When producer Erica Lipez first received a copy of Georgia Hunter’s We Were the Lucky Ones, she read it in 24 hours. “I was holding my breath. It was one of the most incredible family stories I had ever read,” she tells ELLE.com. Originally published in 2017, the bestseller follows a Jewish family living in Poland who are separated at the start of World War II and their incredible years-long, continents-spanning journey to survive and reunite. It’s based on Hunter’s own family.
The book was recommended to Lipez by stage and screen director Thomas Kail, who had directed one of her plays and is a longtime friend of Hunter’s. He’d even looked on and supported the author over her decade of research for the novel.
“I am a Jewish woman and I’ve always wanted to do something in the historical space and he brought me the book,” Lipez recalls. “As someone who felt like they had a good education about the Holocaust, I felt like I was seeing stories about that period of time I had never seen before through this family.”
“It’s this incredible survival tale that spans nine years, four continents, takes us from Poland to Siberia, to France, to West Africa, to Brazil. And I thought, ‘This will be such a hard story to tell, but I don’t want anyone else to try but myself and Tommy and Georgia.’ And so we just set out to try to find the right partner.”
That process took some time, given the geographical scope of the series and the size of the cast, but about two years ago, Hulu greenlit the project. Lipez (whose credits include The Morning Show and Julia) is now serving as showrunner, Kail directs and is executive producing the series, and Hunter is a co-EP as well. The series will debut on Hulu on March 28.
For an ensemble show of this scale, they had to bring in the right cast. “We felt like we owed it to this family to make it a hopeful, joyful experience behind the scenes, and we just found a group of actors who brought the most incredible talent and humanity and openness and love to the project. And it made for one of the most joyful television experiences I’ve ever had in my life.”
Joey King was someone they considered from the start for Halina, the youngest of the Kurc siblings and the viewers’ entry point to the family’s journey. “It’s this incredible sort of adult coming-of-age story for her. I think she starts the war at 21 and ends around 28. There’s just this strength and intelligence and humor and ambition to Halina that we felt like we knew Joey would capture,” Lipez says. “I mean, she did that and she was extraordinary to work with.”
King is known for her work on The Act and The Kissing Booth franchise, but she’s been working in show business since she was a child, and her professionalism contributed to the production. “When we were filming the show, we were on set one day and she said, ‘It’s my 20-year anniversary in this industry today,’ and it really shows,” Lipez says. “She’s a tremendous leader both on-set and behind the scenes, and I think Tommy, Georgia, and I were so grateful for her collaboration because she’s just a deeply open and inspiring person, and she brings that in front of the camera and behind.”
The same could be said of Logan Lerman, who also grew up on-screen, especially through the Percy Jackson films. He stars as Addy, one of Halina’s brothers, an adventurous composer and engineer based on Hunter’s own grandfather.
“He absolutely was always in mind,” Lipez says. “He’s very similar to Joey in a lot of ways. There’s just an openness to him. It is really interesting. They’re siblings in the show and they’re always described within the family as twin spirits. And there’s a bit of that energy between Joey and Logan, too, in life.” The duo previously starred in 2022’s Bullet Train together, and are longtime friends.
Lipez and Lerman “had very deep discussions about the material,” she explains. “He has his own personal connection to the material through his family’s story and he was really passionate about it.”
She adds, “Most of the family is based in Poland and he’s living in France, working as a musician, a composer, and an engineer, and he’s immediately separated from his family at the start of the war. And he has to go on what I would only describe as a very epic and solo journey, and you need someone like Logan who has such a strength and center to him to carry a storyline like that. He just invites you into his inner life so deeply. I find his performance so moving and I can’t wait for people to see it.”
Lipez, Kail, and casting director Fiona Weir took their time with the casting process to make sure they found the right actors. Most of that took place over Zoom because they were considering international actors as well. “We also wanted a really international cast because it’s a really global story, and so we found cast from all over the world.”
The cast includes Hadas Yaron as Halina’s sister Mila Kurc, Henry-Lloyd Hughs as Genek Kurc, Amit Rahav as Jakob Kurc, Sam Woolf as Adam Eichenwald, Anita Adam Gabar as Anna Tatar, Michael Aloni as Selim, Moran Rosenblatt as Herta, Eva Feiler as Bella Tatar, Lior Ashkenazi as father Sol Kurc, Robin Weigert as mother Nechuma Kurc, and Ido Samuel as Isaac.
Building the family bonds on-screen and off was essential while filming the pilot. “So everyone got to Bucharest [the filming location] and there were just dinners every night,” Lipez says. “Big, funny, connecting dinners, which is how the series starts.” Those shared meals “were really where the cast kind of fell in love with each other,” Lipez says. “And they’re still very connected to this day and it’s a really beautiful thing to see.”
They started filming in December 2022 and finished in spring 2023. Shooting was primarily in Romania, though it’s supposed to represent Poland, France, and Eastern Europe. “Our production designer and team built a massive back lot in Bucharest that was this maze of buildings that became three different cities in Poland. It was a true feat, but we had all these other locations that were supposed to be in these very diverse environments.” They also filmed in Malaga and Cádiz in Spain for scenes set in Brazil, West Africa, and Italy. “The show goes to a lot of places,” Lipez reassures.
When it came to adapting her story, Hunter was eager to collaborate, even as a relative newcomer to the television world as a historical fiction novelist. “She didn’t know television, and she just was so open to the experience of it and so generous with what you need to do when adapting a book to the screen. And so she was present every day with me,” Lipez says. “She was in the writer’s room with us, which we all wanted because it is based on a true story, but it’s very accurate in terms of the events and what happened to the family. We wanted her there as a creative, as historical research, and as the lens to what felt like an honest adaptation of her family’s story.”
Of course that was no small task, considering the number of intertwining storylines and dynamics throughout the book and show. There are sibling relationships, romantic relationships, and parent-children relationships to dive into, all while the characters are traversing the globe. But that’s part of why Lipez was drawn to the project.
“I love ensemble storytelling, and I also think what is really unique about this story is [that there are] 12 distinct Jewish characters at the center of it,” she explains. “I think a lot of stories in the space of the Holocaust—and they’re really worthwhile stories to tell and I’ve been so grateful that they have been told—are often from the point of view of the perpetrators or from the people trying to save and help the Jews. And I don’t think I even realized that fully until I really started working on this project myself.”
The team felt it was integral that the audience fall in love with the Kurc family right from the pilot. “That was sort of what I said in my head, ‘We have to make everyone fall in love with these people.’”
So they made sure to make the characters, despite their experiences, still feel relatable. “The five adult siblings, they’re in that phase of life that I think a lot of us can relate to. It’s in your 20s and 30s when you’re sort of figuring out who you want to be in the world, who you want to love, do you want to start a family, do you not want to start a family, those big life questions.”
That’s what drew Lipez to the Kurc family’s story too, their humanity as they “persevered in the face of these horrifying circumstances.” She added, “I think it was a real wake-up call for myself about how people continue to find ways to live. And that’s what I think this series is really about: They found ways to advance their lives, to advance themselves as people, to fall in love, to start families, to deepen their bonds within their family. And they made music. There’s laughter in the show. That was really important.”
