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\u201cWe\u2019ve been teenage girls,\u201d Lily Gladstone<\/a> said. Which means that Gladstone and her co-star, Riley Keough<\/a>, know what teenage girls can do.<\/p>\n In \u201cUnder the Bridge,\u201d<\/a> a limited series now streaming on Hulu, Keough and Gladstone play a writer and a cop investigating the 1997 beating and murder of Reena Virk<\/a>, a 14-year-old Indo-Canadian girl. Six teenage girls and one teenage boy, many of them Virk\u2019s classmates, were eventually convicted.<\/p>\n The case has inspired plays, poems, documentaries and several books, including Rebecca Godfrey\u2019s 2005 literary nonfiction work \u201cUnder the Bridge,\u201d<\/a> which gives the series its shape and name. (The show also relies on a memoir by Virk\u2019s father, Manjit Virk.) Though Godfrey died in 2022<\/a>, before filming began, she worked closely with the show\u2019s creator, Quinn Shephard, on its development. Keough, who also produced the series, plays a version of Godfrey. Gladstone plays Cam, an invented character, a Native law enforcement officer who was adopted as a child by a white family.<\/p>\n While \u201cUnder the Bridge\u201d centers these women as adults, it includes scenes of the same characters as teenagers, drawing lines between the girls they were and the women they are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Earlier this month, Keough, who was filming in London, and Gladstone, who was in Seattle, met for a video call. In an hourlong chat, they discussed girlhood, violence and making a true-crime series that sidesteps sensationalism. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.<\/p>\n What were you like as teenagers?<\/strong><\/p>\n LILY GLADSTONE<\/strong> Whenever I meet anybody from high school, \u201cOh my God, you\u2019re the same person\u201d is pretty much what I hear. That version of Lily really built the foundation for who I am now. She had this sense of where she wanted to go. She cracks me up a little bit. Riley, I get the sense that you had a lot of energy, though I don\u2019t want to say you were ever too much to handle because you don\u2019t really have that vibe.<\/p>\n RILEY KEOUGH <\/strong>Well, my parents would have said differently.<\/p>\n GLADSTONE<\/strong> Mine, too. They say there\u2019s a reason I\u2019m an only child. But I feel like if I was your teacher, I would have been like, \u2018She\u2019s going to do some pretty awesome things.\u2019<\/p>\n KEOUGH <\/strong>I needed that teacher. I would say that I was always very sensitive and kind. The kids that maybe didn\u2019t have friends, I always wanted to sit with. I had that instinct. But I had a wildness in me, too. I\u2019m an adventurous spirit. I wasn\u2019t a teenager who was a very big problem or anything. I just loved life and I wanted to experience it all.<\/p>\n In my heart, I am the same person. But it\u2019s been a confusing journey. It\u2019s funny that I\u2019m an actor because I never wanted attention. I never wanted to stand out. Over time, I\u2019m just more comfortable being myself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What drew you to the series?<\/strong><\/p>\n GLADSTONE<\/strong> Honestly, the first spark was hearing that Riley was attached. From there, I had conversations with Quinn and Samir [Mehta, the showrunner] into what kind of meaning could be found in a senseless act of violence. Having just come off another \u201ctrue-crime\u201d piece [\u201cKillers of the Flower Moon\u201d]<\/a> that self-indicted sensationalism and looked at the people that were affected as well as unearthing some of the systemic issues that create these scenarios, I was really interested in this one because of how it indicts all of us in what was happening around Reena Virk.<\/p>\n It was really clear to me that this was another opportunity to have a nuanced conversation about the systemic failures of law enforcement. When you\u2019re making a true-crime story but being self-aware about it, you can go on a journey with your audience and have a conversation about these things in a way that didn\u2019t happen at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Were you surprised that teen girls could be capable of something like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n KEOUGH<\/strong> No, no, not at all.<\/p>\n GLADSTONE <\/strong>We\u2019ve been teen girls. Not that we necessarily have the ability to do something like that. But certainly we were teenagers with other teenagers. Teenage girls are some of the most powerful people on the planet. And anybody that\u2019s got that much power has the capability to be an ungrounded wire with it.<\/p>\n KEOUGH <\/strong>That can be a really volatile time for the human spirit.<\/p>\n GLADSTONE<\/strong> Identity formation with a big old shot of hormones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n