Off Campus Showrunner on the Changes From the Books and What’s Ahead in Future Seasons

Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli, Off Campus

Liane Hentscher/Prime

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers for Season 1 of Off Campus. Read at your own risk!]

Long before Heated Rivalry launched the hockey romance subgenre into the cultural zeitgeist, there was Off Campus, Canadian author Elle Kennedy’s bestselling book series about an elite college men’s ice hockey team at the fictional Briar University and the women in their lives. About seven years after Kennedy’s Off Campus books were first optioned, writer-producer Louisa Levy has reimagined the source material as a soapy, steamy TV series for Amazon’s Prime Video.

In the same vein as Bridgerton, each season of Off Campus will center on a different romance while continuing to develop the relationships between the supporting characters. Based on the first novel in Kennedy’s Briar University universe, The Deal, the first season follows the “opposites attract” romance between mousy music major Hannah Wells (Ella Bright) and all-star hockey captain Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli).

At first, Hannah agrees to tutor Garrett in exchange for making her crush, fellow musician Justin Kohl (Josh Heuston), jealous. But as they each grapple with and open up to each other about their respective traumas — she was sexually assaulted in high school, while he was abused by his legendary hockey-playing father Phil (Steve Howey) as a child — Hannah and Garrett’s relationship evolves into an unlikely love affair.

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In a spoiler-filled conversation with TV Guide earlier this week, Levy discussed her approach to adapting one of the most beloved sports romance novels for the small screen. She also unpacked her decision to introduce the relationship between Garrett’s teammate Dean di Laurentis (Stephen Kalyn) and Hannah’s best friend Allie Hayes (Mika Abdalla) — the leads of Kennedy’s third Off Campus book, The Score — earlier in the show, while offering a sneak peek at her plans for Season 2, which is about to begin production in Vancouver.

Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli, Off Campus

Liane Hentscher/Prime

In hindsight, what was the most difficult part of this adaptation for you to crack? Can you pinpoint a specific creative choice that turned out to be a breakthrough for you in the writers’ room?

Louisa Levy: One of the changes that we made was [Hannah and Garrett’s temporary] breakup, and a big reason for that was, since the books came out, different NCAA laws exist now. In the book, a big reason why the breakup happens is because Phil has financial leverage over Garrett and uses that with Hannah [to get her to break up with Garrett]. It just doesn’t work anymore with today’s new image and likeness laws [because] Garrett could earn his own money. So we talked about that a lot in the writers’ room and how that might affect the breakup.

I really wanted the breakup to come from an emotional place, in addition to an external place. So I made the choice to switch who broke up with whom and make it Garrett breaking up with Hannah, because it really resonated with the arc that we were building for Garrett of a man who’s afraid of becoming his father. Elle loved this idea. She got on board because she really liked what it did for Garrett’s character.

But one of the things that she flagged that was important to her — and important to me — is that we never want Hannah to be afraid of Garrett. He might be afraid of becoming his father, but we, the audience, and Hannah know that he is not [at] any risk of that happening. So it was really important to thread that needle and make sure that we were honoring his emotional arc while also making sure that we didn’t stray so far that we crossed the line in a different way.

You have spoken in other interviews about how you had certain non-negotiables when adapting Hannah and Garrett’s love story. Can you give me one of them?

Levy: One of those is definitely Hannah’s trauma and Garrett’s trauma, because their love story is built on trust. I love how in the book Elle sets out the beats of trusting someone. They become friends first. They have a platonic sleepover and get to know each other on a friendship level. And then Hannah trusts him with her drink in public, which is not a thing that she did before. That was a crucial stepping stone to ultimately asking him to help her have an orgasm [in Episode 3], which is such an iconic moment in the books. So the headline really is building a relationship on trust, but those stepping stones really felt so crucial to Hannah and Garrett’s love story. Those felt non-negotiable to me because, without it, their love story is just not the same. It’s what makes it different [from] any other fake dating love story.

You mentioned the iconic orgasm scene. Was there anything in particular that you wanted to capture about each of those characters — and their burgeoning romantic relationship — in that scene?

