Lizzie Bennet Diaries showrunner Bernie Su speaks to Hypable about the end of the series, auditioning Ashley Clements, dealing with criticism, and more.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has been a crazy journey, and no one has lived it the way showrunner Bernie Su has. We spoke to Su the day after the Lizzie Bennet Diaries finale aired. Now we can share Su’s insight with you, from his initial motivations to take on the project, what he would have changed in hindsight, how he deals with criticisms of the show, and much more.

If you need something to fill that Lizzie Bennet-shaped void in your heart, check out Su’s recently launched web series, Lookbook. The series follows the tumultuous world of (fictional) fashion blogging, and stars Lizzie Bennet‘s own Wes Aderhold – known for his portrayal of the sly and manipulative George Wickham. Or if you would prefer to wallow in nostalgia for a little longer, read Hypable’s top 10 Lizzie Bennet Diaries episodes, and see if you agree with our choices.

Hypable’s interview with Bernie Su:

Hypable: How are you feeling now that The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has finished?

Bernie Su: I’m mixed. A lot of good and a lot of sad – there’s no bad, there’s just good and sad. It’s such an experience, and I think as an artist, completing it is really the joy. We finished, we finished. I saw most of the cast yesterday at different times, and I saw the four girls together and took a photo of them. I had to take a moment to be like, “Wow.” Just, you know, feelings.

The outpouring from the fans and all that – my silence over the last couple days shouldn’t be taken as a sign that I have no feelings, I’m just trying to not pour everything out to everybody. Regardless, I feel really good and I’m really proud that we got to finish the show. I’m really proud of how we did. I’m pretty proud of what we have accomplished, as far as the legacy of Jane Austen.

There are critics, and people say we did things right, we did things wrong, we shouldn’t have done that, we should have done it this way. That’s fine, that’s cool, you can say that about the show, but I’ll just say that we gave it everything, we left it all on the table. It’s all there, and we can’t be faulted for trying – that’s the one thing I can always say. I’m just really proud of my team, and everybody, and what we accomplished.

When did this journey begin for you?

The first time I met Hank [Green, co-creator] was in March 2011. We didn’t get to start working on the show until actually after Vidcon 2011, and that’s something that a lot of people don’t know – people think we started working on it right away. It really wasn’t, we talked two weeks after we met for the first time about the show, but then we both realized how busy we both were.

I encouraged him to wait until after Vidcon, and that if we’re still feeling that we should do this after Vidcon (and this was four months later) then let’s go for it. And sure enough, at Vidcon I saw him, and he was still as enthusiastic, and the week after Vidcon he messaged me and was like, “Let’s do it!” I was like, “Well if he wants to do it, I’m in.”

“If anything for me, I just needed to make sure that my partner in this, Hank, would be as passionate as I was – and he was.”

So the real journey of it all started August 2011. Then we were developing it and talking every week or so about the show, and the details and nuances of what we were going to do, until finally it got to the point in November where I went, “Well, we’ve done all the development. We’ve got to either cast this thing, or shoot this thing, there’s nothing else we can do at this point.” The initial casting, they came in for the first auditions in December 2011, and that’s where it really began for them.

Were you in the first auditions?

Yes, I was. I saw every person who came in.

Do you remember Ashley’s first audition?

Yes, I do. Very much so. We had two days of auditions to audition the first four girls, and Ashley came in the second day. Either she was that good, or the other candidates just weren’t working, but she was the only Lizzie that day that was close to what we were looking for; the first day there were a couple others.

But I remember pretty vividly – I remember writing in my notes after she came in that she was the best Lizzie we’d seen all day. And clearly she was. That’s in my audition notes, I remember it very clearly. Mary Kate [Wiles] came in the first day, Julia [Cho] came in the first day, and Laura [Spencer] came in I think the first day as well. But Ashley was definitely second day.

Who was the most difficult to cast, apart from Lizzie?

Well I’ll say that the one that had the most conversation during the callbacks was Jane. Mainly because we had called back more Janes than anybody else, because we had a lot of good candidates. Coming out of the callbacks, there were two very, very strong candidates. That became a discussion that went all the way to the top, as in Hank and Katherine (his wife) had different opinions.

It’s good to have a discussion, but Hank had a hunch and Katherine had a hunch that was different. Hank wanted to go Laura, and I was like, “They’re both great.” I basically wrote a message to Hank, “Here are reasons why both candidates are great, and what each candidate gives you that the other doesn’t.” I think for Laura, she is very doe-eyed, and that really plays for our Jane well. The other candidate doesn’t have the same level of doe-eyed-ness, and not that it hurt her, but it was a different take on it. So I’d say that would be the one that had the most discussion.

“With Mary Kate I felt like, well there’s the benchmark. Let’s see if anybody jumps over it.”

And then Julia as Charlotte was also towards the end of the day on the first day. I knew Julia, I knew of her and I’d met her, and I was like, “Oh this is cool. I like this take on it.” So I was really happy with that one.

Hank has said that he partly wanted to do this show because it was his wife’s favourite story. Why did you feel so passionately about Pride and Prejudice?

It’s my mother’s favourite story. I really didn’t understand it until I dove into it doing this project, but my mother just loved this story so much and would watch all these things, and would always talk about it. I had read it, but I didn’t really feel as close to it as she did. Then the opportunity came up, and I told her about it, and she was like “Oh, you like that story?” But I looked at it more as what a cool idea. I really wanted to see if I could do it and give it my all.

“It was a challenge going into it, it was a challenge the whole way through.”

But going in, the challenge was a big part of it, and the pressure was big, too. I don’t know how much pressure the audience thinks we put on ourselves, but I put a lot of pressure on myself. I was like, this is my mothers favourite story. This is one of the greatest stories of all time. And I’m going to adapt it into a new format – it better be great. If it’s not great, it’s not because I didn’t try. If I fail, I fail, fine.

