Yass, ‘Queenie’! Hulu’s New Dramedy Brings the Bestseller to Life (VIDEO)

Candice Carty-Williams’ best-selling novel Queenie is taking its rightful place among some of TV’s top literary takes in Hulu‘s eight-episode adaptation, overseen by the author herself. That is one royal glow-up.

“Queenie was the first thing I’d written ever and people had seen,” notes Carty-Williams. “So it was really amazing to be like, ‘Okay, cool, I was 25 then….so what’s it like when you are 27 and you are doing script? And then to sort of start showrunning it at 33?’ It was three different stages of my life and three different versions of Candys. And so it was kind of amazing to be able to retouch your work when you are older and hopefully smarter.”

Latoya Okuneye/Lionsgate

Telling the tale of Queenie Jenkins (Criminal Record‘s Dionne Brown), a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in south London who begins to spiral after a messy breakup with her long-term boyfriend, the series—which drops all eight episodes on June 7—is soaked in cultural authenticity and complicated characters, including Queenie’s no-nonsense best friend Kyazike (Brit-Nigerian singer Bellah, devouring a role inspired by the author’s own BFF). It’s also wry, at times raw and unafraid to tackle themes that are not always easy to approach. The one thing that was easy, Carty-Williams admitted during a February sit-down with the actresses (which you can watch above), was finding her leading lady.

“You just know when you see her [Queenie],” she says, adding that Brown initially caught her attention during an audition for another show. “I was like, I’m going to bank her. And then she came back around and I was like, ‘She came back to me!'”

Queenie, Series Premiere, Friday, June 7, Hulu