PITTSBURGH — High schoolers being terrorized by a mysterious figure threatening to reveal their deepest secrets isn't just a Philadelphia area thing. There's apparently plenty of that to go around in Western Pennsylvania, too.
HBO Max recently completed airing the first season of "Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin," a twisty teen thriller based on the series of young adult novels written by Pittsburgh native Sara Shepard. It features an entirely different story and set of characters than the Freeform "Pretty Little Liars" series, which ran from 2010-2017 and was set in the fictional eastern Pennsylvania town of Rosewood.
In "Original Sin," most of the action takes place in Millwood, a town not too far outside Pittsburgh. Though most of the show's first season was shot in upstate New York, it does include a few fun local flourishes. Everyone seems to be a Steelers fan, a character references attending "Romero Fest" in Pittsburgh and Corey Bryant, the divorced mother of aspiring ballerina Faran Bryant (Zaria), resides in the Steel City.
Corey is played by Zakiya Young, a Downingtown native and University of Pittsburgh graduate who has been enjoying all the love both sides of her home state have been receiving on the small screen lately between "Original Sin" and the Philadelphia-set ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary." She served as the "self-appointed" Pennsylvania expert on "Original Sin" who was always happy to regale her castmates with stories about all her ties to the Keystone State.
"I thought I was more entertaining than I probably was," Young told the Post-Gazette. "When you see yourself represented, it's just exciting. I just love to pass on a slice of authenticity."
Young grew up in a house that was "full of laughing, singing and dancing." As a kid, she took dance classes, sang at church, played the alto saxophone and did some cheerleading as well. The way "Original Sin" presents the small town of Millwood reminded her a lot of her childhood in Downingtown.
She ended up following her sister to Pitt, which she entered with ambitions of studying to be a pediatrician before catching the acting bug and switching her major to communications. Young said that living in Pittsburgh was her first experience "having a different pace of life" than a place like Downingtown, which she credited for helping to prepare her for an eventual move to New York City so she could pursue acting full time.
While in Pittsburgh, Young satiated her creative side through activities like joining Pitt's dance team and singing in the Heinz Chapel Choir. An adviser once suggested that she might set herself up better for entertainment industry success by transferring to nearby Carnegie Mellon University, but Young was having none of that.
"Even though I wasn't sure I was ready to go full-force with acting, I knew that Pitt was the right place for me," she said.
All that time Young spent in the Pittsburgh area has paid dividends for her on "Original Sin," and not just because she was already familiar with the region in which Millwood was set. It turned out that she and Shepard went to the same high school in Downingtown and Young was already friends with Shepard's younger sister. They bonded over their shared upbringing and figuring out what other friends they had in common.
It wasn't a stretch for Young to get into the character of Corey, a Pittsburgh lawyer with grand ambitions for her daughter and a shared secret with a few other Millwood mothers. Not only had she once worked at a law firm in New York City, but she had a "home base of memories and experiences to draw from" when it came to making the Bryants feel like a genuine Western Pennsylvania family.
The central mystery in "Original Sin" involves many bad deeds from the Millwood moms' past coming back to haunt them and their children decades later. Young appreciated how the parents in "Original Sin" aren't just "window dressing" to their kids' shenanigans.
"What made me so excited is that we had this great other side to play," she said. "I do think there's something so real about parents doing the best they can, but also if they have unresolved trauma, the kids are going to deal with that too."
While Corey generally has Faran's best interests at heart, she tends to go about showing her affection in ways that don't always benefit her daughter as intended. Young said she used her own journey of "realizing her parents are people" to get into Corey's mindset and made sure not to judge her more questionable actions too harshly so as to more effectively inhabit her.
HBO Max officially renewed "Original Sin" for a second season earlier this month. In season one, Young was considered a "heavily recurring" character as opposed to a series regular. She's not sure yet what her status will be for the show's sophomore outing, but she does have some ideas about what Corey could be up to next season now that she'll be spending more time in Millwood.
"I'm interested in seeing what her relationship is like with Faran after everything that happened," Young said. "You start off with one type of relationship, and we go through this adventure together. It has to bond you, and I'm very interested in finding out more about that family dynamic and what it's like to go home again."
