Shay Mitchell teams up with Penn Badgley in their new dark and seductive Lifetime series, You, which also stars Elizabeth Lail.
While we’ve only seen one trailer so far (you can watch it below),You feels like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl meets Gone Girl and The Roommate — which ironically starred Penn’s former GG co-star, Leighton Meester — in the best possible way.
Even Mitchell admits there’s a ton of similarities between the darker, new project and her former Freeform hit.
“It’s juicy… It still has all those elements that PLL had with it being sort of a mystery, there’s a romance part to it and it’s just exciting,” Mitchell dished to ET last fall shortly after the project was first announced. “It’s definitely going to have those elements. I think it’s a little bit more mature… It deals with a lot of crazy things like PLL did, but it’s a different storyline. If you loved PLL, you’re gonna absolutely love You. And if you never saw PLL, you’re still going to love You.”
The 31-year-old actress also cops to being a fan of Badgley’s former Upper East Side soap before joining him onscreen.
“I don’t know anybody who wasn’t a Gossip Girl fan, you know? Me and my friends loved watching it,” she said.
“Penn is so hilarious… he’s a goof on set, even though he plays kind of a serious character, and we have a lot of fun,” she added. “We’ve worked with a lot of the same directors and know a lot of the same people, so… to come together, it’s really cool.”
The first look at their psychological thriller dropped this month, and it’s just as twisted and juicy as we imagined.
[embedded content]
The trailer opens with Beck (Lail) getting pushed off a train platform just as one is pulling up on the tracks. She narrowly escapes death when Joe (Badgley) miraculously saves her. But, as the two develop a romantic relationship, we see he’s not exactly a knight in shining subway armor. And definitely not in Peach’s (Mitchell) eyes – Beck’s BFF.
Mitchell says that playing Peach is a complete departure from her girl-next-door role on PLL — and a stark contrast to who she is in real life.
“Peach is the complete 180 from what Emily [Fields] was,” Mitchell shared. “She is known to be not the nicest, so she is, quote un-quote, the “mean girl,” but you know she does have a love for Beck, the main character, and you’ll see that. She has… a very interesting relationship with her.”
“I actually catch myself sometimes ‘cause I feel bad, you know? I’ll say my line that’s written for me and I’m just like, ‘Sorry!’ I don’t mean to sound like that, but it’s fun, it’s so fun,” she added.
You, like PLL, is based on a book — Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel of the same name.
“I’ve had good luck with that in the past,” Mitchell said. “It’s gonna stay fairly close [to the book] I’d say, the same way that we did with PLL. There’s a common thread from the book that goes into the show and I think the same is true for You.”
You premieres Sunday, Sept. 9 at 10 p .m. ET/PT on Lifetime.
For more from Mitchell, check out the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
Let’s block ads! (Why?)