The Soul and the Spine of What Made ‘Long Bright River’ with Showrunner and Co-Creator Nikki Toscano

Long Bright River is a suspense thriller series that tells the story of Mickey (Amanda Seyfried), a police officer who patrols a Philadelphia neighborhood hard-hit by the opioid crisis. When a series of murders begins in the neighborhood, Mickey realizes that her personal history might be related to the case.

Slow and steady is the game in the new Peacock suspense thriller series Long Bright River. Adapted from, and by, author Liz Moore’s book of the same title, alongside co-creator and showrunner Nikki Toscano (Revenge, Hunters), they were able to bring to life a nuanced character and her not so perfect world.

Nikki Toscano recently discussed with Script the adaptation and seamless collaborative process with author and co-creator Liz Moore, why she was drawn to lead character Mickey’s voice and her unreliable narration, the importance of balancing character drama and the murder mystery, ensuring each twist served a larger narrative purpose. And the importance of portraying the Kensington community authentically, involving local advisors and casting.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did this book come on your radar, and what initially drew you in?

Nikki Toscano: My agents brought it to me, and they said that Liz [Moore] was looking for somebody to co-create and help adapt the novel, and somebody to run it - and so they gave me the book. And my manager was like, 'Oh, just read like 30 pages and see if it appeals to you.' And I read the whole thing in one sitting.

There were a ton of things about this book that drew me in. First and foremost, the lead character, Mickey's voice - she was flawed, and she told you so. And I thought it was a very, very brave choice for a main character. I also loved the fact that the character was such an unreliable narrator, the deeper into the book you got, the less you could sort of trust what it was that she was saying or her recollection, whether that was because it was motivated by grief and pain or guilt.

I loved the juxtaposition of the love story between the two sisters against the murder mystery and the fact that, sort of in order to figure out who this killer was and what might have happened to her sister, Mickey was forced sort of reflect on their respective paths together. I thought she did just a beautiful job with her portrayal of addiction, not only people that were suffering from substance use disorder, but the people that loved them.

And I loved the fact that it upended this traditional cop as hero narrative. Mickey is not a badass detective. She is a patrol cop that kind of sucks at her job, but her superpower is her connection to the community and to her sister. And it just pulled me in, and I knew that I wanted to be bringing out more of that as we were sort of attacking the adaptation.

Sadie: Once you started collaborating with Liz, having her perspective as the author and knowing this world and her characters so well, and having your own perspective coming from TV knowing where important story beats needed to be hit in order to carry episodes and character arcs – what was that writing process like?

Nikki: I think that the one thing Liz and I talked about almost immediately, was in the adaptation, and what things she was married to, and what things that she wasn't married to. She was incredibly open and collaborative. She wanted to make the best show possible. It's just an advantage when you have an author who is willing to change certain things, because sometimes you have to. Three hundred pages is different than eight hours of television. And there's things that you need to bring in, things that you lean into, things that you lean away from. And Liz was always just sort of game to go for what was serving the best interest of the story.

Ultimately, when you know your character so well, and she obviously created these characters, and I was equally taken with the sort of the soul and the spine of what made Long Bright River, you know, Long Bright River, and this love story that was, sort of like I said, juxtaposed against this murder mystery. And so, I knew that we wanted to sort of hold that as our North Star. Some of the investigative needs might have changed, or even character beats.

In the book, for example, Mickey is a very, very internal character. So, how do we do that in a show, right? How do you show that she's an internal character...we didn't want to compromise her, but we had to make changes. And so, it became more of a thing of surrounding her with people that did the talking for her. That were challenging her on what it was she was thinking. And you got a sense of who she was without having to compromise the internal aspect of the character.

Sadie: The character actions, and how their choices evolve, especially with Mickey and how that fits into this puzzle box of this mystery – can you talk about breaking the series and breaking those episodes. And knowing when not giving away too much to the viewer, but also knowing when to give the viewers breadcrumbs, punctuated with great reversals and twists?

Nikki: One of the things that Liz and I really, really focused on was making sure that there was a balance between the character drama and the murder mystery. So that at every turn, it wasn't just about pulling a rug on somebody, right? It was about why we were pulling the rug on somebody. And then what it said about the series as a whole - Mickey Fitzpatrick as a whole. So I think that what we were really aiming to do with that balance was allow for an opportunity to get to know these characters, and just when you thought that you were on stable footing, we were able to pull the rug in a way that wasn't just coming from an, ‘Oh, we're just going to pull the rug, to pull the rug.’ But what is this a larger indictment of? What are we trying to say?

Sadie: How long did it take from that initial meeting to writing the series and then getting the series up?