Levy: It comes back to trust again, but the important thing there was also [that] they’re crossing a Rubicon in their relationship. At this point, Garrett already definitely has a crush on Hannah. Hannah hasn’t quite figured out that she has a crush on him back, even if we know that she does. This moment becomes not just an important moment for Hannah’s emotional arc and character development, but also an important moment for their relationship because after this, they really can’t be friends again.

So we, in the writers’ room, talked a lot about what that Rubicon meant for each of them, and whether or not they were aware of it when it happened. They are standing there naked, but in that scene, interestingly enough, there’s no nudity. We’re implying everything. We are a show that does nudity, so it’s not that we were afraid of it. It was really important to us that the scene itself doesn’t feel predatory in any way but instead feels vulnerable, [because] that’s how Hannah feels in that moment. She feels safe but vulnerable, and that’s the hurdle that she has to overcome in that moment. It’s a huge emotional victory for her.

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When the trailer first debuted, there was quite a bit of online chatter — and maybe even criticism — about the fact that Hannah’s sexual assault was not even hinted at. Having watched the first season, I now realize that the bulk of that trauma comes up in the last two episodes. How did you figure out when and how to fold that storyline into the first season?

Levy: Yeah, it’s so important to me to tell that story, but that was one of the big things that I wanted to do a little bit differently than the book. In the book, we have the benefit of being in her head and hearing about how she feels about this event. The hard thing about television is that if you don’t have the ability to give context to this thing immediately, then it runs the risk of being much more heavy than intended. Elle does a great job, despite it being a heavy subject, of keeping it fairly light, because Hannah did the work [in therapy] in the past.

So I thought about it a lot. I tried versions where we reveal [her assault] earlier on, but it always felt like it defined Hannah in a way that she herself as a character didn’t want it to define her. I landed on a version where we peel back the layers. We hint at it in the pilot, but we don’t explicitly reveal it. In a way, it allows Hannah to reveal it in her own time when she’s ready to, when she says that out loud to Garrett. By that point, we’ve gotten enough clues that it probably isn’t a complete surprise. So it shouldn’t feel like a big plot reveal, but it certainly should feel like an empowering moment for Hannah as she’s like, “I need to share this information, because without sharing that information, I can’t get this other thing, which is an orgasm.”

Where do you think we leave Hannah and Garrett by the end of the season, and how will that relationship continue to evolve going forward?

Levy: We leave them in a really good place, in that each of them have gone on their separate emotional arcs. Hannah has found her voice again. Her deepest fear is that she’s broken, and Garrett tells her she’s not broken, but she has to learn that for herself and she has to reclaim her voice — and she does that through a breakdown moment [in Episode 7]. Garrett contributing to her low moment is part of that. But also, in a scene with her mom, there’s a moment where she realizes that it’s not her fault. That’s a huge breakthrough for her. She finally let that go, and she could reclaim her own voice. So that was important to us in the writers’ room to give her agency in that journey.

Garrett, meanwhile, has to go on his own journey to discover that he’s not his father, because his deepest fear is that he’s going to become his father and follow in the footsteps of this man who he hates and doesn’t respect. He rediscovers his love of hockey by detangling his father from that.

[Hannah and Garrett] separately come back to each other, but they’re still instrumental in each other’s stories. Hannah’s the one who points out that Garrett is still at the rink, even when he doesn’t have to be, because they know each other so well at this point. So even though we’ve broken them apart, by the time they get back together [in Episode 8], we know that they belong together. It does feel like a happily ever after, but we’re not ready to ride them off into the sunset. We want to keep them around in Season 2 and tell more story with them and just get to live in a world where they’re together, because we only got them together very briefly.

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One of the most obvious issues with trying to bring back a central couple after they’ve had a “happy ending” is that writers sometimes struggle to generate realistic conflict that doesn’t feel like the characters are rehashing the same problems. How are you planning to work around that issue next season?

Levy: Without revealing too much of what we have planned for Season 2, we certainly are interested in continuing where each of them have left off. Garrett, in what happened in Episode 7 with [Hannah’s sexual assaulter] Aaron Delaney on the ice, has made a mess. He’s potentially put his career with the Bruins at risk [by beating Delaney up], and that is because of Hannah, even if she didn’t ask for it. So that is still there and has not been resolved, and we get to carry that into Season 2. Hannah’s had this triumph in the pop showcase, but she hasn’t figured out what she wants to do with the rest of her life. That’s still a very real question for college students, especially second-semester juniors, which she will be next season.

