“The Perfect Couple” has all the makings of a prestige drama like “Big Little Lies” or “The Undoing”: an all-star cast, a crime thriller that exposes the facade of an upper-class community, and, of course, Nicole Kidman.

But Elin Hilderbrand’s adaptation had a very different start as a network pilot that initially went into development at Fox in 2019 as a co-production between Fox and SideCar. At the time, it was Gail Berman of SideCar who emailed Jenna Lamia (“Good Girls,” “Awkward.”) about the possibility of contributing as a writer – and Lamia was immediately enthusiastic.

“I didn’t even finish reading the email – I wrote back, ‘I’m definitely the author. You don’t have to send me the book. I read it last summer when it came out… I’m a huge fan – what do I have to do to convince you that I’m an author?'” showrunner Lamia told TheWrap. “So it was a rare thing that from day one I was just incredibly passionate and could envision what I thought the show should be, the colors, the textures, the roller coaster shape.”

After getting the official green light from Berman and meeting with Hilderbrand, Lamia went to work writing the pilot for The Perfect Couple, but it fell through at Fox. It wasn’t until Lamia met with the team at Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps during the pandemic about another matter that the pilot came up again. Since 21 Laps had just increased its deal with Netflix, Berman and Levy agreed to collaborate on the series and bring it to the streamer.

“It had a lot of life before we even brought it to Netflix,” Lamia explained. “But luckily, once Netflix came on board, I had real creative freedom to write the version that we all felt was the best and most dynamic.”

After the series was released for streaming, Lamia recalled how she and the producers dared to “dream of a prestigious cast,” with Kidman being at the forefront for Lamia.

“We’re living in a time where movie stars are appearing on television and the really exciting, sexy projects can be miniseries or even ongoing series,” she explained. “I always knew, of course, that Nicole Kidman would be my dream, but I didn’t even dare to hope that I would ever get into the same atmosphere as her, let alone cast her in this show.”

Still, Lamia began writing the proud Winbury matriarch Greer with Kidman in mind, thinking of the A-list actress down to the smallest detail. “She was this fantasy in the back of my mind that I don’t even know if I talked to Elin about,” Lamia said, adding that the accuracy she envisioned for Greer through Kidman breathed “new life” into the script.

“I think just having the dream of getting a prestigious cast elevated the script and we all started to see the show differently,” she noted. “Then as we started scouting locations and thinking about the authenticity of Nantucket, that also started to be highlighted in all of our writing and in some of the materials we carried back and forth during the writing process.”

Susanne Bier (“The Undoing,” “The First Lady”), who joined as director and executive producer, added even more value to the project. She described the show as “elegant popcorn,” according to Lamia. Since Bier had already worked with Kidman on “The Undoing,” Bier asked Lamia to sprinkle some “special sauce” on the script over the holidays before presenting it to Kidman. Kidman was on hand for New Year’s.

With Kidman on board, a star-studded cast formed around her, including Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson, Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning, Jack Reynor and Billy Howle.

“Each of them has a quality that is incredibly compelling and a great part of an overall palette that we wanted to build,” Lamia said. “Because if you think of the show as a painting, there are dark tones, there are light tones – it’s an incredibly difficult balance. I think the humor is not something that people will necessarily expect.”

Hewson plays Amelia, a young woman who marries into the Winbury family through middle son Benji (Howle), but whose perfect wedding weekend is shattered when a member of the wedding party is found dead. Since The Perfect Couple began as a pilot for the network, the character Amelia — renamed Celeste in the books — went through several versions before becoming the edgier outsider seen in the Netflix series, according to Lamia.

“Celeste was supposed to stop stuttering, which is a big part of her character in the book,” Lamia said. “I realized very early on that I needed the audience on her side, and she does some things that are hard to root for… She’s confused about her love, and her motives for marriage aren’t necessarily pure, although they are altruistic. She had enough on her plate, so a physical obstacle was too much for her to handle.”

While Greer’s other daughter-in-law, Abby (Fanning), has fully adapted to the Winburys’ lifestyle of monogrammed gowns and extravagant parties, Amelia defies tradition, not out of malice but simply out of authenticity – which quickly leads to what Lamia describes as a “rivalry” between the two women.

“(Amelia is) not from the world that Greer is trying so hard to dominate, and she really doesn’t care if that world accepts her or not, and that’s terrifying for someone who has spent most of her life building her public image and most of her energy and self-esteem on what others think of her,” Lamia said. “Here comes this young person who doesn’t care about anything, who completely throws you off balance and makes you angry because she’s basically saying you’ve wasted your life.”

Like all facades, the image of perfection Greer imposed on the Winbury family slowly crumbles as the murder investigation progresses, much to Greer’s chagrin. “Greer told her children from a young age to sit up straight and… wear that ironed button-down shirt on the first day of school – the message is unmistakable, which is that we must always appear well-behaved,” Lamia said. “There are reasons for that that will become clear.”

“The Perfect Couple” will be available to stream on Netflix starting Thursday, September 5.