We Were The Lucky Ones: Georgia Hunter Interview
By Sioph LealBased on Georgia Hunter's critically acclaimed novel of the same name, We Were The Lucky Ones tells a suspenseful and poignant story of the Kurc family's struggle to survive and come together in the midst of the Holocaust's horrors. Through its captivating storyline and deep character growth, the series explores themes of love, resiliency, and the eternal strength of familial ties. Visitors are taken on an emotional historical journey where they see the triumph of the human spirit over unfathomable adversity.
Sioph Media sat down with the book's author, Georgia Hunter, to talk about her family research and what it was like to see that come alive on screen.
Sioph Media: Did perceptions of your family change, watching people embody them versus you writing them? And did anything new come from watching the journey as opposed to writing it.
GEORGIA HUNTER: You know, I spent so long trying to imagine what life was like for my grandfather and for his siblings and his parents and his little niece and it was a really emotional journey, putting myself in their shoes and hearts and minds and trying to tell the story from their perspective and also in real time and not with what we know today about history, you know? Experiencing it day-to-day and what that must have felt like and in adapting it, [you know] we didn't have the luxury of getting in our characters minds right and hearing back story or putting nice little snippets of historical context in between chapters, which I do in the book, so I was really curious to see how it would feel, and I am blown away by just how real it feels like this. It [just it, you know,] was real in my mind, but seeing these actors, this cast, that just embodied these roles so beautifully and with so much heart and so much commitment to doing this story, justice made me feel like I was a) stepping back in time and b) meeting my relatives again, or in a way, for the first time, it was really very moving.
Sioph Media: That would be so crazy, especially with. Seeing Logan Lerman as your grandfather.
GEORGIA HUNTER: Yeah, it's surreal.
Sioph Media: I've just started my ancestry journey and I've learned a lot about my family, nowhere near as remarkable as yours. How was your experience researching your family’s journey and then transitioning that onto the screen.
GEORGIA HUNTER: Yeah, it was a really beautiful experience researching it. I spent nine years from start to finish writing the book, and many of those years were spent flying around the world to places like Brazil and France and coast to coast in the States, sitting down with second generation survivors and it brought me a perspective that I never would have had. Sitting down with the children of all the five Kurc siblings and kind of channeling them through their children, [right,] and that not only what they did to survive with their personalities, it was a really beautiful experience and then again, seeing that then come to life on the screen was just took it all to the next level.
Sioph Media: Definitely. And each of the five members' personalities came across and they used that to survive. Have any of the extended family watched the series? If they did, how do they feel watching it?
GEORGIA HUNTER: So last night for the first time I had two cousins come to an early screening and they were just blown away, but I think for me one of the most special parts of the whole process has been having my mom on set for a couple of days. She's seen it all as well. I would be on set and the cameras would be rolling and it was a shot with Logan and he'd step off and everybody around would be like, this is so surreal, this must be so wild, and it was, but I still got to get lost in the story because it's such beautiful filmmaking.My mom would come to set, and I'd see it through her eyes. And she's one generation closer to Logan and, spoiler she has a little cameo in episode 8 with him and watching from behind the camera, and he (Logan) steps onto the set, and he sees her behind him and he actually has a moment where he looks down and he rubs the goosebumps off of his arms and he says I have chills. And I mean that kind of says it all.
We Were The Lucky Ones releases on Hulu, March 28th 2024.