Summary

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Ladies Night with We Were Liars star Candice King.

During her Ladies Night conversation with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, she revisits her days on The Vampire Diaries, from auditioning for Caroline Forbes to having a child while working on the hit series.

She also digs into all of Bess’ biggest moments in the new Prime Video series, We Were Liars.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of We Were Liars, “My Friends Are Lying in the Sun.”]After an epic run playing Caroline Forbes on The Vampire Diaries, appearing in over 170 episodes, Candice King has a brand new series regular role. She’s playing Bess Sinclair in Prime Video’s adaptation of E. Lockhart’s hit young-adult novel, We Were Liars. Emily Alyn Lind leads the series as Cadence Sinclair, a teenager who spends her summers on her grandfather’s (David Morse) private island with her family, including her mother, Penny (Caitlin Fitzgerald), and her two aunts, Carrie (Mamie Gummer) and King’s character, Bess. The Sinclair family is considered American royalty, but when a tragedy strikes on Beechwood Island, their legacy and lives are totally upended. With We Were Liars now available to stream in full on Prime Video, King took the time to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio to revisit her journey to the show. She looked back on making the pivot from music to acting, finding confidence in her craft on the set of The Vampire Diaries, and making her way through Bess’ mighty complex storyline in Season 1 of We Were Liars.
Who Is Bess Sinclair in ‘We Were Liars’?

“She’s trying to be her mother.”

Bess is the youngest of the Sinclair sisters, and she’s especially eager to be #1 in her father’s heart – and when it comes to his inheritance. How does she go about positioning herself as such? By being the perfect Sinclair, of course. She’s determined to outclass her sisters, be the absolute best at fulfilling family traditions, and raise children, including Esther McGregor’s Mirren, who appear cut from that same exact cloth. How exactly did King begin to access such a headspace? Bess’ wardrobe proved to be the ideal way in. As King explained, “She’s very dressed up,” and those outfits heavily influenced how she’d sit and carry herself while playing the character. Bess’ hairstyle also wound up being a very effective way to add layers to the character, and differentiate herself from her sisters. King recalled:
“When I showed up to work, my hair was much blonder than Mamie and Caitlin’s, and also, we decided to cut it in this flippy ‘90s more trad wifey haircut. I looked very different from Mamie and Caitlin in that sense, as well. It was so perfect because, basically, Bess and their mom, Tipper, look identical. They had the exact same haircut, and she’s trying to be her mother and the matriarch of the family. So it kind of was this organic tie-in to a very big character visual of who this person is and is trying to be, and that just goes to show that she doesn’t even have an identity of her own.”

The Sinclair Sisters Were Inspired by the Kardashians

“They’re all just such distinct personalities, and these characters are too.”

Image via Prime Video

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Key to Bess’ identity and status within the family is her relationship with her sisters. Fitzgerald’s Penny and Gummer’s Carrie. All three have a habit of snapping at one another throughout the show, but Bess undoubtedly has the biggest temper of the bunch. When she lashes out at Penny and Carrie, there’s no holding back.
“I don’t have sisters, but I have friends who have sisters, I’ve been around people who are sisters, and I think that there’s just this dependability that, ‘I can say anything to you, but I know we’re gonna be back at Mom and Dad’s house,’ or, ‘I know we’re gonna be back at a family reunion. You can’t escape me. I can say what I need to you, but eventually, you’re gonna need me anyway. You can say what you need to me, and I’m gonna tell you that I’m never gonna speak to you again, but of course, I’m gonna speak to you again.’ So, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh man, she’s really going there.’ I think that this has just been built into their relationship from the very beginning.”
Another source of inspiration King, Fitzgerald, and Gummer pulled from? The Kardashians.
“I don’t have sisters, so it was between just hearing Mamie and Caitlin’s experiences with their siblings, and then, I don’t know, maybe pulling from clips of the Kardashians and how they poke at each other and bite at each other and scratch at each other, just with their words. They’re all just such distinct personalities, and these characters are too.”

‘We Were Liars’ Brings the Sisters Closer – And Creates an Unspeakable Rift for Penny

“She’ll never be able to say that to Carrie and Bess.”

Summer 16 changes everything, even before that crushing conclusion. From the beginning, it’s clear Bess is a powder keg. She’s given every ounce of herself to being exactly what she thinks her parents want, and it didn’t pay off. Her marriage is crumbling, she fears financial ruin, and in Episode 5, she takes it all out on Mirren in one of the most crushing scenes of the season. After destroying her daughter’s art, in tears, Mirren tells her mother, “I didn’t ask for you to waste your life on me, and neither did the twins. You chose to be a mother. You chose! It’s not our fault that you decided to hate it.” Bess immediately walks out after that, but that topic of conversation heats up again in Episode 7. Bess tells Mirren, “I did everything I was supposed to do.” Heartbroken over what she wanted but couldn’t let herself have, she continues, “I am the good daughter, and I am the good wife, and I am the good mother, and I am the good one.” Then she asks, “What the hell happened to me?” It’s a crushing realization to see the character come to, especially in front of her daughter, but King also saw the admission as a form of liberation Bess needed.
“I think that and her admitting to her daughter and her children, ‘I did not think motherhood was like this. I was sold a different version of motherhood, and maybe I wasn’t ready for it, and maybe I’m not that good at it, and maybe I don’t like it all the time.’ To see a woman, a mother, say that was very hard, gut-wrenching, but also [a] real and beautiful thing in its own way. You’re not allowed to admit that if you’re having a tough day. For some people, it’s not exactly what they thought it was going to be, and that’s okay. It just will look a little different. You have to figure out what works for you. Especially having a character like that do that. So, at the end, it’s really nice to see her quite liberated. Even though she’s in her grief, there’s still a peace.”

Image via Prime Video

While more peace does come via the reinforced bond between the sisters at the end of the season, King noted that Bess and Carrie’s connection with Penny will never be the same as what they share with each other.
“Carrie and Bess have experienced something that Penny hasn’t. They both lost a child. Penny still has a child, but what’s sad for Penny is Penny really did lose her child, too, but they’re not gonna be able to see eye-to-eye on that. Just because Penny’s child walked back through the door doesn’t mean — Cadence is not the Cadence that was her daughter, but also she’ll never be able to say that to Carrie and Bess.”
Looking for even more on King’s experience making We Were Liars? Be sure to check out our full Collider Ladies Night conversation in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the interview in podcast form below:

We Were Liars

Release Date

June 18, 2025

Network

Prime Video

Directors

Nzingha Stewart

Writers

E. Lockhart

We Were Liars Season 1 is available to stream on Prime Video. Watch Here