‘Three Women’ Author Lisa Taddeo’s Crash Course in Hollywood Chaos

When Lisa Taddeo got the call in early 2023 that Showtime was pulling the plug on her television series, she didn't answer. "It was my birthday," she recalls. "I picked up my daughter from her guitar lesson, got a flat tire and waited a couple hours for the tow truck. By the time we got home, I was too exhausted to call my agents back."

The following day, Taddeo got the news. Three Women, an adaptation of the nonfiction phenomenon she'd published in 2019, no longer would air the 10-episode first season it already had in the can. Adding to the devastation, the journalist turned screenwriter would have to tell her cast, led by Shailene Woodley, and the real women who inspired the other characters. Taddeo had spent years interviewing women about their sexual and emotional lives, three of whom eventually agreed to participate in the book: Maggie Wilken (played in the series by Gabrielle Creevy) and two known by the pseudonyms Lina (Betty Gilpin) and Sloane (DeWanda Wise).

A few weeks later, Taddeo's fortunes turned again. This time, Starz picked up the series, which it's finally set to roll out Sept. 13. Nevertheless, the 44-year-old multi-genre author (see novel Animal and short story collection Ghost Lover) is now more than a little skeptical of her new industry. Speaking from the Connecticut home she shares with her husband and daughter, she opens up about everything from the importance of showing penises to still feeling like she's not being paid her worth.

Which is the more frustrating industry to work in: entertainment or publishing?

Entertainment, 100 percent. Publishing has its pitfalls, but, in Hollywood, if you don't do something by tomorrow, you fear it's all going to go away. There's also less clarity in Hollywood, fewer demarcations and essentially more chaos. Obviously, every creative industry has a chaotic element to it, but I do think that Hollywood breeds chaos a bit more wantonly.

Nothing says chaotic like filming an entire season of TV and then being told it'll never see the light of day. What did you learn from that?

I was never shocked. By that point, there'd been many clues. What was so egregious, for me, is the way that it all works. When everybody was bidding on my book, the phone rang off the hook. "Can you please talk? Have you seen my text?" Then you go to the antitheses, which is: "It's over. We're not going to tell you why. We're getting a huge tax break out of [scrapping] this." Then, crickets. I find that to be so childish — to want something when you don't have it, and then, when you have it, to just say, "I don't really want it anymore." It feels like the industry is run by a bunch of 17-year-olds who haven't been told to be polite and cool.

From what I heard, your cast was pretty pissed. How did you manage their disappointment?

It took many days of communicating and follow-ups — all the way down to actors who were just there for a day. The part of it that broke me was Maggie, the real Maggie. She had her Today show appearance canceled. When a lot of shit has happened to you — and it has to Maggie, the other women in the book, and certainly to me — you just don't trust anything anymore. When I told her that Starz picked it up, she was like, "Yeah, right."

Shailene Woodley, who plays the proxy for you, originally signed on for multiple seasons. Is there still a world in which this show carries on, or have those deals expired?

I don't exactly know how it works. The way it went down was rather unprecedented for a lot of my team. And Paramount has been internationally licensing it on its own. This season already aired in Greece, Iceland, Israel and all of these places where my book's been published without my publisher even being informed. But we did have a very meta idea for a second season, and Shailene is still super excited about it. We talk about it often.

The series opens on Shailene's character discussing research with an actor playing Gay Talese, who has written a lot about sex. His advice to her is to sleep around. Was that Gay's suggestion to you in real life?

Yes, that happened, and I'm a little nervous about his seeing it. And the word he used was fuck. He was like, "You have to fuck married men. That's the only way you can stake your claim on what I've already accomplished."

In Three Women, Shailene Woodley plays Gia, not so loosely modeled off of Taddeo — a choice the author initially balked at. "But when we sat down to write it, we needed a link between the three women," she says. "The link being me was both organic and true." Courtesy of Starz

During your press tour for the book, you spoke a lot about your fears about preserving the anonymity of the other two women. With the series now airing in the U.S., are those worries renewed?

Totally, with Sloane [who is a swinger] in particular. She's the most concerned about her anonymity. But we remade that character into an African American woman who's an amalgamation of Sloane and another woman very much like her who dropped out of the book, so I'm less concerned. But I still get Facebook messages from people asking things like, "Was this this town? I think I know who she is!" Why would I answer that?

