Hulu’s ‘Under the Bridge’ Tells the Story of Reena Virk — and The Notorious B.I.G.

Within the first episode of Hulu’s Beneath the Bridge, Reena Virk is making an attempt to slot in with a brand new group of mates. Her means of bonding? Taking part in The Infamous B.I.G.’s 1997 opus Life After Loss of life.

That album — his second — was launched 16 days after the rap icon was gunned all the way down to demise. Virk, performed by Vritika Gupta, jumps on the mattress as she and different teenage women rap the lyrics to “Kick within the Door.” Within the second episode of the scripted collection following the homicide of the 14-year-old Indian-Canadian teen, the lyrical mastermind exhibits up once more when Virk is invited to a vigil her classmates maintain in honor of the long run Rock and Roll Corridor of Famer. The kids stay within the suburban municipality positioned on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

The eight episodes of Beneath the Bridge not solely inform the story of Virk, but in addition weave in The Infamous B.I.G. and hip-hop’s dominant affect on popular culture.

“You may’t speak about being a youngster within the ‘90s with out it being synonymous with [hip-hop] music, and also you see all through the present that it is a image of what Reena was all for,” showrunner and government producer Samir Mehta tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We have now that scene the place she’s enjoying music and the dad and mom are asking [her] to show it off — it was a continuing supply of battle, not particularly the music, however what it represents: the truth that she wished to develop her sense of self and at occasions that got here into battle with what her dad and mom wished for her.”

The late Rebecca Godfrey wrote about Virk’s love for Biggie Smalls in her e-book, which the collection is predicated on, and producers say they wished to spotlight that truth within the present since little was identified about Virk, who was bullied and killed by a bunch of youngsters. 

“One of many issues that we did know is that her uncle purchased her this CD, Life After Loss of life, the day that she was killed, and that she was an enormous fan of Biggie and that her mates had been as nicely, so we had talked about actually leaning into that as a theme within the present,” says government producer Quinn Shepard, who tailored the collection for tv. She additionally wrote and directed two episodes.

“After we determined to begin the flashback timeline with Reena on her birthday, it felt so kismet that it occurred to be that her birthday was someday after Biggie’s homicide,” she provides. “We had been like, ‘Oh, we’ve bought to essentially bake this into the present.’”

All through Beneath the Bridge — which stars Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough — a number of hip-hop anthems are featured within the episodes, together with Lil Kim’s “Queen Bitch,” Warren G and Nate Dogg’s “Regulate,” Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones, Pt. II,” Cunning Brown’s “The Chase,” Cypress Hill’s “I Wanna Get Excessive,” C-Funk’s “Whoop Whoop Yeah Yeah,” Ultramagnetic MCs’ “Watch Your Again,” PHD’s “Kick That Shit and Get Excessive,” Da Brat’s “Make It Occur,” LSD’s “Rowdy on the Celebration,” Spice 1’s “187 He Wrote” and Younger Black Youngsters’ “Sweatin’ Me.”

The Infamous B.I.G’s “Kick within the Door” is featured 4 occasions, and the collection additionally consists of the rapper’s “Going Again to Cali.” Born Christopher Wallace, and also referred to as Biggie Smalls, the performer launched his multiplatinum debut, Able to Die, in 1994. His hits have turn into rap classics, together with “Juicy,” “Large Poppa,” “Keep With Me,” “Hypnotize” and “Mo Cash Mo Issues,” and he’s embedded as some of the essential figures in rap and pop music. And his legacy continues to stay on: Finally yr’s Emmy Awards, a VR live performance bringing the rapper to life earned a nomination for excellent rising media program.

To essentially spotlight his affect on the collection, Beneath the Bridge producers shut the hole in one of many last scenes: As Virk’s dad and mom sit on their daughter’s mattress, they take a look at her CD participant and hit play. They pay attention carefully — her mom taking in Biggie’s lyrics and her father dancing to the beat. 

The imaginative and prescient of Virk was within the e-book, however Mehta — who wrote the ultimate episode — says they added the Biggie component “to finish the arc of the Virk dad and mom.”

“That second was actually speculated to be crossing that generational hole the place the dad and mom sat down and for the primary time, sadly after she handed, determined, ‘Let me attempt to contemplate what her pursuits had been and let me be a bit extra open-minded towards the factor that I rejected a number of months in the past,’” he explains.

“All of us had been crying as a result of it’s the saddest scene,” provides Shephard, who was on set with Mehta when the scene was filmed. “For me, that’s the scene that makes me essentially the most emotional from the entire present.”

Mehta — whose different credit embody Concern the Strolling Useless, The Sinner, Joe Pickett and Inform Me Lies — labored on the 2018 USA Community miniseries Unsolved, based mostly on the murders of The Infamous B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, who died six months earlier than his rap rival. Mehta says there may be “a little bit of an echo in that story” and Virk’s. 

“Lots of people don’t even give it some thought this fashion, however Biggie and Tupac had been of their early 20s once they had been killed. They had been simply children, and a number of what led to their deaths was truly their friendship severing. It was truly a falling out between mates enjoying out on a nationwide stage as a result of they had been well-known, however in some ways, it was a considerably adolescent story of two children who had been as soon as mates who principally bought in a battle, and it escalated to them each being killed.”

All episodes of Beneath the Bridge are actually on Hulu.