Note: contains mention of sexual assault.
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin spoilers ahead.
Welcome to Screen Sisters, a collection of conversations about what it means to be a woman working in television both in front of and behind the camera.
As well as recognising their contribution to the industry, the series will also examine the highs and lows of working in media, how far television has progressed, and how much further it still has to go.
Next up, we're speaking to Mallory Bechtel, as she breaks down the finale of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
Mallory Bechtel had a lot of plates to spin during Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. The latest spin-off came with the pressure to perform from the outset, considering other spin-offs of the main PLL series were all halted in their tracks pretty quickly (Ravenswood was cancelled in 2014 after one season due to poor ratings, with The Perfectionists suffering the same fate in November 2021.)
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It seemed third time was the charm though – under the guide of Riverdale's Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin blended a lot of nods to slasher flicks of years gone by as well as its source material.
For Mallory, it was the twin mystery that she had to keep afloat... PLL can never resist a twin mystery. But with Kelly/Karen came the double dose of characters for her to juggle – at least for the first two episodes before Karen met her maker in a very brutal way.
Though it seems that, while Karen's death was final, it was only the start of the actress' troubles of keeping the secrets, with the rumours of which twin died keeping viewers hooked and picking apart her every move.
But with the season one finale now aired, Mallory is able to spill all the tea exclusively to Digital Spy about life in the Pretty Little Liars universe… and what lies ahead.
Are you watching the series in real time with everyone else?
Oh, yeah. My older sister lives a 15-minute walk from me. So every Thursday I go over and me, my brother-in-law and my sister, we drink our wine and we scream at the TV.
How have you been managing to keep all the secrets from them?
I mean, it's very difficult because my character dies in the second episode... I have three siblings, and so that secret got spoiled pretty early on to everyone except my older sister. I was able to protect her from that. But I try with everything else.
My mom knows basically everything because she just wanted to know during the process what Kelly gets up to! But they don’t know too much about it.
You've spoken before about how you adopted different mannerisms between Kelly and Karen to tell them apart. How hard was it to play once Karen had died but you had to keep the Kelly/Karen mystery going?
I feel like I dug myself into a hole with with that! Because I meant as a general rule when I'm playing both, there were like things I would hang on to to differentiate between them.
To me, I think Karen always kind of is furrowing a little more, and Kelly keeps it a little lighter, and that was something our acting coach on set had approached me about. She was like, 'I noticed that when you're playing Karen that you like to keep your mouth open. Maybe that's something to think about with Kelly'.
But people have people are really taking me on my word for that! Any time Kelly is wearing a heel, they're like, 'Well, she said Kelly doesn't wear heels!'
Obviously you've got to play with that a little bit while performing. How did you find that balance? And how have you found the fan reaction to the mystery of it all?
Playing it was very difficult – they didn't want me to know who I was. I begged so much for them to reveal whether I was Karen or Kelly! But that was really only an issue in episodes three, four and five. But basically what I did was I know everyone in the show is going to think she's Kelly, at least in those moments, and the audience is under the impression, although they're questioning it, that she's Kelly.
So for me, I just ploughed ahead and said, 'I will play Kelly!'. But on the day, there would be very specific moments that we would stop and the director would say, 'Okay, now go back and do that line and be Karen'. So it was very calculated, the balance of those two personalities. It was a lot of help from the director. For me, I was like, 'I'm just gonna play Kelly', which I think ended up paying off for where the show goes.
But yeah, those moments where she's a little more Karen was definitely very, very intentional. But what I always say is like, no matter what, I think the ambiguity makes it. They wanted me to be confused because they wanted the audience to be confused one.
And then as far as whether it's Karen or Kelly, I think the ambiguity makes sense because either way, whoever this girl is, she just lost her twin sister who has been her other half since before they could remember, and so for their personalities to bleed a little bit and for there to be this sort of personal identity crisis, I think makes sense.
So that's how I conceptualise it from an acting standpoint. But it's definitely very difficult and very, very calculated and planned, and lots of help from directors saying, 'get more Karen, give more Kelly'.
How far in advance did you get the episodes then, if you weren't told whether or not you were Kelly?
Yeah, I think like a week before we would start shooting that episode is usually what it was. We would get the script and then we would have a table read over Zoom a couple of days later, and then we started shooting the next week.
