Unless you’ve been living under a rock than you know that The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is one of the biggest reality series to hit streamers in 2024. The eight-episode first season has become one of the most talked about series after all episodes were dropped on September 6th. Speaking with Lisa Filipelli, Georgia Berger, and Danielle Pistotnik of Select Management Group, they revealed they were not surprised how successful the series was since its debut. But what they did reveal was there are more stories to tell. As Lisa Filipelli put it, “We had to cut so many stories that, like some of the best stories, haven’t been told yet. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to tell them.”

During its premiere weekend, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives hit #1 on Hulu’s Top 15 and continued to hold the top spot days after. It has broken streaming records at Hulu, and became the most-watched unscripted season premiere on the streamer this year. In addition to Filipelli, Berger, and Pistotnik, the executive producers are Jeff Jenkins, Russel Jay-Staglik, Andrea Metz, Brandon Beck and Eric Monsky at Jeff Jenkins Productions, and Ross Weintraub and Reinout Oerlemans at 3BMG.

The Scandal Was the Hook But ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Has More
Image via Hulu

COLLIDER: First off, congrats on the show. What a hit. It is the perfect bingeable show. It starts. You’re hooked. I have to ask why this show now?

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: Because that’s as fast as we could do it. If it was years ago. We were so excited about this years ago, and we knew this was going to be a hit. And these things take time, and this is when it happened.

LISA FILIPELLI: I think as a company, we’ve always really believed in the power of social media. We’ve all been working in this space for such a long time, and have really craved a way to bring both worlds together. Everybody’s like, ‘How did it happen? What is the thing?’ And I was like, I think it’s that our company partnered with the Jeff Jenkins team and our producer, Russell and Andrea. They get one side of it. We get one side of it. And our ability to understand sort of how social complements storytelling was really key and crucial to this.

COLLIDER: Why do you think people are watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: I think there’s a lot of reasons. I think that a big thing is the title, right? I think in mainstream media, Mormonism is always portrayed a certain way. It’s portrayed as the far end of the extreme of the religion, completely unrelatable. And honestly, it’s slightly disrespectful to most of the participants of the religion. I think when you turn on the TV, you see Mormon wives and you see these really good looking young, cool women that look like people you would want to be friends with. It’s incredibly appealing. And I think the second you start watching, you realize that there is so much going on in their lives. They have such depth, and they are truly some of the most entertaining people in the world. It’s not a difficult sell for most people.

GEORGIA BERGER: We say that the scandal probably brought in a lot of viewers, but then you realize that the scandal is probably the least interesting part of it, and it’s only a fraction of the series.

LISA FILIPILI: The last thing I’ll just say is having worked in sort of the social space for such a long time and doing crossover, we know intimately that 95% of our clients’ lives are not shown on the internet. And if that 95% is as interesting as even two of these girls, it makes for great television. And we know that. I think influencers say all the time I only show you what you want to see of my life, and pulling the curtain back and letting people really see what happens is, it’s fascinating, it’s voyeuristic, it’s really interesting. And these girls are just fantastic.

The Journey to Bring ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ To Screen

COLLIDER: I want to take a step back. Tell us about Select Management Group and how you got involved with #MomTok.

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: Select Management is a digital-first management company. We’ve been around forever. I think we’re probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest doing this. We have nearly 400 clients across 20 plus managers. The biggest goal of the company was to bridge that gap between New Age digital media and traditional. In the beginning of doing it, it was an uphill battle. No one really took it seriously. No one saw influencers of the future. I think that we were all lucky enough to be doing this early enough to know that that was wrong. A little over three years ago, I met the now cast of #MomTok. We hit it off. I started working with them, and I knew within a week. I texted Georgia, and I was like, these girls are stars, they are reality stars. I open my phone every day, texting them, and they make me crack up. Like every single day for the past three and a half years, I’ve laughed at my phone because of them. It’s so much going on in their lives. You can’t fit in a sixty-second video that I knew just you know, it had to be shown in a longer format. And doing what we do at Select for 10-plus years, we got started. We reached out to our partners at JJP, Jeff Jenkins Productions. Lisa and Russell had a relationship for the longest time, and he understands the digital landscape so well, and the rest is history. It was so easy once we had the right team.

COLLIDER: Most of the action of the season happens after the soft swinging scandal went viral. At what point did you begin to know that there was a show to be had with these women?

GEORGIA BERGER: Always. I think also the fascination around Mormon culture. Also, these women who are the breadwinners. And cultures that are typically women have to be subservient to their men, and men provide and women take care of the home. There was that fascinating element. We also knew about Coca Cola lines being longer than the the coffee drive through lines at 7am. That blew our minds. I think we’ve all worked with a number of different mothers from Utah, and we knew that they were super fascinating. But this group in particular, we always knew was going to be very special. It was just waiting for our perfect time to bring on the right partners.

COLLIDER: What was the process like of conceiving the show and pitching it to the right place, obviously, ultimately getting in the hands of Hulu?

LISA FILIPILLI: So Danielle approached me several years ago and was like, I’m working with these girls. I think that they’re a show. And I was like, cool, let’s have some conversations around it. The scandal started to happen. There’s really a show here. She had a couple of incoming emails. We started our process of alright it’s go time. We got really fortunate in that, as Danielle mentioned earlier, Russell had previously worked on a project together. As sort of a prolific unscripted producer, he really understood what we were trying to do. We were incredibly fortunate in that they were set up at Hulu, who expressed some interest right away. It was very fortuitous that it came together very quickly. I hate telling the story sometimes because it’s so hard to get a project on air. And I don’t want to say it was easy, because nothing is easy to go but we just knew it was special. Hulu expressed interest. We were really thrilled about Hulu being excited. We’re like, alright, if, if they’re interested that’s where we want to be and what we want to do, and knew that they would be able to help us tell this story. And so, once they were involved we were all in.

