Warning: major spoilers ahead for We Were Liars.
How does an economics major with no professional acting experience or connection to the entertainment industry land a major role in one of the hottest YA adaptations of the decade?
Shubham Maheshwari, the breakout star of Prime Video’s We Were Liars, is still asking himself the same question. In 2023, during his junior year at the University of British Columbia, Maheshwari responded to an open casting call on Backstage — which he describes as “the LinkedIn for acting jobs” — for Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec and Roswell, New Mexico creator Carina Adly Mackenzie’s latest teen drama series: a gripping cautionary tale about the consequences of familial greed.
Based on the bestselling novel by E. Lockhart, who served as a writer and producer on the Amazon streamer’s latest YA adaptation, We Were Liars follows Cadence Sinclair Eastman (Emily Alyn Lind) and her tight-knit circle — her cousins Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Johnny (Joseph Zada), and her aunt’s longtime partner’s nephew Gat (Maheshwari) — during their summers on their old-fashioned grandfather Harris’s (David Morse) New England private island. The series, which gradually unravels the mystery of what happened to the titular Liars one fateful summer evening when they were 16, is both a classic coming-of-age story and an indictment of the exclusionary culture of the American one-percent.
“Gat’s a very observant person, so he can’t help but notice that feeling of Harris wanting him to feel like he doesn’t belong,” Maheshwari tells Teen Vogue. “The Liars are a great pull away from that toxicity, and he definitely considers them family. He gets more and more attached to them with each summer, and they’re the only reasons why he wants to keep coming back to this island where he’s very evidently so made to feel out-of-place.”
Born and raised in Dubai to Indian immigrant parents, Maheshwari had always harbored dreams of becoming an actor, but his experience had been limited to acting in the odd student film. Although Mackenzie and Plec were admittedly “nervous about giving such a huge role to someone so new to the craft,” Mackenzie recalls, “The first time we saw a tape of Shub, I wrote to the casting directors and said, exact quote, ‘He gave me Josh Jackson vibes in some moments, and I do not say that lightly.’ My dog is named after Josh Jackson, so those were very, very big words.”
Plec, on the other hand, jokes that the first thing she noticed in Maheshwari’s self-tape “was his unmade dorm room bed in the background.” But with each round of auditions, she noticed that Maheshwari would “get stronger and stronger,” ultimately leading to the creative team’s decision to cast him first in order to find the right Cadence. As they began working closer together, both showrunners made it a point to hire four South Asian writers and credited Maheshwari and co-star Rahul Kohli for helping to deepen the diversity of a story that is, by design, overwhelmingly white.
“Toward the end of the shoot, I felt like there was something missing, like we were tackling a big issue without addressing the personal gut-punch feelings enough, so I sat down with Shub on set one night and asked what he thought was left for Gat to get off his chest. That conversation ended up becoming his heartbreaking speech in [episode] 107,” Mackenzie says of the moment Gat confronts the Liars about race. “I have a real open-door policy with the actors. I want everyone’s fingerprints to be all over the scripts, so I’m just grateful Shub was down to roll up his sleeves and get in there with us. He made the show better in nine thousand different ways.”
“It was very important to [our writers] that Gat be portrayed as a flawed and occasionally irresponsible teenage boy who makes as many mistakes as his white counterparts, as opposed to being held up as an unimpeachably perfect cultural hero,” Plec adds.
Plec and Mackenzie have already revealed that a potential second season of Liars would add another generation to the story and dig deeper into the lives of the mothers, but Maheshwari insists that he is now “just a fan” waiting to see what the next iteration of this story could look like. Below, the newcomer — who counts Irrfan Khan, Al Pacino, and Leonardo DiCaprio among his acting inspirations — opens up about the biggest spoilers from this faithful adaptation (including that heart-wrenching final twist), and why he hopes he won’t have to put his economics degree to use anytime soon.
Shubham Maheshwari: This was an interesting thing that I’d talked to Carina [about] as well, but it was this idea that Gat had lost his father when he was eight years old, and that had obviously affected him. That was the time he came to the island and met Cadence for the first time. It’s almost as if Cady reminds him of this anchor that was pulling him away from the negativity of losing someone you love. I think that was a very interesting thing to keep in mind, and that’s where that connection begins. Gat fell in love with her when he was 12. I think to Gat, Cady is a safe space where he can wholeheartedly be himself, talk about the way he sees the world — and Cady listens. I think that’s one of the things that he loves about her. With each summer, that love gets stronger and stronger, and you’re just rooting for them, you really are. Even when I read the book, I was rooting for them, and we hope that the show makes you feel that way too.
SM: I was in shock when I read it in the book! I did not see it coming at all, and I guess the hope remains that people don’t see it coming even in the show — until the last episode. It definitely was helpful in terms of just thinking of objectives that the character has, especially in scenes. There was this internal secret that he’s keeping. I figured it out as we were doing it, to be honest, and it really was very interesting to play that sort of, “I have this thing that I cannot tell you, because I know it’s going to ruin everything.” But I think that aspect really just made the character more compelling, and that part was really fun to play.