So yeah, I didn't know officially until I got six and it's a little more explicit in six that this is indeed Kelly. People are still not trusting that it's Kelly, which I love! I love the mystery. I like to be at the centre of a twin mystery. I think it's very fun. But that's when I knew and so then I could rest easy and say 'okay, we're just gonna be Kelly from here on out'.
It's great writing too, because Faran has just planted this seed that if she were Karen, her life might be in danger. So there is a world where she just put two and two together in a quick moment and thought 'if I say I'm Kelly then that's going to save my life' in the situation that she would be Karen. But she's not! Or at least I don't think so [laughs]. I don't really think... who knows?!
The series really tackles, especially in the later episodes, darker subject matter, and more real subject matter than the slasher stuff. It really takes a hard left turn to the reality of a teenage girl, and sexual assault. Were you surprised to see it take that sharp turn, and how did you feel about how it was introduced into the series?
I always love that about our show. I I feel grateful that we have writers who aren't afraid to tackle the darker stuff and it was definitely rewarding to get to play and to be a part of these darker stories and to explore these traumas.
I wasn't surprised, I think because there were some seeds planted early on, and I knew, especially with Tabby setting up the camera in the boys' locker room and Imogen and the suggestion her baby resulted from a rape, I always kind of trusted that the writers were going to get deep into that, and so I was pleased when we finally got to that turn.
I trusted that we were going to get there and I think everyone does such a great job addressing all of those darker topics and I think that's what makes our show – it's that it does have those fun horror elements but it's also not afraid to touch on those more realistic darker trauma themes.
Kelly really goes through it in the final episodes. Can you talk me a bit through first of the relationship you have with Eric Johnson, the actor who plays your dad?
I can't emphasise how nice this man is. He's just a bundle of joy. Everyone on set just adores him and everyone's so jealous of me that I get to work with him so much! And I'm like, 'yeah, as you should be!' [laughs] I feel so, so grateful I get to work with him.
He's not only just the nicest person ever, but he's such an incredible actor. We'll goof around offset and tell jokes and he is just such a fun goofball – but when we get on set and I'm at the dinner table and he's sitting to the right of me and he's so great, he goes right into it, and I feel so grateful I had that energy to work off of.
I definitely learned so much from him just watching him do his thing. But there's a serious energy on set for those scenes, and the crew was so respectful too. That final scene, his death scene, we did over a couple of days... Those were some long, hard, gruesome, upsetting days shooting that scene – but very rewarding. I love Eric Johnson – he's an angel and I love getting to work with him.
It's not like that on set which I don't say a lot. You know, I hate sounding too actor-schmactory! But it did have this very heavy feeling when we shot that and it took a long time. It was a fun day.
Did you crack who A was by the time you got the script?
No! I don't think... there were so many theories that were thrown out and I don't think anyone [got it]. I'm sure someone had landed on it, but we all were surprised. Before we get the actual scripts, usually there's breakdowns that are flying around with the wardrobe department and make-up department, so we usually hear stuff before we get the actual script.
I was very adamant I don't want to know anything before I actually have the script and read it through. It did actually end up getting spoiled to me accidentally, but that person covered it up well!
So I was very shocked. I think it's very satisfying. That's what I keep telling people – I'm like, 'you will be satisfied'.
What about the Chip reveal, did that surprise you?
No, there were so many rumours on set, and that was one that we all kind of got wind of!
Final question: One of the biggest surprises was the Riverdale/ Sabrina/ Pretty Little Liars world that is now all canon. Is there anyone from that world you’d like to see come into Original Sin?
I loved Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, so I'm trying to think who would be fun... I mean, it would be cool to have Kiernan Shipka show up for a second. I think that would be pretty neat. Or Aunt Hilda – I don't know! I don't know what she would do, but I would love to have her in the world. Cast some spells, add some magic into the mix?
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is available now on HBO Max and is yet to be given a UK release date.
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Freelance writer, Digital Spy
Tilly is Gold-Standard NCTJ accredited journalist with eight years of experience in entertainment journalism.
She has been heard giving her insight on the latest TV stories on BBC Radio across the country and on BBC News.
Previously working with The Sun Online, Yahoo, Metro.co.uk and Independent IE amongst others, she joined the Digital Spy team from 2021-2023 as Deputy TV Editor (Maternity cover).
With a speciality in TV drama and true crime, Tilly has been praised for her exclusive content with A-list stars ranging from Sir David Attenborough to the lawyers behind Making A Murderer.
She’s happy to report her mum now takes her seriously as a journalist as she got to interview George Clooney once.