One thing I have in my notes from watching the show is, "Can you show a real erect penis on TV?"

Which one? There are a lot of penises.

I'm referring to a scene with Betty Gilpin and her co-star Austin Stowell, but I guess the question stands for all penises.

No, they're all prosthetic. Seeing that penis through Lina's eyes was important. But Pam & Tommy had just come out [while we were shooting], so everybody was talking about the [talking] penis. I thought, "Now we've got to deal with the blowback from their penis stuff!" But for the show, for her to see the penis of this man that she'd been waiting to kiss for her entire life, that was like this holy moment. She's kneeling not at the church of the almighty dick but of her own repressed desire. I really wanted to show that penis.

If the goal of the series is to show sex and sexuality through the female gaze, do you feel like you succeeded in that — and that people will pick up on it?

I do, especially in certain moments and scenes. Our directors, all of whom are women, were beyond brilliant in the ways they wanted to show the sex and intimacy — both the desire and the fear and aversion to other feelings. To show all those things together is a feat.

Your husband wrote on the show. Where do you complement each other professionally, and where do you butt heads?

The only place we don't butt heads is work. (Laughs.) That part was great. When I was writing the book, renting this mouse-infested apartment in Boston while I was finishing my MFA, I had 10 billion words and didn't know what to do with them. He put all these index cards on the wall and just put the book in order. He's my editor and structure guru. He also knows how to adapt my stuff in a way that doesn't make me feel … yuck. Sometimes, others will use words that I'd just never say. Adapting is weird.

After the book hit big, did you feel that anyone was trying to put you a box in terms of what you should do next?

If you write about female desire, you are suddenly the voice for that. After any modicum of success in a field, everyone's like, "OK, that's what they do." The more generous and intelligent response would be, "What other things could they do?" So many women creatives are put in boxes. We even do it to Taylor Swift! Any success gets you put into a box immediately. If you have a failure, you get taken out of that box. It's daily relevance.

Taddeo is also adapting her novel Animal for Plan B and Amazon MGM Studios: "I just turned in the revision two weeks ago." Courtesy of Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster

You went broke reporting the book. One hopes that money follows success — either from publishing or TV. Do you feel like you're being paid your worth?

Publishing is rough. People think if your book does well, you're set for life. It is absolutely not like that. Entertainment pays better, but we haven't recovered from the strike. Even though there are so many great things we got in the WGA contract, there's still a pressure to do things off the book, to be a good sport and hope something comes out of it. Are there deals that I feel have been good? Yes. But I do not feel like I'm being paid my worth. These giant companies hold on to the money, other people's money, really tightly.

As someone who's been embedded with women from different walks of life, I'm curious what you think of the "tradwife" phenomenon?

I want to be a tradwife! When I look at tradwives, I see women who have the mental space to live that kind of life. I happen to do better in my own brain, writing and being alone. The idea of it being anti-feminist is bullshit. What's feminist is what you want to do. If that's having a bunch of pigs and babies running around and your husband to pat you on the back for it, who the fuck cares?

In addition to sex, trauma and grief are big themes in your work. And some of your past interviews suggest you might be a hypochondriac. How do you exorcize the anxiety that comes with all that?

I white-knuckle it. I do have major hypochondria, OCD and PTSD. I've had a lot of trauma, which is why this next book I'm working on is about grief. Talking to people who have the same issues as me feels a lot more doable than talking to normal people out in the world about what color they painted their house. I'm like, "That doesn't matter. We're all going to die!" That's kind of my M.O. Oh, and I do have some THC in the evening.

What are you reading right now?

Actually, I'm reading a book on OCD. (Laughs.) I'm also reading [Mariana Enríquez's] Our Share of Night and a book that was sent to me for a blurb.

How often are you solicited for a blurb?

I get at least 30 to 50 books a week sent to my P.O. Box. Others just show up at my doorstop or in my email. I remember trying to get blurbs and what it meant when Dave Eggers and Elizabeth Gilbert came in out of the blue. Nobody I knew even knew them. I sent the galley to Dave Eggers, wrapped it in parchment paper just hoping that would make him look at it. I know well how awful it is trying to get blurbs.

This story first appeared in the August 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.