The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wivesquickly became one of Hulu’s most successful reality TV ventures after its premiere in 2024, and with its second season finally hitting the streaming platform,Executive Producer Danielle Pistonik has a lot to be proud of. The series, which follows a group of Utah-based moms who created a scandalous TikTok content group called MomTok, has been a massive success throughout its first year. With the first season exploringTaylor Frankie Paul’s terse relationship with Dakota Mortensenthroughout her pregnancy, Whitney Leavitt’s departure from MomTok, and Jen Affleck’s difficult marriage, group dynamics were quickly formed.
The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wivesseason 1may have appeared like an overnight success, but it was a tough sell for Danielle and her producing partners that took years to get off the ground. While the team behind MomTok always believed that they had something special, it wasn’t clear what the vision was moving into pitching the future reality TV juggernaut to platforms. Despite the fact that there was salacious gossip and a pre-existing audience of TikTok users attached to the project,things were difficult to launch in the buildup to the show being initially picked upby Hulu.
While the first season of the series was a hit,The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wivesseason 2has some massive shoes to fill. Coming into the competitive reality TV space is tough as it is, but knowing that the second season of the successful series has major expectations is a whole different ballgame. Sharing the journey from seed to bloom,Danielle sat down with Screen Rant to chat about how the show came to be, what the process of pitching it was like, and howThe Secret Lives Of Mormon Wivescast has changed her view on life overall.
Screen Rant: Okay, so I want to talk about first how this show came to be. It was such a wild immediate hit and in such a crowded genre it really stood out. Can you share what it looked like to bring it to life?
Danielle Pistonik: Yeah, it’s so funny when I’m on these interviews and people say like immediate hit so fast. Maybe not immediate on your end. It could not have been farther from the truth. I mean, I signed these girls almost five years ago. They were at a different management company. I met Macyi [Neeley], and she was so happy…and [then] they all came [together].
I would be on calls with all of them just because they’re all friends, and it was just fun. Within a week of these calls with them, I was like oh like these girls are reality stars. It was a no-brainer. They all are so different, I mean they have the same upbringing - they have like the same like traditional Mormon upbringing, but rebellious quirks. Personality-wise, they are so different and it works perfectly together. I called [my partners] and was like, these girls are stars. Like let’s make a deck, let’s get a cast. Let’s just run as fast as we can on this.
We found a couple other people at the time, [because] I was only working with four of the girls. So, they helped us find friends that they felt that they mesh with. They all ended up signing [with an agency] during that process, which was super interesting. [When] we went out with [the show], it was just, “no, no, no, no,” [from networks]. I mean, people laughed at me. They thought it was funny, and they shut it down. I mean, I remember we got a piece of feedback that was just like, this format won’t work. There wasn’t even, besides like maybe a couple smaller production companies and I guess smaller networks, a fit. [That, or] their vision for it was like completely incorrect.
No one wanted to do what we wanted to do, which was the format that we have now…and then the swinging scandal happened. So one day I opened my phone, and Taylor [Frankie Paul] is live on TikTok. My heart sank, and all I could think was like, okay, it’s over.
I was completely wrong [laughs] swinging was the best thing that could have happened to us, because not only did everyone come back but [huge producers] were interested. Immediately from that, we hit the ground running. We filmed the pilot, shopped it out to networks, [and] then obviously as you’ve seen, season one episode one a little situation happened that put pause on it again. So, I mean, from start to finish it was like three years from us making this concept to it being on your TV. Realistically, maybe a little more than three years just because of everything that happened and what it took for people to believe in it. But we were right! You know, it’s like the best “I told you so” in the world.
Screen Rant: It’s such incredible vindication. You were mentioning your team shopped the show out to a lot of different spaces. Why did Hulu wind up being the right fit for the show? How do you guys know that Hulu was the right home?