So each of them is figuring out what their next steps are in the world, and they get to navigate that as a couple. And as a reminder, the Garrett Graham that we met in Episode 1 [said he] doesn’t do girlfriends, so he’s not used to being in a relationship, so that’s going to be a thing that we get to navigate. How does he balance his hockey career with his new relationship?

Justin was initially positioned as the other side of the love triangle with Hannah and Garrett, but he ends up being pretty inconsequential in the end. Will he be back next season?

Levy: Not next season, but I love Josh and I would not write him off if I can find a way to bring Justin back at some point. We never got a chance to meet Stella, who is the person he ends up with in the book. So maybe we’ll find a way to fold him into a future season. We don’t have him [available] next season, but never say never.

You dedicated a significant amount of time this season to developing Allie and Dean’s story almost in parallel with Hannah and Garrett’s romance. Why did you fold Allie and Dean into the story sooner rather than later?

Levy: It was always in an effort to keep the momentum going. Happily ever afters are wonderful and so important for this genre of novel, but they’re not that helpful for television because we have to keep telling stories. So part of that was my attempt to give [viewers] the Hannah and Garrett happily ever after that I wanted, that I know fans will want, but still leaving something hanging and some question going into Season 2 of, “How is this going to be resolved, and how is this going to drive story forward?” I want people to tune in Season 2 and watch what we have in store.

You followed many of the plot points from Allie and Dean’s book, but how did you think about developing that relationship this season?

Levy: We wanted to play with the fact that it’s a secret relationship — which it is in the book — by keeping it a secret from the audience as well. That’s something that you can only do if you play around with the order and deliver things to the audience in ways that they might not expect, even if they’ve read all of the books. What we’re setting up in this show is that we are honoring the books, but we also want to keep you surprised and give you things maybe in ways that you don’t expect.

You chose to introduce Hunter Davenport (Charlie Evans), a character from Elle’s Briar U spin-off series, at the end of Season 1 as a potential complication for Dean and Allie’s not-so-casual relationship. At what point this season did you know that you would be introducing Hunter?

Levy: He was a late discovery. I always knew that I wanted to introduce other characters into the world. Hunter is in books 2 and 3 [of the Off Campus series] — he is a small role — but we know that he has his own book in the Briar U universe. I always wanted to play with how we’re going to introduce the other characters that exist in the world.

Even though his character doesn’t interact with Allie and Dean in this way, it was fun to be able to tee this up, because in the books, Dean really does mentor Hunter. I thought, “What if we make that less of an easy relationship and give them somewhere to go?” The idea behind the introduction is really, how can we use him to throw a wrench in the existing status quo, and how can we create an arc to getting to the mentor relationship that we have in the book that is pretty sweet?

Will Hunter be a series regular next season?

Levy: I don’t know if I’m allowed to reveal that.

Jalen Thomas Brooks, Belmont Cameli, Ella Bright, Stephen Thomas Kalyn, and Antonio Cipriano, Off Campus

Liane Hentscher/Prime

Off Campus offers a depiction of non-toxic male friendship that I don’t think I have seen very often on TV. I’m specifically thinking about the way Garrett finally confides in John Logan (Antonio Cipriano) about his dad’s abusive behavior. How did you think about crafting that part of the story?

Levy: I always wanted to tell a story about non-toxic masculinity, but also intergenerational because we have Phil Graham too and the role model that he really wasn’t for Garrett. These four guys really create this non-toxic space for themselves. I think there’s something so beautiful about hockey culture and the brotherhood that created fertile ground for telling this story. Young men today have a different approach to masculinity that I really don’t think we’re seeing very much of on TV — certainly not in a romance show.

In the writers’ room, we talked about showing these guys supporting each other. You point out Logan and Garrett in particular, but also Dean and Garrett — Dean’s advice to Garrett in that locker room scene is a version of a scene in the book. It’s between [another teammate] Birdie and Garrett in the book, but we loved making it Dean. It gave [the scene] a slightly different twist.