But I am going to give it everything, and analyse and hyper-analyse, and bring the right people along with me, get the right team, do my due diligence, cast correctly, look at every line as much as I can; even the tweets, even the transmedia. So I gave it my all, and the challenge was what really fired me up to do the show. Then as the fans responded to it, it just fired me up more, like “Oh, its working! Whatever this is, it’s working!”

Now that it’s finished, what aspect are you most proud of?

I’m proud of how it’s received, and not just in the fandom. Even the critics, who didn’t like a lot of what we did – especially towards the end when we got into the Lydia “downfall,” and beyond with the Catherine de Bourgh thing. A lot more criticism came out then, and that’s fine, because I felt that they were comparing it against a great piece of work. They were saying, “We want a great piece of work, and to us, it’s not quite that, because of these criticisms.”

I accept that, I totally understand that, because that’s what I wanted. I don’t want it to be seen as, “Oh, because they shot it with a stationary camera, it’s just a pretty girl talking, it doesn’t deserve it, it’s just silly.” That’s that stigma that web video had, that it still has in a sense, because it’s not television, it’s not a movie.

“If they’re taking the time to criticise the show, then it clearly means that they value the quality of the show.”

That to me, I’m proud of. Even though it is hard, it is hard to read criticism about yourself. I had to stop doing it, it was just going to drive me crazy. But I do welcome it, that it’s being talked about, it’s being said, it’s being discussed.

It’s eliciting a response.

It’s eliciting a response that’s comparing it to a “legitimate” piece of work. And to say that it’s being compared, and being put up against the great adaptations in history, as a storyteller that’s the ultimate to me. Something that will live on for years and be studied as an adaptation – amazing. What else can you ask for?

Do you think shows like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries are helping to increase appreciation for web video as a platform?

I think so, because The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as it is now couldn’t really exist on television. The one camera for a 30-minute episode thing, I don’t know if that really works on television. And also, the beauty of a lot of Lizzie Bennet is the extension, is the parallel storytelling, the shared experience, the transmedia, and those aren’t on television either. It’s a story designed for this specific format of web video, and if anything I hope that it evolves the format a bit.

Not to say that web series aren’t good, but a lot of people think of web series as just web video, meaning just video. There’s a key word there – web. To have it all feed together and feed one another, it really felt like a web. I think the show, well I hope, it will inspire other creators and artists to really embrace the other platforms of the medium, and not just think of it as video and do TV shows. That’s what I hope, whether that happens or not, I don’t know. It’s my hope for myself as well, as I create other things, but whether I get to do that continuously remains to be seen.

There was another big transmedia event recently with that surprise epilogue. Is that the last big event that we are going to get?

As far as in the story, I think so, but I never want to promise stuff because there’s always the possibility that we’ll pull something out.

I imagine all the Twitter accounts will be hanging around?

They’ll be there. And we know that Gigi is going to Sanditon, and that Gigi’s good friends with Fitz, and has a brother named Darcy.

And he’s dating a girl called Lizzie…

Yeah, exactly. There’s a connective tissue there that still goes with it. What we have accomplished really is we got to Lizzie’s last vlog. And what we have said – well Lizzie has said – is she’s not doing any more videos. We haven’t said this for anyone else, technically. Gigi hasn’t said it, Maria hasn’t said it, Lydia hasn’t said it. So we’re open to other content there, epilogue-ish. But one, I don’t like spoiling stuff, and two, I don’t like promising stuff. I don’t like promising stuff that I don’t know if I’m going to keep.

But it’s not outside the realm of possibility that there will be things popping up on these accounts in the future?

Absolutely. For example, there’s a lot of fan support for having more Lydia videos, and I see it, I see why it should be – but I also see why it shouldn’t be, I also see why it could be later, and also why it shouldn’t be later. Every option was there. I always get asked about the Lydia videos, and here are the options. Number one, We see a Lydia video before the end of Lizzie Bennet Diaires – well we didn’t see that, so that’s gone. Number two, we see Lydia videos after the end of Lizzie Bennet Diaries – still an option. Or, we don’t see Lydia videos at all, ever again – also an option. So we had three options, one is gone, two are in play, we’ll see what happens.

In hindsight, is there a specific character or a storyline that you wish that you could change, or any aspect of the show that you would do differently if you were given another chance?

Before the show started, when it was just Hank and I, we talked about what we wanted to do to make the show unique. And the one thing I remember centering on personally was to have the Jane in LA story, and we didn’t get that. Well, we kind of did, we got it through Lydia, but we really didn’t. I really wish I had figured it out, and had the resources and the time, to do something there. I felt bad that we didn’t.

The Jane character is awesome, and she’s so dynamic especially with the fashion connection, I really thought I could have figured out a way to give her a story that we could have seen as a spin-off. So much that I grabbed that “looksbyjane” YouTube account very early in the story, I grabbed it right after we launched and was like, “Alright, I’m ready to go!” And never figured it out, never got the resources, just couldn’t do it. That’s the one that I’ll look back on, not regretful, but I kind of wish I had pulled that one off.

I don’t even know what it would have been now. If you said, “Timemachine, you’re back then, here’s the money – what are you going to do?” I don’t even know what it would have been. But I really wanted to show you that story somehow, and I feel like we didn’t get to it. People ask if I regret doing this, do I regret doing that. I still feel the sex tape was the only way to go, and so does my team, so I have never regretted that. I understand the criticism for it, I get it, but as a choice to cover the story, it still made sense to me and to the team.

In part 2: Bernie Su talks ‘Welcome to Sanditon,’ the next series, and more

Images: Lizzie Bennet Diaries