Lili Reinhart and Cooper Raiff on Playing Co-Dependent Siblings in Hal & Harper

Cooper Raiff says Hal & Harper, his indie TV series also starring Lili Reinhart and Mark Ruffalo, is his passion project — because it has the least to do with his real life.

Raiff debuted with the low-budget 2020 indie S—house, and his second film, Cha Cha Real Smooth, sold at Sundance to AppleTV+ for $15 million in 2022. The success of the latter helped give him the freedom to make Hal & Harper independently. It just premiered at Sundance.

“It’s not based on anything from my life and it’s my passion project for that reason. I’ve made two movies based on personal experiences, but this project is different,” he tells MovieMaker.“I started writing it seven years ago without fully understanding what I was creating, but it’s the project I’ve thought about the most and felt the most passion about writing and figuring out. I fell in love with the family in the story.”

The series is about two codependent siblings, Hal (Raiff) and Harper (Reinhart), navigating grief that stems from absentee parenting by their dad, played by Mark Ruffalo. Raiff and Reinhart play themselves in flashbacks to childhood. 

Hal & Harper, which is looking for a buyer, debuted Sunday and has more screenings through February 1. 

MovieMaker spoke with Raiff and Reinhart about their creative partnership, which includes Reinhart executive producing. 

Joshua Encinias: Lili, your character Harper acts like a jaded executive, and seeing you play her as a kid smoking cigarettes is really funny.

Lili Reinhart: You picked up on jaded. The word “jaded” is totally the word I used to describe her as we were shooting. Harper is emotionally guarded and tries to present herself as cold and put-together, likely because of the chaos around her. She feels responsible for maintaining control, which shapes her behavior.

Joshua Encinias: Is Harper’s jadedness why she rejects Hal’s offer to listen when she’s sad?

Lili Reinhart: When I rewatched the episodes, I thought she presents herself as stone-cold — at least she thinks she is. When Hal notices her sadness, it surprises her because she thinks she’s hiding it well. That moment reveals how much she suppresses her emotions. She becomes defensive and has to go outside and smoke her cig. She thinks she has to be emotionally strong and perfectly put together because her father’s such a mess. 

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Joshua Encinias: Why is their mother’s fate revealed subtly, in a later episode?

Cooper Raiff: For me, the nonchalant way of dropping that in… I think some people won’t understand what it means. It’s very much okay if they don’t understand what happened because the subtlety was intentional. We outright say what happens later in the series, but my focus was on creating an emotional impression rather than spelling everything out. 

Joshua Encinias: How often is bluffing involved in financing a project?

Cooper Raiff: We did that but I don’t know if other people do that. [Laughs.] Hal & Harper is over 300 pages long and people were taking a really long time to read the script. I told one place where I wanted to make the show that we had an offer and that we needed them to read it faster, and that was a lie. I lied to speed things up. 

The agents didn’t feel comfortable lying, but I did. It created some urgency and we got a real offer, then the agents were able to tell people we had an offer and that’s why people started reading more. I don’t think professionals lie, but I felt comfortable doing it because I was just hustling through it.

Joshua Encinias: Is 50 days the longest you’ve shot a project? 

Cooper Raiff: The amount of money we had for each script page was significantly less than the last movie I did. It was grueling because we shot eight pages a day on a tight budget, which is just crazy. 

Hal & Harper Star Lili Reinhart on Network vs. Indie TV

Joshua Encinias: Lili, I’m sure you were churning out pages at Riverdale.

Lili Reinhart: We were one of the last of our kind to shoot twenty-two episode seasons. People don’t do that anymore. They shoot eight episodes over two years. I was doing five pages a day on Riverdale. But even going from five pages to eight or even eleven pages a day for Hal & Harper was intense but manageable because everyone was focused and efficient.

You don’t have the time or money on an indie, so you have to go into it with people who are scrappy and willing to move quickly. There’s no time for ego or being lazy. You just have to be engaged and locked in, as the kids are saying these days. 

Joshua Encinias: Lili, you’ve executive-produced a few projects including this one. Does that help them get made, or do you enjoy wearing multiple hats in the industry?

Lili Reinhart: I’m someone who’s always wanted to be involved from start to finish. As an actor, you often pop in and out of a project, but when something as special as Hal & Harper comes along, I knew I wanted to be a producer. The producer side of me likes to be involved in prep and post-production. Sometimes on projects you love, you’re just not allowed to be in that position because they’re a studio project. Luckily, I was allowed to be an executive producer on this. 

Joshua Encinias: Hal & Harper’s cinematographer, Doug Emmett, is an indie VIP director of photography. What did he bring to the project?

Cooper Raiff: I can’t imagine anyone else doing the things that he did. When we had time, he would make things look absolutely gorgeous. He has such a respectful, lived-in relationship with all of his crew members. Everyone working in the camera department knew him very well. 

Hal & Harper is now playing at Sundance.