Nikki: I started negotiating my part of Long Bright River in spring of 2020, so that's a long time. It was Liz and I alone for a really long period of time. We developed the pilot together. We developed a very, very extensive series Bible that was very detailed on what every episode was, what every episode was going to be about. And together, we sort of worked to hit the tentpoles. We knew where we wanted it to begin. We wanted to know where we wanted to end. And then we put big tentpoles in, and then started filling out some of the flesh.

Then after that, we had a writers' room where we had other writers come in and sort of kick the tires on a lot of what we had developed and think of things we hadn't thought about. And then others wrote episodes. Meanwhile, Liz and I were sort of like the arbiters of what was landing and what wasn't as in any writers’ room.

Sadie: When it came to putting together your key crew, from your cast to producers, directors, even your writers’ room, what was your guiding principle when it came to making sure that you're all on the same mission, especially in terms of tone and pace, and the visual aesthetic of the show?

Nikki: Honestly, it comes from giving everybody an understanding about the things that were governing principles for us, the things that were deal breakers for us, and having ad nauseam conversations with people who were excited about portraying, whether it's the character, how the character has changed potentially in the book, how we intend to reflect the community. We had a lot of conversations with all of our production heads and our directors about light and darkness, because there's a clear juxtaposition of light and darkness in the piece.

And from both a storytelling perspective and the actual look of the show, Liz and I talked a lot about wanting to make sure that the world that we portrayed was as Mickey saw it, not as the world is. So, this is a woman who has largely come from this neighborhood, who chooses to see the humanity and not the horror. And the light juxtaposed against the dark was sort of this idea of this sliver of hope at all times. Hope and compassion and community. Hope that her sister will be OK, that she will be OK, that her neighborhood will be OK, that her child will be OK. And so, we talked a lot about that.

And we talked a lot about this is a show that's largely about secrets. And so how are we using the light in the dark to luminate how those secrets are reflected, and ultimately, how they come out?

Sadie: That reminds me of the pilot episode. There's that split shot Mickey and her sister, and that imagery says so much on so many levels about these characters and their world.

Nikki: Yeah, that was Hagar Ben-Asher our director...so I cannot take credit for that, but we knew in the moment when you're watching it - especially when there's just, like a really, really cool shot that is also speaking so emotionally about these two characters. I mean, I think that a lot of the times, inevitably, with a pilot director, you can have the person come in and they have a super cool shot, but there's no reason for that cool shot. And I think that Hagar was able to use the camera and use the frame to be saying something larger about our characters and their relationship to each other.

Sadie: You kind of touched on this, but I’d love to talk about how you utilized the neighborhood as a character as well within the series, and seeing it through a very distinct perspective, which is Mickey's. Were there any specific resources and/or research happening behind the scenes to make this world feel authentic?

Nikki: We wanted to make sure, I think first and foremost, we wanted to make sure that the women in this community were portrayed with compassion and humanity. And I think that what we ended up doing as a result of that, and making sure that we were authentic to what we were portraying and also simultaneously pulling it through Mickey's lens.

We invited a lot of people from the community of Kensington to advise on our show in a number of different ways. We had people from harm reduction organizations. We had mural artists. We had graffiti artists that were from the actual neighborhood. We cast from the actual neighborhood. We cast from a lot of different Philadelphia actors, whether it be in guest roles or main roles.

At all times, I think that everyone on the show was in a constant sort of state of education. And so many wonderful people from the Kensington community were so open and aiding us to portray this community with humanity and compassion. And Amanda [Seyfried] is from Allentown, Pennsylvania. John Doman grew up in Fishtown. Ashleigh [Cummings] spent a lot of time volunteering with Savage Sisters [Recovery], which is a harm reduction organization in Kensington. The head of Savage Sisters helped to educate both our cast and our crew. And I think that it was just like, constantly gut checking and making sure that we were being honest without being exploitative.

Sadie: Any advice for writers that are tackling something that is either from source material or an original concept that’s in this genre?

Nikki: The one thing that I will say is that I think that we are in a moment where audiences need immediate gratification. They're on their phones. They're multitasking in a way that 20 years ago, we didn't have the ability to multitask in that kind of way. And so, I think that there is pressure with this sort of state of immediate gratification to be turning over cards, turning over rug pulls, not allowing your audience to get their footing before you're changing the direction of the show. And I think that the biggest North Star I would say that I try to maintain, even with having to do all of those things, is to make sure that there's an emotional reason for why you're pulling that rug, why you're making that change, because without that, it just feels empty and not in a good way.

Long Bright River premieres exclusively on Peacock on March 13, 2025.