FX and Hulu’s new series The Shards just debuted and it’s getting a lot of buzz online right now.
The series begins with a disclaimer noting how “this story is fictional,” but some of it actually is based on a true story. The disclaimer adds, “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”
The Shards is based on the autofiction novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, with newcomer Igby Rigney playing a young version of the author in the show.
What parts of The Shards are true?
Parts of the Bret Easton Ellis we see in the series are based on reality and some are purely fiction.
Just as in the show, Bret really did attend the Buckley School in Los Angeles and graduated in 1982. He’s depicted as an aspiring novelist in the series and he really did go on to become a successful writer.
Bret‘s friends in the series are based on his real life friends, though names and details have been changed to keep their privacy. In real life, he indeed dated the daughter of a famous movie producer, just like Hayes Warner‘s character Debbie Schaffer.
In the show, Bret is the son of a real estate developer, just as in real life, but he’s now an only child, when in real life he has sisters. The real Bret has previously stated that his sisters didn’t like being portrayed in previous projects, so he wrote them out of this one.
The most fictional part of The Shards revealed
There was never a serial killer involved in Bret‘s life, so that whole part of the story is fictionalized.
Bret previously told Variety about the book, “I often write a novel because I’m stuck at a certain point in my life. I’m confused, I’m scared, I’m having anxiety and I can’t quite figure out how to move forward. I’m kind of trapped someplace, and the writing flows from that.”
“I’m not motivated to write a novel without feeling it, and that might be why a lot of my novels have that pervasive sense of dread, elements of horror, can often be horrifically violent,” he added. “I think it just stems from where the books come from, and it’s a reflection of that. Conversely, if I’d been a happier guy would I have been writing books? Would I be using the novel as a way to express this or communicate it? I don’t know. But that could have something to do with why I’ve been attracted to horror and used elements of it in my work.”
Check out photos of the TV cast at the L.A. premiere!
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