When I ask Cat Missal, somewhat in jest, if the message after the Tell Me Lies season three finale is that 90% of men would manipulate you if given the chance, she pauses before answering.
“Well, I am gay, so thank God,” Missal says with a laugh, sitting in a conference room at the Teen Vogue offices with her partner, Jess, by her side. Jess grins and looks at her: “You’re safe with me.”
Hulu’s hit toxic-romance drama has officially come to an end with season three, which aired its final episode on February 17. Three seasons may not be a lot for another kind of show, but in the Tell Me Lies universe, so many events are happening in any given episode that it feels like more time. Missal herself says she’s only watched bits and pieces, and remembering everything in interviews just reminds her how much is going on at all times.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, and this happens and this happens and this happens and this happens,” the 26-year-old says. “So many bad things that I’m just processing the trauma of it all.”
Fortunately, Missal has not experienced anywhere near the level of trauma of her character, Bree, whose mom had her when she was just 14, and who grew up in foster care. But Missal does see some of herself in Bree’s journey over the course of the show, and how she reckons with understanding her childhood, and who she is becoming as an adult. (Plus, they’re both from New Jersey.)
“It’s that feeling of rediscovering yourself when you’re older and trying to connect it to how you actually felt,” Missal says. “I definitely had a bit of that with acting.”
Danielle Blancher/Disney
Missal is the fifth of six children in her family, and many of her siblings are in entertainment (Donna and Steve are musicians; Becky is an influencer; Kelley is an actor). Missal remembers watching her sisters do community theater and asking her mom for her chance.
“When I was five, she put me in a show,” Missal recalls, “and, surprisingly enough, a manager saw that show and approached them afterwards. My parents were pretty weirded out. They were like, ‘I don’t know, not yet.’” They waited a couple years, and then Missal began doing more theater, including stints on Broadway in Mary Poppins and A Tale of Two Cities.