Honestly, there wasn’t too much that was different about things like the costume as there may be for Mirren for example, with the hair being different and stuff like that. For Gat, it was pretty much the same. But as far as mannerisms are concerned, I think it depends on the scene, but there are moments where we had to show Gat as a little bit more less expressive [than] he would have been in summer 16, because there was this part of him that always knew that he couldn’t get too close to Cady.
SM: Summer 16 is their first time with each other and they’re a bit nervous. They’re timidly going about it, and they know that they love each other, but this is a step forward for them, and they laughed their way through it in that giddy way. But summer 17 is a little bit more intense. I think that’s when, at least from Gat’s perspective, in that moment, there was just more intensity, and I guess more urgency. We didn’t really think too much about the ghost aspect of it, because I guess in that moment you wouldn’t really think of it as much as you just want to be in that moment, and that’s the way we thought of that scene.
SM: It was, first of all, by far the most interesting thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I could have never imagined being an econ major and thinking years after getting my degree [that] this is what I’m going to be doing. [Laughs.] It was absolutely insane. We filmed it over a couple of days, but we filmed some portions of it twice. So, one portion of it was on set where obviously that’s where you use most of the CGI and not real fire, but then what we would do is on another day we’d go to a fire station, and they’d recreate the set detail to detail. For example, with the hall, that’s the place where we actually lit the curtain on fire. So we got to experience it both ways, and we essentially filmed it twice in two different locations.
But man, that was painful, but in the right way, as it should be. Just the idea of being around flames would be strenuous already, but just screaming for your friends, and also that emotional weight which the characters would be feeling in that moment — yeah, that day was pretty intense, but a very, very unique experience.
SM: That was a very sad day. I just remember crying a lot. It helps that it was towards the last weeks of filming, so there was already that bit of sadness of like, “Man, we had so much fun filming the show, and now it’s done.” Maybe that played a part in it, but I think as that scene begins, it’s a bit like, “I need to help Cady feel less guilty about it.” That’s what I wanted to do, because I can see that she’s hurting, obviously.
The last part where he talks about their life that could have been, I remember really visually thinking about it and seeing it as I said those words. And if anything, that just made it more sad, because by the time he’s done, I guess we all realize, “Well, that’s never going to happen.” I have to [give] credit to [author] Emily Lockhart, who had written episode eight. She did such an incredible job, and you just read that [script] and you already feel like crying, so it was such an honor to bring that scene to life. It’s one of my favorite scenes, for sure, but very sad to watch.
SM: It’s funny you ask, because for the longest time, I thought the first time it clicked for me wanting to be an actor was around the age of 13 or 14 when I saw Shutter Island for the first time. I was shocked by the time the film was over, and I just remember thinking, “Man, just to be able to mess with people’s brains like that is such a cool thing to be able to do.” I think that’s where this interest in making people feel things through storytelling may have started. But I just recently found out when I was in the first grade, we had report cards, and all students wrote what they wanted to be when they grew up. Some wrote “doctor,” “teacher,” and all that sort of stuff. I have no memory of this, but I wrote “actor.” Maybe this was something that was always in the back of my mind and it manifested itself, and now here we are.
There were moments where I just very strongly wanted to act, but then there’s a realistic part of my brain that would think, “I don’t know how feasible this is; I don’t know how realistic of a goal this is.” So I kept battling with that, but I guess everything works out if you want it that bad. And now that I’ve worked on this show, man, I’ll be honest: I don’t see myself doing anything else. This is probably the best job ever.
SM: It was so funny. Initially, the show was supposed to be filmed in the summer of 2023. At the same time, I also had an internship lined up for the role of a business consultant in a very reputed company, so that would have been a very good opportunity too. I remember telling [my parents] about it at the time while I was auditioning. And in fairness, I may not have made it clear how big it was, but I just remember them saying, “Can you ask them to film it after your internship? That would be cool. Just let them know you’re busy right now.” [Laughs.] There was a bit of a panic moment there, but that was the time that the strike happened. Then it got pushed to literally just after I graduated, a month later, so it worked out.
This is such a new experience for me and definitely for them too. I think we’re figuring out this unique, bizarre industry together, with time, and they’re just being nothing but supportive. The only thing [they said] was, “Complete your degree, get your degree, and then give this your everything.” I think that’s the perfect advice. I’d already done three years [of undergrad], so I’m glad I finished my degree, and it’s nice to know that I have that as a safety net. And if anything, it relaxes me a little bit and frees me, and I think that’s important for actors to feel those things. I just hope that many years down the line I can look back and say, “I never used my econ degree.” [Laughs.]
All episodes of We Were Liars are now streaming on Prime Video.
