaborative relationship with her like? How closely did you guys kind of work together and figure out the nuances of the characters?
Emma Appleton: It was great. Soon as I got the job, we kind of sat down for five hours and then just really got into it. And also figuring out, because Maggie is inspired by Dolly, trying to figure out what the crossover was [and] how much license I had to interpret this character. And I would say it was pretty much 50/50 and just creating a bit of distance between them. But Dolly is amazing. I mean, she was down on set all the time. She's open [to] any discussion. Literally any silly question. I could be like, "What is Maggie's favorite cake?" She's like, "Thank you for asking."
She was just there all the time, and it felt like a really collaborative effort, and even if there were certain things in certain sentences [and] I'm struggling to say this, it was always open for tweaking things. [But] even that didn't happen very often because I think she just gets it. All the characters sounded as well - I think it'd be very easy for all the characters to sound exactly the same. They don't. Like Marli was saying earlier, you can take away the name - it'd be one of Nell's lines, and you'd be like, yeah, that's Nell.
It felt so lived in and so real. And I think part of that was the period accurate aspects of it. When you go back to your parents, and they're playing Gangnam Style at the dance, and they're all dancing to that. Were you having like weird flashbacks to your own teenage years?
Aliyah Odoffin: I think the music yeah. There are a lot of bits with music where I was like, gosh. I did the whole dancing with your friends in the living room. I the first time I took my brother and sister to watch [the show], like a family [and] friends screening, they were like, "That's just you. You just make up dances in the living room." So maybe not cringe flashback because like, [that's] still me now.
Marli Siu: I actually just realized that my first experience of London was I did a thing in London called National Youth Theatre. And it was in 2012, I came down to do a show. And it was my first time like ever being in London for more than like a week. It was during the Olympics. And it was like so iconic a time in London. There are a few references, like when Maggie goes home to her parents, to the Olympics, and I was like, actually, 2012 in London was kind of iconic. I have such clear memories of the excitement of being there. And everyone's coming to London and the Olympics. And it was such a specific time, I think.
Yeah, and the Spice Girls came back together, that was huge. And with the reality show, Maggie getting the job [and] the friends sitting on the couch watching the reality show. I mean, my roommate and I literally just did that for like seven days straight with the current season of Love Island. Was that another one where it felt this is exactly what you would be doing anyway?
Emma Appleton: 100%. The banality of it in a way, whichis like you're sat on the sofa, eating pizza, watching your favorite show, and talking about which one of you is dating someone. Like, that's all real. I think it'd be easy for Dolly to be like, they're at a fancy restaurant. But it's like no, they can't afford a bit of fancy restaurant. We're eating pizza from yesterday.
Everything I Know About Love is currently streaming on Peacock.