“You’re all in the same rocky ship of first-time motherhood”: Jo Joyner, Shelley Conn and Emily Taaffe on Little Disasters
Based on Sarah Vaughan’s novel of the same name, Little Disasters, the latest gripping offering from Paramount+, ventures deep into the fraught terrain of friendship, motherhood and the slow unspooling of long-suppressed truths. At a recent press event, cast members Jo Joyner, Emily Taaffe and Shelley Conn offered unflinching reflections on their roles, the emotional toll of filming, and the delicately drawn tensions that simmer beneath the surface of four women bound less by affinity than by the shared upheaval of early motherhood.
“The thing that appealed to me most was seeing that dynamic between the four women and the friendships that sort of happen and that are forged in the fire of early motherhood,” noted Taaffe, who plays the irreverent and creative Mel. For her, Mel is a character as interesting as she is multifaceted: “I love how she is so irreverent, incredibly confident, but obviously there are things going on that are revealed throughout the series.”
For Conn, who portrays Charlotte, a seemingly poised solicitor teetering under the weight of perfection, the appeal lay in the character’s “journey of self-awareness and self-acceptance”, a narrative that may strike a particular chord with many mothers. “On the surface, she has everything,” Conn said of Charlotte. “But there’s something in the dynamic of the group that reflects back to her, and she needs to take a look at some of the stuff that she’s not happy with about herself.”
Joyner, who portrays Liz, a paediatric doctor caught in a crucible of professional ethics and personal loyalty, echoed the show’s central themes. Liz is forced to confront a harrowing dilemma when her friend Jess’s infant daughter sustains a mysterious injury. The emotional weight of the decision is not lost on Joyner: “The whole premise of her journey is being torn between work and motherhood and friendship – and never quite being enough for everyone all at once.”
“It’s about how strong that bond of the collective due date is,” Conn remarked, capturing the spirit of a drama that examines the complexity of relationships forged not by shared values, but by shared circumstances and timing. As Joyner observed: “You’re throwing together people with completely different views, completely different parenting vibes; but you’re all in the same rocky ship of first-time motherhood.”
The interwoven flashbacks in the episodes bring to light the tensions and quiet judgments that often lie beneath the women’s seemingly close relationships. “Whether they vaccinated their children or whether they’re going to let them stay up and drink by the rest of us – I think you can see all those differences,” Joyner explained. Taaffe added, with characteristic candour, that the consequences of those early decisions begin to surface: “The choices they have made are now sort of coming home to roost in a lot of ways.”
Despite the emotionally charged material, Joyner recalled the on-set days fondly: “We were generally having really nice wine and a nice meal, and then we were all in bed by 11pm and doing a crossword on set in between scenes.”
Reflecting on the moral fault lines that thread through the series, Joyner ended by speaking to the show’s emotional core: “It must be an incredible dilemma – if I had an ounce of concern, what would I do?”
Christina Yang
Little Disasters is released on Paramount+ on 22nd May 2025.
Watch the trailer for Little Disasters here:
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