But I really loved plotting out Logan and Garrett’s bromance over the season. We plotted it out like a romance — there’s a breakup, they get back together. All of those romance arc pieces that Hannah and Garrett have, Logan and Garrett have too. We really loved making Garrett’s character growth not just dependent on Hannah, but also on Logan. Garrett is someone who is so controlled and structured because of his abusive upbringing — and that is very psychologically realistic — so he shuts people out.

I love that his emotional victory this season was actually allowing himself to open up to his best male friends — Logan in particular — and admitting things to them that he’s never said to anyone except Hannah, because she was a safe place for him at the time and also witnessed it herself. So allowing him to get vulnerable and open up was always a really crucial part of his story and their friendship narrative.

You have so many characters already in the Off Campus universe, but you personally created the character of Jules (Julia Sarah Stone), Logan’s younger sibling. What was the reason for that change?

Levy: In the books, Logan has one older brother, Jeff, who is still mentioned and therefore in our world. I added Jules as a younger sibling for a few reasons. Purely practically, I wanted to have a character who could speak to the hockey of it all, who was not on the ice but understood hockey and grew up around it. It made sense that it was one of the character’s siblings. [Jules] could provide a Mouth in One Tree Hill kind of character to commentate [the hockey]. [We wanted to] give a little bit of color and maybe not do it in a dry commentator way, so we can have some fun with it, but also translate what’s happening on the ice for people who don’t know.

But also, in a season about fake relationships, we wanted someone who has their finger to the gossip pulse on campus. So combining this person who knows about hockey, but also knows about gossip — and has insight into the hockey boys’ love lives because they’re a sibling, and they get access that nobody else gets  — felt really fun. Giving Logan the sibling also felt really interesting because Logan as the local boy maybe doesn’t have as much privilege as some of the others — certainly not Dean and Garrett. So [we thought about] giving Logan a sibling who understands what he grew up with.

I really loved making Jules non-binary, because they’re also a character that has to code switch naturally all of the time. They don’t necessarily belong in the hockey world, but they do because they’re Logan’s sibling. So all of those reasons contributed to creating this new character.

Do you already have plans to introduce existing characters from other books?

Levy: I have big plans, but I do have to take it one step at a time, one season at a time. Next season we do have the ability to really live in this ensemble world that’s really fun. And, yeah, I think there’s an opportunity to build a whole universe here if we go on long enough. My hope is that we can meet all of these fan favorite characters — again, sometimes in ways you might expect, and then sometimes they’re different the way we did with Hunter.

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You did recently announce the casting of India Fowler as Grace Ivers, Logan’s love interest.

Levy: India fell out of the book. She’s so special. I’m so in love with our entire cast and they set the bar so high that we knew we needed to match that or surpass it with Grace. We really searched for a long time. India did such an incredible chemistry read with Antonio. It just felt like sparks were flying, but also we got to play around with them a little bit in terms of where we might go with their characters in future seasons, so we could really see what kind of arc she might bring to this character. Grace has a big journey to go on from the person that we meet at the beginning of her book to the person she becomes by the end. So we got to play with that a little bit in advance, and I’m hoping that we have the ability to go all the way.

Can you say if you have cast Sabrina, Tucker’s love interest, yet?

Levy: I don’t know if I can answer that question.

Can you reveal which Off Campus book you are adapting for Season 2?

Levy: I also can’t answer that question. [Laughs.] I’m sorry! But I think we should be answering that soon. You’re asking all of the good questions that I don’t know I can answer yet.

This is one of those rare franchises where there are multiple generations of characters. Hannah and Garrett’s generation all go on to have kids of their own in Elle’s spin-off series, so there is the obvious question of how long you will make this show. Do you have a number of seasons in mind?

Levy: I don’t have a number in mind. I certainly have plans for the first four [Off Campus books] to begin with, but, as we know, Hunter has his own book. There’s some other books in the Briar U world that I would love to be able to do, but for now, I’m really focused on those first four books.

The full first season of Off Campus is now streaming on Prime Video.