Why Famous In Love Is the New Pretty Little Liars

“For a show to really be your next guilty pleasure, I think it has to do with the amount of plots you have,” says Charlie DePew, who plays college student and screenwriter-in-training Jake Salt. “Dramas can tend to get a little confusing when you have a lot of storylines to follow, but that’s what makes them super fun. On our show, every single character has a secret—or more than one—that they’re hiding from another main character. It’s essentially about fame, sex, love, money, power, and the conflict that comes along with all of those things. I like to think of it as a mix between Gossip Girl and Entourage.”

“Shows for the young adult demographic usually follow high schoolers, so it’s nice that our characters are a bit older,” says Niki Koss, who plays Thorne’s onscreen acting nemesis. “On the set, we talked about how we all loved Gossip Girl so much, but the kids on the show would always be sitting at a fancy bar getting a drink and it was like, You're in high school! What high schooler does that? It was cool to be able to do things that were age appropriate. That definitely gave us more freedom—especially with make-out scenes!”

“The show is going to have a similar style to Pretty Little Liars, because Marlene’s using a lot of the same directors,” says Keith Powers, who plays bad-boy actor Jordan Wilder on the show. “The storyline is completely different, but it has the same atmosphere around it. So the only thing that will really be the same is the feeling of mystery, as if you're watching a cousin or a sister of Pretty Little Liars. It's like the offspring, but with fewer cliffhangers. Our show takes longer to build up to those—but still, at the end of the first episode, you’re going to think, What just happened?”

“Our costumes are amazing,” says Koss. “We wear lots of sequins and fur, and my character’s casual backpack is Alexander Wang, which is awesome. Our costume designer, Cameron Dale, worked on Pretty Little Liars, so our outfits are really great.”

“The show will air weekly on Freeform, but the entire season will be available digitally right away, too,” said Powers. “For today’s younger demographic, it's all about binge-watching. Teenagers, especially, have a shorter attention span and don't want to wait to watch a new episode each week. So the fact that you can watch the full season online as soon as it airs is pretty great, because then fans will hopefully want to see a second season—and that’s the goal.” 

Famous In Love premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET, with all 10 episodes of season one immediately available On Demand, as well as on Freeform’s app, Freeform.com, and Hulu.