On Monday, June 13, Freeform debuts its newest series, Guilt, from creators Kathryn Price and Nichole Millard. The show revolves around Grace (Daisy Head), an American student in London whose roommate gets murdered, embroiling her in the media circus that is an international murder mystery.

Brief had the chance to chat with Price about drinking with Billy Zane, what inspired her to create the show, and of course, guilt.

I had a blast watching the pilot.

Who do you think did it?

I want it to be GILES (Anthony Head)! I love the casting, but Anthony Head as an evil American stepdad in London and Billy Zane jump out.

We’re just pinching ourselves that we got both of them.

How did their casting come about?

Billy came into our world earlier. Our casting director Rick Millikan was the first person who said, I think it’s Billy Zane. As soon as he said the name we were like, YES! Bring him in here. Is there any way he would do it? He’s this huge star. Then Billy came in, and he’s so witty, smart and it clicked and we had to do our lucky brain dance to get him to agree to come and play with us.

With Anthony, his daughter Daisy is the star of the show. He came to set to visit her, and originally, we had cast someone else in that role for the pilot. We knew we were going to be recasting and we met him: would he do it? He’s such a big star, and it wasn’t going to be an every episode thing, so we weren’t sure. But that worked out perfectly with his schedule (he’s starring in ABC’s upcoming series Still Star-Crossed). It was kismet.

I love how global this show is. How important was that to you and the story?

It was really important for it to feel international, because the suspects in these sensational murder cases become international celebrities. We wanted that vibe. We wanted our world to feel big.

London is my favorite city in the world. I studied abroad there when I was in college, which fed into the choice. It’s also the epicenter of mysteries for us, like Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. We wanted to do a fresh, modern take. It’s an awesome place to go to. We all fight for the chance to go over there.

What do you do with your plane time?

On my last plane ride home, I flew with Billy Zane, so we shared some drinks. Usually, I have to work. This most recent flight, I was giving notes on the most recent edit of episode five. Then I had a Tina Fey movie-a-thon, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Sisters.

I look forward to it as time when you don’t have internet and you have to watch a movie or read a book. Or, you know, drink with Billy Zane.

I’d choose drinking with Billy Zane over a book on most occasions.

It’s funny to be anywhere with Billy Zane. When we were shooting the pilot in Budapest, we were in this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and me, Nichole, Billy Zane and [star] Kevin Ryan were the only people in the restaurant. All of a sudden the piano player starts playing the theme song to Titanic.

Were you inspired by the Amanda Knox story or was it just international murders in general?

It’s the whole kit and caboodle, I would say. Going back to O.J. Simpson, these cases take on a life of their own and become this industry around what happened to someone. We wanted to look at one of those cases from all points of view: the victim’s family, the suspects, the police, the defense, and the media especially.

Nichole and I have known each other since college and we’ve always said if we’re accused of murder, what would we do? I don’t know why, it’s this little game we play. That created Grace. But we’re boring. What if with Grace, you didn’t know if she did it or didn’t do it? That was more interesting than the show being like The Fugitive where you know the whole time the person didn’t do it and it’s about clearing their name. We wanted to be on this rollercoaster ride of is she guilty, is she not guilty?

Will we know the killer by the end of the season?

Yes. By the end of this season, you will know who killed Molly Ryan and why.

I imagine you knew the killer early on, but were there any room for surprises as it went along?

Nichole and I created this show a couple of years ago for a different network. That network ended up not going forward with the project, but they had commissioned us to write a season-long bible. That included who the killer was and who the other suspects would be.

When we took the show to Freeform and they bought it, we pitched them the same bible and we stuck to it pretty closely. But there is always room for surprises, because it wasn’t completely fleshed out. From an episode-to-episode standpoint, we had to fill that out much further.

You mentioned Freeform. Did the name and brand change from ABC Family affect Guilt?

When we first went in to pitch them, we were like, uh, our show’s not really putting the family in ABC Family. I wasn’t sure why our agent was sending us there. There’s a lot of sex, drugs, violence, you know. But they’re like, no no no, they’re going to do this whole brand change, please go and meet them.

We met with Karey Burke [EVP, Programming and Development] and her team, and Karey fully embraced our show. We’re like, are you sure? Because this is a show we want to make. She said this is a show I want to make too and I’m going to make sure before we even buy it, that we can make the show you have written. She ran it up every flagpole she could to say, are you going to let us do this kind of content? They were very onboard, wanting to change their brand to age it up a bit, and I think they see our show as being very transformative for them.

Do you have any backpacking stories from studying abroad?

I was traveling with a friend in Switzerland and we were trying to catch a train, and literally throwing our backpacks on a moving train and running alongside it to catch it. I can’t believe now that we did that. Don’t tell my daughter.

What’s the silliest thing you’ve ever felt guilty about?

I should’ve prepared for this one.

I don’t know if anyone would be prepared for that one.

It is the title of my show. I feel guilty about everything. All the time. I’m a mom and I work, so there’s that guilt, which I wish I didn’t have. But I do.

One time I lied during an interview for a scholarship because they asked me what my favorite movie was. I never went to see high-brow movies, so I lied and said The Crying Game. The question was what impacted you and The Crying Game was huge back then. Then they followed up with what emotion do you think such and such character was feeling in this scene? I was like oh my god. I think I said love and faked my way through it. I felt so guilty, because they gave me the scholarship. I turned down the scholarship because I lied during the interview. I know. I feel lots of guilt.

What was your real favorite movie?

It was probably Sleepless in Seattle or whatever was out. I was worried that wouldn’t sound fancy enough.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are always fancy.

So is Guilt, which premieres on Freeform Monday June 13 at 9 p.m. ET.

[All images courtesy of Freeform]

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