We can smell the salty air by just looking at these photos.
Hulu released the first look at the television adaptation of Sally Rooney's Conversations With Friends on Friday, Feb. 4. In one photo, Alison Oliver, Joe Alwyn, Sasha Lane and Jemima Kirke pose on the shore of a Croatian beach, with clear waters and rocky mountains seen off in the distance. Another picture shows the cast staring straight at the camera, their skin exposed and tanned from their days at the beach.
Of course, the trip to Croatia is just a small part of the story, with the rest of the series set in Belfast, a noticeably darker backdrop for the moody drama about love and betrayal.
As it turns out, Northern Ireland is where the cast got to know each other as they filmed during the coronavirus pandemic. "The only people we could hang out with were each other," Alwyn told Vanity Fair. "We were lucky that we all got on really well."
And as they got to work, Kirke realized the acting felt very natural. "What became more and more apparent the more we shot was that we were all really well cast," she explained. "It was almost like there was some sort of conspiracy that we weren't aware of, and suddenly we found ourselves in, like, a Hitchcock movie in a room all together."
Fans can see how their hard work paid off when Conversations With Friends premieres on Hulu this spring. Until then, see the first photos from the set below!
Sasha Lane plays Bobbi, the ex-girlfriend to Alison Oliver's Frances.
Jemima Kirke plays Melissa, a journalist who is married to Joe Alwyn's Nick.
Over time, Nick and Frances' relationship turns romantic, threatening the friendship established between the group.
Frances is torn by her love for Bobbi and the future she could have with Nick, who is not entirely happy in his marriage to Melissa.
Though the show is similar in style to Normal People, director Lenny Abrahamson told Vanity Fair, "What we've ended up with is something that has a kind of aesthetic family resemblance to the other series, but is definitely its own thing."
The series is based on Sally Rooney's first novel of the same title.