Lucia Aniello: Classic.
Shukert: Classic. I got it as a birthday present, and I fell in love with the girls and their friendship and the world of Stoneybrook. Pretty soon, all the girls in my class were reading them. We would trade books, memorize the covers. Sometimes I would read three or four of them in one day. And of course my friends and I tried to start a baby-sitters club when I was about 10. I tried to do a playgroup in my neighborhood over the summer, where I would get all the neighborhood kids to pay $3 and then I would try to teach them the choreography from the “Bad” video by Michael Jackson.
What was it about the books that captivated you?
Shukert: I loved the girls. I loved that each of them were so different from each other but they were still friends, and you could see a little bit of yourself in each one of them. They felt very inspiring in that way, aspirational—relatable, and just a little bit cooler than anybody you actually knew. And I think I also loved that they were so independent. They have their own business. They have a lot of freedom.
Middle school can be such a harrowing time, especially for girls. And the baby-sitters were so free of all of that. They would fight, and they had conflict, but they always supported each other. There was no bullying. They have different levels of friendship with each other, but it came from this place of kindness, which I think girls can really crave at that age.
The books were released in 80s and 90s, but translates their world pretty easily to 2020. Did you ever consider making your adaptation a period piece?
Aniello: Not really. Doing a period piece for kids can work really well—something like Stranger Things—but it did feel like we wanted to make things feel relevant and fresh.
Shukert: Putting it in the modern day actually helped me connect to it in a different way too, because when I first started [working on the show], I had just had a baby. He was three months old, or something like that. And I suddenly empathized with the parents. The Baby-sitters Club would be so awesome. If it could just be that casual to find childcare—to just make a phone call!
Although, would you have any pause about asking a 13-year-old to take care of your baby? As a kid, I thought they were so sophisticated and mature—but now I’m like, wow, that seems really young!
Shukert: My son is 3 now, and I think it depends on the 13-year-old. I think I would let any of the girls on the show watch him.
Aniello: They are 13, and I fully trust them. I trust them to like, run the country.
Speaking of your cast: they’re all very poised, but also really natural and age appropriate. What were you looking for as you set out to cast the show?
Shukert: We were looking for girls that were very real and good actresses, but not very mannered.
Aniello: We found ourselves leaning towards the actresses that had either less experience or hadn’t really gone through so much of the LA, Disney, Nickelodeon kind of route—kids who just felt like they were themselves. They all have really incredible parents keeping them very grounded. I think that’s a huge reason why these girls in particular feel like they’re real kids, because their parents make sure to remind them of that.
Shukert: When the right ones showed up at the audition, you knew. I remember when we met Xochitl [Gomez], who plays Dawn, for the first time. Xochitl had told us how she was going to go look for vegan ice cream with her mom, and then Lucia heard clinking in her pockets. Lucia was like, “Are those crystals?” She was like, “Oh yeah, I take my crystals with me.” It was the most Dawn thing. It was so perfect. And Sophie, who plays Kristy, showed up for her final callback wearing these gray sweatpants. It was exactly what Kristy would have worn.