‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ touched cast members deeply

Casting for the Hulu series “We Were the Lucky Ones” was a long process. The team behind adapting Georgia Hunter’s novel dealing with the true story of one Jewish family torn apart at the start of World War II wanted to find the best actors while being sensitive to the nature of the story.

Executive producer and writer Erica Lipez quotes a line from the series when she says, “They have no idea what a Jew looks like.” That bit of dialogue stayed with her throughout the process to put together the cast that includes Joey King, Logan Lerman, Hadas Yaron, Henry-Lloyd Hughes, Amit Rahav, Sam Woolf, Michael Aloni, Moran Rosenblatt, Eva Feiler, Lior Ashkenazi and Robin Weigert.

“We were looking to create a family; and I think for us, Jewishness was a part of that, but that can mean a lot of different things,” Lipez says. “We just knew we really wanted to find a group of people that were running towards the project and felt really compelled to do it.”

Building the family started with King and Lerman. Both actors found a deep connection to the story.

For Lerman, that connection went beyond the fact he is Jewish. He was able to relate to the role because his character of Addy Kurc was a performer who had left Poland to find work in England. Once the war started, he could not return home directly but spent years traveling to any country where he could find safe refuge.

“He goes on a several-years-long journey trying to get to South America. My family had a similar story to that and ended up in China,” Lerman says. “So that element was really appealing to me because I haven’t seen that side of this history explored in any form of narrative storytelling.

“That was something that really attracted me to the role and something where I was able to bring my family and my identity, my cultural background to this.”

King felt a similar connection playing Halina Kurc. It wasn’t just about the connection to her own Jewishness, but she embraced being able to explore a role that touched on her own ancestry. King described working on “We Were the Lucky Ones” as being a very personal project.

The role is the latest in a long string of TV and film credits for King. Her past work has included “Bullet Train,” “Life in Pieces,” “The Kissing Booth” and “The Boxcar Children.”

King says. “A lot of different jobs that I’ve had in the past and that I will continue to have in the future, hopefully I always feel connected to it in a very specific, certain way.

“But when it’s dealing with subject matter that is so personal to your own history and your own family and something you’re proud to be, it just makes it that much more special to step on the set every day with that in mind.”

Their work brings to life Hunter’s story who is a third-generation survivor. She has seen a resurgence of Holocaust era stories in recent years, most often told by the third generation.

Her theory as to why her age group has been so active in telling family stories has to do with the passing of time. She’s glad there is a generation ready to document these  stories as there are fewer first-generation survivors every day.

“I know with my mother’s generation; it just wasn’t talked about. I had the courage to ask,” Hunter says. “We’re bringing that history back to life, and we’re trying to do it in a way that feels very human and through a modern lens.

“So, we’re kind of getting rid of that black-and-white, sepia tone, the statistics that are completely unfathomable and telling it in a way that hopefully audiences can relate to.”

Which character is more central to the story depends on the format. In Hunter’s book, the story starts with Addy before World War II had started but the short-run series begins with Halina after the war.

Hunter – who is also a co-executive producer – explains that the change was made to let the audience know that this was not a typical Holocaust story.

“We wanted to paint a picture of what the show might entail right from the first few seconds. It’s a very key moment that we’ll come back to later in the show. But it not only gives you a little bit of a foreshadow of how much movement there is in this story,” Hunter says. “There just aren’t too many stories like it where the family is scattered across literally four continents and in constant motion. And you get that sense in the opening quite distinctly.

“But you also get the sense that it’s going to be told through a modern lens.”

“We Were the Lucky Ones” is now available on the streaming service Hulu with the initial three episodes.

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