Danielle: I mean I think it was right place right time right. Disney acquired Hulu, [and] I think there’s a lot of interest in unscripted because it performs well and it’s more affordable to do. You can keep these ensemble cast for a long time and it just it’s a more viable business. I’m not sure 100% if that’s why they [picked us up], but at that time, everything kind of came together and there was definitely more interest in unscripted. Rob [Mills], who’s the head of Unscripted at Hulu, is such a genius and he just saw this right off the bat. I think having their support at like this pivotal time at that streaming platform with what we were doing, it was like kismet. It was just like such a good time and coincidence.
Screen Rant: It really does feel like right place right time. In terms of storylines, season one worked really hard to obviously establish the world and really understand dynamics, but then immediately flip it on its ear. Going into filming, obviously you guys have been working for a long time, what were you hoping to explore once the swinging scandal came out?
Danielle: For me, I thought there’s so much to these girls besides the swinging scandal - like, let’s not just focus on it. It’s entertaining, it’s captivating, it’s a good trailer. It’s a good way to get people to watch it, but I think all you see with these girls are their TikToks and people just see like, these pretty young moms. People think they must be vain, they must be that, when in reality these women that I’ve got to know, they’re so smart. They’re so business-minded. They’re able to financially support their families while being the primary caregivers of their kids. They’re kind to each other. They’re like delights to work with, and I think there’s this part of me that’s like I was born in LA. I was born in like the most liberal part of the world to a secular family. I am gay, like we could not be from more different worlds, and I think like there’s just this whole societal divide of my team versus your team, and just me being able to have like this real, honest working relationship and friendship with these girls.
I was like, everyone needs to see this, that we’re like we’re all the same. People don’t hate me because of how they grew up, we all want the same things. We have the same sense of humor. We all love getting Diet Cokes and fries at a fast food place together, and like we send the same memes, and we have the same things that we want, and we like generally have the same belief system. I think that people seeing this niche, hyper specific, very conservative world from these women’s point of view, where it’s like…they’re not weird. They’re people that you would want to hang out with. [That] is just like so valuable, politically, right now. I think the girls just did such a good job showing like how kind and thoughtful and honest and open they are.
Screen Rant: That’s incredible. In terms of the story kind of changing shape throughout the first season, moving into season 2, how are things going to change even more?
Danielle: I think like credit for that goes to Andrea [Metz], our showrunner, and all the producers, and Jeff Jenkins. Especially the girls, too. Like, it’s reality tv - this is not scripted, and I think a lot of reality tv for the most part is scripted, let’s be honest. This is not, like this is their lives. It is to the extent where like they have to do less, and have less chaos in their lives because we can’t have cameras out enough. [laughs] Like, I’m literally like, can you guys just get like a villa in different continents and turn your phones off so you guys can have a break? It’s like non-stop.
I think the girls were just down to send it and be vulnerable, and just like give it their all. I think that the story progression that we see, I mean the producers help because these girls feel so comfortable with them, and they know how to open up. I think when you have so much going in on in your life, you don’t really know what the interesting thing is. Andrea just is so amazing at [understanding that], but I honestly just think that like it was their lives' natural progression. I think what you see is what was happening, and I think [The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives] season 2, it’s even more of that. I think they’ve gotten so comfortable being open, and they realize that being open actually had the world, you know, welcome them with open arms even more than before. So, it’s going to be really good.
Screen Rant: I’m excited to see it! You’ve mentioned before wanting to really be able to show what brought the the women to this point in their lives, and really explore their backgrounds a little bit more. Is that something that we can expect from season 2?
Danielle: You’ll have to wait and see [laughs] I mean, yeah, I don’t know how much I can say - but I think everyone’s gonna be very happy with how we have those discussions. [It’s full of] surprises, surprises, surprises. It is non-stop. I mean, I think like the best way to describe it is like watching the show is like watching a TikTok. It’s like every single second it’s something new, and something crazy, and something exciting. It’s their real lives, and it’s insane.
All episodes ofThe Secret Lives Of Mormon Wivesare available to stream on Hulu.
