From author Gillian Flynn, showrunner Marti Noxon and director Jean-Marc Vallée, HBO’s eight-episode limited drama series Sharp Objects follows what happens when Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) returns to her small hometown to cover the murders of two pre-teen girls. Trying to understand the crimes puts her in the direct path of her own past and forces her into the line of fire of her disapproving mother Adora (Patricia Clarkson) and her impetuous 15-year-old half-sister Amma (Eliza Scanlen).

While at the HBO portion of the Television Critics Association Press Tour, Collider got the opportunity to chat 1-on-1 with executive producer/writer Gillian Flynn about the long journey it took to get Sharp Objects to this place, why HBO was the perfect home, what Amy Adams brought to Camille, and what it was like to be a part of the writers’ room process. She also talked about taking on showrunner duties for Utopia (an adaptation of the British series about a group of young adults who are hunted by a shadowy organization after they come into possession of an underground graphic novel) at Amazon, and what most excites her about telling that story.

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Image via HBO

Collider:  Especially after having a really hard time selling this book, and then talk about a possible movie, over the years, and having it not happen, what’s it like to now have this at HBO, have someone like Amy Adams at the center of it, and have this really beautiful project to show for it? Did you think this would actually happen, at some point?

GILLIAN FLYNN:  No, I didn’t. That’s the short answer. I did not. The book barely happened, in the first place. And I knew that this one, in particular, could go really wrong if I sold it to the wrong people, who didn’t get it. That could feel really exploitive, and I knew that I didn’t want to risk that. I’d rather have it not made than that. So, it does feel like vindication of waiting for the right place to come along. But did I think that this was all gonna happen? Absolutely not. This feels really, really lucky. Amy and I had been wanting to work together for a while. We had talked about doing Dark Places together, at one point, but she’d gotten pregnant and didn’t do that, so it felt serendipitous. And obviously, HBO felt like the right place. I know HBO had actually tried to swoop in just a little too late to get Gone Girl after the fact and had instead signed me to an overall deal. They’d said,” Well, what about doing Sharp Objects?” It was a 12-year overnight success, but it does feel really very cool.

After having lived with Camille Preaker for so long, while you were writing this book, what surprised you about what Amy Adams did, to bring her to life?

FLYNN:  I knew that she’d bring Camille’s vulnerability, absolutely, but she brought such pure grit to her. I guess Camille had that, but it was amazing to watch that come to life and to see it on display. Amy has such a capability to her. Camille has to feel vulnerable, but not too much, and she does have grit. Amy really has that, in spades, and she lent that to Camille, in a really new way. She’s got this spine to her that I think really comes across in the show, and I love that.

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Image via HBO

With a project like this, it seems like it could have gone wrong, every step of the way. The writing could have been focused on the wrong thing, the feel of it could have been different, the casting could have just gone horribly wrong.

FLYNN:  Right, exactly. Who’s this month’s CW teen queen? Or that sort of thing. I just love Wild so much. Having the guy that did Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée) do this, felt like a particularly correct match up.

How was your relationship with showrunner Marti Noxon?

FLYNN:  She and I met early on, so I knew that she and I had a very particular vision, which was really important. She was super busy, though. Nothing in Hollywood ever happens in a vacuum. She’d gotten [Dietland] happening, while also getting her directing debut (To The Bone) going. I wish I could have hogged her all to myself, to have that more traditional showrunner relationship, but I had a great writers’ room, which I’m not was pretty small. She had two of her guys, who had been writers on UnREAL, and they were there, every day. And then, one of my best friends, who’s been one of my best friends since Entertainment Weekly, from 20 years earlier, was there. And then, there were two young women that we had interviewed. So, it was me and that little group in the writers’ room, every day, which was pretty amazing.

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Image via HBO

How did you find the writers’ room experience compared to writing a novel in a solitary environment? Did you enjoy actually having other people to communicate with, during that process?

FLYNN:  For me, it was cool, but I could not do that for a career, day after day, month after month. It would be unsustainable, socially-speaking, for someone who’s an introvert. It was just like, “Oh, you don’t stop talking. Ideas don’t stop happening.” I’m very much a ruminator. I like to sit with things and not talk for large periods of my day. It was amazing to do, but by the end of the day, I would just be on the floor. My husband would hold down the fort with our two kids and I’d be like, “Now, there’s more talking and interaction with humans.” Early on, we had broken down what each episode would be and how much room we had to play with. It was wild to see how far off the beaten track you could go, in the course of a day. There’s no science to it. These people are charming and funny, and you could listen to them, all day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea. The art of it was fascinating to me.

How is that affecting the way you want to run your own show now, with Utopia?

FLYNN:  Well, the episodes are all done for that. I wrote them all myself and had already written them all before this. It will still be interesting, as I start going down that road. We’re in the process of getting a director for that, right now. It won’t be like Sharp Objects, in that way. It won’t have a single director the entire way through. I think we’ll probably have multiple directors. It’s nine episodes, so I think we’ll do it in blocks of three, three and three, and not one director, the whole time through. A little bit of it remains to be seen. I’ve already done one miniature writers’ room, to punch up certain episodes. I’ve learned that you definitely need lots of food and lots of time for just enjoying yourself. You have to know when to put on the brakes. I’m running this show, so I have to be like, “I do not like where this idea is going. Stop it right now.”

What most excites you about telling that story?

FLYNN:  I love that it has five comic book nerds at its core. That’s how I grew up. I grew up as a pop culture nerd. I wrote for Entertainment Weekly. That’s what I am at my core. My dad is a comic book collector, so I spent my childhood going to comic book stores. I have a real fondness of and affinity for comic book nerds and that whole universe, so to be able to kind of explore that. Anyone who is of that universe loves the idea that somewhere out there is this book that holds the secret to our salvation. That’s what this is.

It seems like that would be a really fun cast to put together.

FLYNN:  Yeah, it’s gonna be fun for me. I had a say in the casting for Sharp Objects, but to be in charge of the casting for this is gonna be a lot of fun.

Sharp Objects airs on Sunday nights on HBO.

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Image via HBO
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Image via HBO
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Image via HBO