Nicole Kidman’s New Netflix Series The Perfect Couple Changed a Lead Character’s Name to Avoid Big Little Lies Comparisons

Nicole Kidman’s latest project, The Perfect Couple, makes several deviations from its source material, including one influenced by one of her most popular roles.

In the Netflix series, Eve Hewson plays a character named Amelia. However, in Elin Hilderbrand’s novel, the character is named Celeste. During the show’s red carpet premiere in Hollywood on Sept. 4, showrunner Jenna Lamia told The Hollywood Reporter the change came about because Kidman, 57, played a character named Celeste in HBO’s Big Little Lies. It was one of several changes Hilderbrand, 55, allowed Lamia to make.

“It was a five-year development process for various reasons, so it did go through a lot of different forms, and it was closer to the book early on,” Lamia, whose writing credits include Good Girls and Awkward., told THR. “And then this wonderful director Susanne Bier came on and her influence shifted some things, and when we had cast attached that shifted some things.”

Some of the changes were as small as the name change. Lamia changed Celeste’s name to Amelia “just to avoid any potential confusion, a very small reason.”

While fans of Hildebrand’s novel might be upset by the changes, the author told Lamia she could make any tweak necessary to produce a great TV series.

“I wanted them to make the best possible television show, I wasn’t worried about how they changed the book,” she told THR. “I said to Jenna right from the beginning, I do not feel precious about this. People can go and read the book later or before; it’ll be a different experience because it is a little bit different, they can see how they changed it, and I just wanted it to be excellent television.”

Hildebrand also had a hand in casting. During the series premiere, she told PEOPLE Liev Schreiber was her top pick to play Kidman’s onscreen husband.

“I was a huge Ray Donovan fan, he’s one of my favorite actors. And I sent my wish to the showrunner,” she told PEOPLE. “And she said, ‘I don’t know.’ And then a few weeks later, she goes, ‘Elin, you might get your wish.’ And she didn’t say in regard to what, but I was hoping that’s what she was talking about.”

The Perfect Couple stars Kidman as Greer, a novelist whose perfect plans for her son’s wedding are interrupted when a body turns up on a beach the morning of the ceremony. Hewson’s Amelia is Greer’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law. Billy Howle plays Greer’s son.

The lead cast also includes Dakota Fanning, Meghann Fahy, Jack Reynor, Ishaan Khatter and Isabelle Adjani.

All six episodes of The Perfect Couple are now streaming on Netflix.

Source people.com