'Tell Me Lies' stars say Hulu series is an “anti-love story”

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Josh Stringer/Hulu

Tell Me Lies, a steamy new relationship drama based on the best-selling book by Carola Lovering, dropped on Hulu Wednesday.

It stars Grace Van Patten as Lucy and Jackson White as Stephen, two people caught in a toxic relationship that begins in college and spans eight years.

“I love that it’s an anti-love story,” Van Patten tells ABC Audio. “We talk about that a lot, and how at that age you’re so susceptible and it’s such a formative time in your life. And I think it’s really easy to mistake desire and passion and shared secrets as love.”

“It’s the anti, like, film and television romance where people watch it and they want to be that, they want to emulate it,” White adds. “This is the opposite of that. This is the actual anxiety, the real nuance of miscommunication and toxicity.”

In other words, if you’re looking for couple goals, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking for some 2007 nostalgia, the show’s setting throws it back to the pre-iPhone and Instagram days.

“I think it’s going to be really refreshing for people to watch and not see, you know, the Apple logo everywhere and see people on BlackBerries,” Van Patten says. “I feel like [on] Tell Me Lies, if there was an Instagram, it would be even more messed up.”

The first three episodes of the series are on Hulu now, with new episodes streaming weekly.

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