Everything We Learned From the Big Little Lies Season 2 Premiere

Last night, HBO held the season two premiere for Big Little Lies in New York City (the show returns to television on June 9). It was a glittering, glamorous affair, complete with appearances from so many celebrities it made our heads spin. The show’s stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Zoë Kravitz, Adam Scott, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Shailene Woodley, and Kathryn Newton, of course, all turned up on the red carpet. And several other celebrities attended, including Michelle Pfieffer (whose husband, David E. Kelley, is BLL’s showrunner), Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, Jessica Williams, and Gina Gershon.

But while the red carpet event was surely the most coveted ticket in town, the Big Little Lies actresses spent an afternoon ahead of the premiere at the women’s club the Wing, where they held a panel discussion covering key information about the second season. Here’s everything we learned:

Big Little Lies Will Most Likely End After This Season

Big Little Lies was originally conceived as a miniseries and ended up being such a massive hit that HBO was compelled to keep the show going. But in a red-carpet interview with Variety, Kelley confirmed that the writers approached the second season of BLL as though it would be the last. “I suppose there’s always a chance [it could continue], but that’s not the plan,” he said. “We wrote this season as if this were the end.” The second season, which follows the Monterey Five after the death of Celeste’s (Kidman) abusive husband, Perry (Skarsgård), will apparently end with a bang. “I’m not going to give anything away,” Kelley added. “But I think the audience will find the ending satisfying.”

Meryl Streep Joined BLL Without Reading a Script

At the Wing panel, Streep, who plays Perry’s mother, Mary Louise, revealed that she signed onto the show without reading a single script. She had thought the first season was “the greatest thing on TV” and was eager to join the cast. Kidman credited Liane Moriarty, whose novel provided the source material for the first season, with landing Streep. Mary Louise is Streep’s legal name, and Moriarty christened the character in her honor. “That was Liane Moriarty. That was her telepathic message to you, Meryl, because [the cast] did not know that. We did not know that that was your name,” Kidman said. “Liane wrote the novella and said, ‘Get me Meryl Streep.’”

Nicole Kidman Loves an Emoji, While Reese Witherspoon Prefers GIFs

There is a Big Little Lies group chat! And apparently Nicole Kidman floods it with emojis. “I think I’m the only one who sends Emojis,” she said at the panel. “You send a couple, Reese.” Witherspoon clarified that she “likes a GIF!” But Kidman refused to reveal what they all like to talk about. We assume they have the best Hollywood gossip on the planet. “My lips are sealed; I’m going to the grave!”

Reese Witherspoon and Her Daughter Continue to Twin

While this doesn’t exactly pertain to the show, it’s still exciting to see how Reese Witherspoon (in Elie Saab and De Beers jewelry) and her daughter, Ava Phillippe, look…exactly alike. Hopefully Ava is nicer to her mom than Reese’s onscreen daughter.

Nicole Kidman Still Sings

Kidman took to Instagram to post a truly transcendent video in which she and her country singer husband, Keith Urban, sing a rendition of Elton John’s “Your Song,” a tune that was prominently featured in one of the actress’s greatest films: Moulin Rouge. What an embarrassing joy!

Kidman Defended the Show’s Second Season

The decision to give Big Little Lies a second season was hotly contested; while fans were eager for the show to come back, critics widely agreed that it was best delivered as a self-contained miniseries. But at the Wing panel, Nicole Kidman defended the choice to return to Monterey.

“I had a lot of people say to me, ‘No, no, no, that’s it. You did only one. It was fantastic as one season.’ And a friend of mine, a male, said, ‘Those women deserve their stories to be told beyond what was just that first season,’” she said.

“I was so touched by that, and I went, ‘Yeah, that’s what we’ve actually got to fight for now.’ We don’t have to just be shut down and told, ‘No, that was good, and you did well, and off you go.’”

June 9 can’t come soon enough.