What happens when the people who know different versions of you come together and discover that you are no longer the person they remember?
That question lies at the heart of The Five-Star Weekend, HBO Max's new drama series adapted from Elin Hilderbrand's best-selling 2023 novel.
Starring Jennifer Garner, Gemma Chan, D'Arcy Carden, Regina Hall and Chloë Sevigny, the eight-episode series explores grief, friendship and reinvention through the story of a woman attempting to rebuild her life after a devastating loss.
What drew Jennifer Garner, who stars as Hollis Shaw and also serves as an executive producer on the series, to the project was the opportunity to portray a woman whose life is complicated, imperfect and filled with emotional history.
"It was getting to play a character who is surrounded by incredible women, and gosh, what a cast I got to be part of," Garner told Life during a recent exclusive interview with her and co-star Gemma Chan.
"I have gone through some things and I want to play a woman with a complex life, and you know, complex relationships with her daughter, with her friends, with history, with her husband, and with grief. Grief is something that is inescapable and it was beautiful to explore it in this way."
In the series, Hollis is a renowned food influencer and best-selling author whose seemingly perfect life begins to fall apart after the death of her husband.
Struggling to move forward, she decides to recreate a "five-star weekend" getaway at her Nantucket home, inviting four women from different chapters of her life: childhood friend Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), college friend Dru-Ann (Regina Hall), motherhood friend Brooke (D'Arcy Carden) and Gigi (Gemma Chan), a woman she recently met online.
What begins as a luxurious weekend reunion soon becomes something far more complicated. As old friendships are tested and hidden truths emerge, each woman is forced to confront the gap between who they were in the past and who they have become.
For Gemma Chan, who plays Gigi, the newest and most unexpected addition to Hollis' circle of friends, the character's outsider status was one of the most interesting aspects of the role.
"Gigi is Hollis' newest friend and they've actually never met in person, so she's really stepping into this unfamiliar environment where all these characters have so much history with each other," Chan said.
"They're both grieving, they're able to just be very honest with each other in a way that sometimes it can be more difficult to be that honest with people close to you."
Although Gigi enters a group with decades of shared memories, Chan found the experience of joining such a talented ensemble surprisingly welcoming.
"It was very much a case of getting to work with this incredible group of actresses," Chan said. "It was not a tough thing to come into the environment, Jen makes everyone feel so welcome, and yeah, it was just a pleasure, truly every day."
At its core, The Five-Star Weekend is not simply about a group of friends taking a holiday together. The series examines how relationships evolve over time and whether people can truly accept the different versions of those they love. The women in Hollis' life each represent a different period of her journey, but they also challenge her understanding of herself.
"We do have to let our people around us keep growing and evolving, and love them through it, or not," Garner said. "History is valuable, but it's especially valuable if that person also can see how far you've come and can love that version of you as well."
Chan believes that this struggle also exists internally as people often find it difficult to move beyond their own perception of themselves.
"It can sometimes still be hard to let go of our own idea of ourselves," she pointed out. "I think being able to hold on to both at the same time is really important as long as you are open to where you are in the present."
The emotional centre of the series comes from the complicated friendships between the five women. Each character arrives carrying personal challenges.
Tatum faces a frightening health diagnosis, Dru-Ann struggles with public scrutiny and mental health, Brooke questions her identity beyond motherhood, and Gigi carries secrets that gradually change the group's dynamic. For Garner, the exploration of female friendship was one of the strongest reasons she connected with the story.
"I guess friendship really resonated with me the most, because it's so rare to focus on female friendships in a film or on television," she said.
"Elin Hilderbrand's novel is such a rich exploration of the complexity of female friendships and our showrunner Bekah Brunstetter did a beautiful job bringing that to life and even deepening it more."
Chan shared a similar connection with the theme, particularly the idea that people can continue to change and find new beginnings later in life.
"I would say the same for me and also the idea of renewal and getting a fresh shot at this point in your life," she said.
The series also finds humour in the tension between these very different personalities, especially as each woman tries to hide a major secret from the others. For the actors, those moments of emotional conflict were among the most enjoyable parts of the experience.
"So much fun, so much fun to play," Chan said. "And then the moments where you can no longer keep a lid on it."
Garner recalled watching Chan's character slowly reach a breaking point during filming.
"Gigi definitely did," Garner laughed. "We would be shooting a scene, all of us together and we're all laughing and being silly. And then there's one camera on poor Gemma going tighter and tighter as she's getting more and more like, 'Oh no, the world is caving in'. And we were like, 'Sorry'."
Despite the friction between their characters, the actresses found the opposite dynamic behind the scenes.
"We all get along so well, which is the very complete opposite of that," Chan said. "There was a real ease between us."
"It was really enjoyable, because it was so well written," Garner added. "It was fun to play the friction."
Ultimately, The Five-Star Weekend is a story about reconnecting -- with others and with yourself. Beneath its beautiful Nantucket setting and glamorous surface is a thoughtful exploration of grief, friendship and the possibility of starting over.
Chan hopes audiences will take that message beyond the screen.
"I hope that after watching this show, the audience picks up the phone and call someone in their life that they haven't connected with no matter how long it's been and just say, 'Hi, how are you? I've been thinking about you. Let's meet up. Let's, let's chat'."