DANIElLE PISTOTNIK: The girls’ DMS were flooded with inquiries from, you know, less reputable production partners and streamers and networks. And just saying, the scope of how many, you know, slightly smaller of those partners reached out to them. I knew that there was something bigger there, and we could, you know, get someone like Hulu on board.

The Stars Are Still Realizing They’re on a Hit Show

COLLIDER: Obviously, you all knew it was going to be a hit, but what was it like seeing it blow up as fast as it did?

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: It was awesome. It was really cool.

GEORGIA BERGER: I was with all of them. They all came to New York last week, and I was with all of them. And you would have no idea that they even realized that they’re on a hit TV show. It still hasn’t hit a lot of us.

COLLIDER: It really is such a fun show, because you have all these individual stories coming together and then seeing how the cameras really kind of change them in a way. You have the Saints and the Sinners and who’s going to be the top #MomTok. It’s really, really fascinating to see each individual take their time. Was there any story that surprised you the most throughout the filming of the first season?

LISA FILIPELLI: I think it’s that we had to cut so many stories, like some of the best stories, haven’t been told yet. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to tell them. Especially watching some of the first cut edits and what had to be cut. We had enough for 14 episodes, so to have to tell it all in eight was really challenging. I think the best stories are still not told.

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: It’s a blessing in disguise that we had so much to work with that we couldn’t fit it all in. And I hope that if we get to continue this, if we get the opportunity, I don’t see a world where we won’t continue to have stories and drama and things to talk about.

COLLIDER: Did you find that the girls had any issues bringing their stories to light?

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: No. It’s hard to be vulnerable like that on screen every single day for months at a time. I think that they’re so lucky that they are each other’s support system. And when they showed up to work every day, they were talking to the people about these things who are the same people they would talk to off camera about it. And I think just having that dynamic of these people that are essentially your family and business partners being in the cast with you made it so much easier.

GEORGIA BERGER: They’re used to being and sharing their lives online already. Obviously, they get to control what they’re sharing, and it’s only a snippet of their days, but they have seen the impact of being vulnerable online and the good that it has done. I think that has really helped them ease into it all.

Where Will ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Go Next?

COLLIDER: People want more. We had an incredible cliffhanger. There is, as you mentioned, so much more story to be told. Where do you want to see the show go next? What kind of journey should The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives go on?

LISA FILIPELLI: I think we’re gonna see everybody evolve. I think people are really surprised by how feminist the show is and how it’s really about female friendship at its roots. We want to see how these women lean on each other to get through some of the more challenging parts of their lives. I think, as a woman, as a young woman, as someone who’s in relationships, we all need each other. Putting yourself out there like that is really hard. I think putting yourself out there for audience consumption is really hard, but I think it will allow for the evolution of everyone on this show. So, I think continuing to see how everybody evolves throughout 30 seasons would be amazing. So, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to continue to tell these stories.

COLLIDER: Are there any misconceptions about Mormonism that has come to light that’s been a struggle to have to deal with?

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: I think we got very lucky in the response from a lot of people in the Mormon Church when the show came out. I think there was a lot of pushback when the trailer came out, because it was hard to judge if it was going to be respectful to the religion. I think seeing all the comments and emails and texts we’re getting from people in the church saying that this actually was a pretty fair representation, we did a good job being respectful. It felt really good, because that was something that I think we all prioritized and we did not want to get wrong

COLLIDER: What else do you want the fans to know? We’re obviously going to be talking about the show for a long while, until we officially know that there will get more. What do we need to know in the meantime?

LISA FILIPELLI: Who else do you want to learn about? Who else should we be talking about? What other cultures are out there? What’s the hot gossip, right? What’s happening on the internet? We love to listen to what people want to see more of so like, tell us.

COLLIDER: I mean, I know there’s already, has been some clamoring from people looking for The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City crossover event. Crazier things have happened!

GEORGIA BERGER: For me, I just want everyone to know that every single member of this cast and I would go to that for them any day of the year, any day of the week, any day. I think they are actually all morally good people at the end of the day. And I do think nasty sides came out of them at different moments that we didn’t get to see behind the curtain of what was happening that led them there. But I do think, genuinely, everybody is a good, kind person. I want people to see more of that from them.

COLLIDER: And that’s the that’s the beauty of reality TV, is you’re going to see every side. Nothing gets hidden away. And that’s what really struck me. And when I was watching it is, yes, the first season, but it feels like it was Season 4, 5, 6, like it felt perfectly produced and well executed. So really, congratulations on the show.

LISA FILIPELLI: Thank you.

DANIELLE PISTOTNIK: Michael. I love you. Keep the compliments coming. It’s great.

LISA FILIPELLI: Look, I think people crave community. I think that our generation lacks that through religion. So, I think anybody who can find community, I think it’s really special and impactful and meaningful. I also think there’s something to be said about a generation of people raised on the internet, and then how they will be perceived, sort of parasocially too. I think there are endless think pieces coming on the anthropological side of all of this, which I find particularly fascinating about the work that we do.

The entire first season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is available to stream on Hulu.

Stream on Hulu