* dit artikel bevat spoilers over de allerlaatste aflevering van Pretty Little Liars

Na zeven jaar van leugens, geheimen, bizarre plot twists en romances kwam Pretty Little Liars gisteren in Amerika dan definitief tot een einde. En hoewel wij nog tot zondag moeten wachten tot de twee uur durende aflevering op Netflix staat, hadden onze zussen van de Amerikaanse ELLE alvast een exclusief, eerste interview met de persoon achter A.D. Dé kwelgeest waarvan we al jaren proberen te raden wie het nou is.

En ja, het was een shocker. Alhoewel, we het toch al wel een beetje verwachtten, door de vele hints in de afgelopen afleveringen.

LET OP, NU VOLGEN GROTE SPOILERS.

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Want inderdaad, Spencer Hastings bleek een gemene (Britse!) tweelingzus te hebben.

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Wat betekende dat de beste actrice uit de serie, Troian Bellisario, de rol van haar leven heeft gespeeld. Onze Amerikaanse ELLE-collega's hadden het állereerste interview met Troian over de *big reveal* en dit is wat ze te zeggen had:

Over hoe ze ontdekte dat Spencers tweelingzus A.D./Uber A was

Troian:

'I was first told in the beginning of season five. Marlene took me aside and told me, "I have an idea, but I don't know if the network will let me do it..." So she sat me down and explained this whole ending to me. She said, "You cannot tell anybody. It might not even happen." So I sat on it for over a year. Then at the end of year 6, she said, "We're going to do it." It was like the starting gun at the races.'

Waarom moest 't Spencers tweelingzus zijn?!

Troian:

'Originally, the show was only supposed to last five years. So she was going to take it through to Charlotte being revealed as A, and that was it. But around season four, the studio contacted her and said they really wanted to take the show through to seven seasons. So she had to start creating this whole other world, with a new ultimate villain. By the time she let me in on it, she had been thinking about it for a full year and had really fleshed it out. Over the next two years, we got to build it together.'

Over de hints die erop wezen dat A.D. Spencers tweelingzus is

Troian:

'The whole arch of Spencer going to Radley and feeling at home there, having a connection to the place, feeling like she had a history there. Maybe it was fortuitous, or maybe it helped lead Marlene to this idea, but those parts of Spencer's story fit perfectly into the revelation that Radley is actually where Spencer was born, that she is a part of its history.'

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Over het geheimhouden van haar karakter

Troian:

'It's been real rough. But for a long time, people would ask, "Who's A.D.?" And I'd say, "It's me!" And everyone would just laugh. It's kind of great when you have a secret that so few people—only me, Marlene, and a handful of others at that point—know. It means you can hide in plain sight.'

Over het spelen van Alex - de tweelingzus - zonder iets te kunnen laten weten

Troian:

'As we were building the evolution of how good she would get at impersonating Spencer, we had to walk that razor-thin edge between keeping the secret and subtly letting the audience know. One of the first scenes where you see Alex is when she shows up as Spencer and asks [Keegan Allens karakter] Toby for the kiss goodbye. We were all sweating bullets over what she was going to wear to look like Spencer, how good she would be at imitating her, how uncomfortable would she be, how much it might throw her off. But the fans interpreted it as Spencer being nervous about saying goodbye to Toby. It was wonderful! They filled in all the blanks.'

Over hoe de rest van de cast reageerde

Troian:

'There was a scene in the very beginning of the season where [Ashley Bensons karakter] Hannah wakes up to a dream of younger Spencer talking to her in the cell. When it came out, Ashley said, "Wait, you were a different person in that scene and you didn't even tell me?" I said, "I wasn't allowed to tell you!" She was like, "Man, I'm feeling really betrayed right now!"'

Over het praten in een ander accent

Troian:

'Switching between the accents and the two different personalities, I've also never been more exhausted. By the end, I turned to someone else like, "What just happened?"'

Over het grootste verschil tussen Spencer en Alex

Troian:

'Spencer comes out from under things, that's where her confidence comes from. Alex has a very different kind of confidence. She's brash, she's, uh, a very sexually confident person. [lacht] I think of it like this: Spencer approaches things with her head and her heart, and Alex approaches things with her head and her groin. That's not to say she doesn't have a heart or feelings, but she's gotten really good at putting a thick coat of armor over her heart.'

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Over hoe ze Spencer vs Alex speelde

Troian:

'At first I had to build the history of this character, her idiosyncrasies, her movements with Marlene. I got to work with an incredible dialect coach to find the character's rhythm. Once you lock that in, it becomes a game of figuring out how good is she at transitioning her personality into Spencer's. Even if you've been observing somebody for a long time, your ability to imitate them is based a lot on your perception and judgements of them. It's not necessarily just about Alex being an incredible mimic. It's also about what Alex thinks about Spencer.'

Over het moeten dealen met zo veel plottwists

Troian:

'No, I totally fought against it at first. I beat my head against the Pretty Little Liars machine for a very long time. Then I had a conversation with Norman Buckley, a director who's probably directed more episodes of the show than anyone else. He said, "The circumstances may be fantastical, but the emotions are real." I think a lot about stories that are science fiction or fantasy. If your characters live in a world with dragons and magical powers, or in a world where we can easily travel through space and time, then your job is to play it for keeps. At first that was tough for me because I saw our show more like Gossip Girl in a way. I thought of the characters as just a bunch of people interacting with each other. But then you start to see that A is everywhere and sees everything, and that it's not physically possible for a single person to do all that. So…let's just say they have an insane amount of money and the best surveillance equipment in the world. Once you accept those circumstances, then you get to just play in that sandbox.'

Over de mogelijke reactie van fans

Troian:

'I'm just nervous about how the hell this character is going to go over. It's bold! But even if you figure out that Spencer has a twin, you're never going to guess the backstory and the insanity that brought her to Rosewood. So I think there are still going to be surprises. I also feel like you're not going to get through seven seasons of this twisty-turny, topsy-turvy show, then see me spin around as a different person with a different accent and be like, "No, no, don't buy." We've made these great leaps and unexpected turns, and the audience has come with us every time. So I have a lot of faith that the audience is just going to enjoy it. And that's what I hope for them. If it's the last two hours you may ever get to spend in Rosewood, then God, I hope to sh*t you enjoy it.'

Van: Seventeen