The Sisterhood of The Five Star Weekend

A girls' trip is supposed to be gossipy good times ... right? In theory?

So let Elin Hilderbrand explain what happened after a fellow author reached out and requested they meet for a drink back in September 2020. Inside the desolate restaurant at The Nantucket Hotel & Resort, “I was like, ‘What are you even doing in town?’” Hilderbrand recalls. The woman, who shall remain nameless, shared that a dear friend had fallen ill and decided to invite one gal pal from each stage of her life for a weekend together. Then came the kicker: “She said, ‘Not all of us are getting along.’” As Hilderbrand sympathetically listened and nodded, the creative juices began bubbling. “She got into more details, and I was like, ‘Oh my God ... That is an idea!’”

Six years and one best-selling beach read later, that fraught getaway remains the prime inspiration for The Five Star Weekend, premiering July 9 on Peacock. The eight-episode drama series explores love, grief, self-discovery and forgiveness set against the backdrop of that picturesque Massachusetts island.

Like so many tantalizing offerings, this one kicks off with an affluent woman who seemingly has it all. But famed cook and author Hollis Shaw (Jennifer Garner) is soon devastated by the sudden death of her husband. To distract herself from the grief, she asks a select group of friends to come to her summer home for a little R&R. Tatum (Chloë Sevigny), reeling from a potentially scary medical diagnosis, grew up with her in Nantucket; no-nonsense, no-filter sports agent Dru-Ann (Regina Hall) was her bestie in college; sweet Brooke (D’Arcy Carden), dealing with a rough patch in her marriage, is part of her mom circle; elegant British pilot Gigi (Gemma Chan) is a fan who recently slid into her DMs.

(Judy Greer also pops up as controlling social climber Electra, while Timothy Olyphant, David Denman, Josh Hamilton, Harlow Jane and West Duchovny round out the main cast.)

The women are there to support their mutual friend in need. But, just as art imitates life, secrets and conflicts soon emerge. Bombshell number one drops before the end of the premiere episode. “By the time you’re in the middle of your life, some shit has gone down,” Garner says. “So, they all show up with hurt and grief. And in the privacy and the messiness of just sitting in each other’s stew of sisterhood, there’s room for all of it to come out and be explored.”

In the process, the cast discovered a strong bond. “All I want to do is tell you how much I loved working with these women,” Carden says. “This was life-changing for me.” Seconds Chan, “This was an absolute dream. We were a family.” Same goes for Hall, who says, “Developing the friendships didn’t feel like work.” Sevigny adds, “We all love each other, and it’s amazing.”

Garner herself bottom-lines it. As soon as her emmy photo shoot ended, she raved, “It’s so easy to be interviewed about this show, because we really all had the best time.”

Watch the exclusive Under the Cover video with Jennifer Garner, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall and D'Arcy Carden at their emmy cover shoot.

The warm fuzzies don’t stop with the leading ladies. In a change from the usual development-hell stories, The Five Star Weekend evolved from page to screen with minimal agita and maximum speed. “By Hollywood standards,” Hilderbrand says, “everything went lightning fast.”

Shortly after the WGA strike ended in 2023, a PDF of her 2022 novel popped up in the inbox of screenwriter and playwright Bekah Brunstetter (a three-time Emmy nominee for This Is Us) courtesy of producers and Emmy nominees Sue Naegle and Ali Krug. The hope was that she’d read it and take it on for her first showrunner project. (Peacock optioned the book upon its release.) “I get sent a lot of stuff,” Brunstetter says. “But I’m the kind of person who only wants things that I know I can connect with emotionally.”

Done and done. “I read it in 24 hours and fell in love with it really quickly,” Brunstetter says. “It was this incredible combination of light and depth, funny and aspirational, and it makes you feel good. It was really fortunate that it all worked out.”

Though Hilderbrand had pictured Ina Garten playing Hollis, Garner was a natural fit — starting with the fact that her own “Pretend Cooking Show” on Instagram has racked up millions of views. “Once she read it and was interested,” Brunstetter says, “I immediately knew she was Hollis.”

Per Garner, the feeling was mutual. “When I read the pilot script, I felt like, ‘Oh, I would be so heartbroken to see anyone else play this role,’” she says. The actress, who’s successfully toggled between movies and television since breaking out in the spy drama Alias in 2001 (which netted her four consecutive Emmy noms), was also taken by Brunstetter’s approach to the material. “Bekah brought these characters to life,” she says. “The dialogue sparkled, and she kept the specificity.”

After Garner was locked (and signed on as an executive producer), the ensemble fell into place. Chan (Eternals), the second to join, recalls, “I knew Jen Garner was involved, and how can I say no to Nantucket and Bekah and Elin? These are amazing women.” Hall, who had just wrapped the Oscar-winning One Battle After Another, had a similar response: “The initial draw was Jennifer Garner, because I love her and wanted the opportunity to work with her.” Sevigny, Emmy-nominated in 2025 for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was impressed by the story’s depth. “It wasn’t just, like, fluffy dribble beachy TV,” she says. “There was a real depth to every one of these characters.”

Carden, a 2020 Emmy nominee for The Good Place, was the last on board and insists she was the most excited of all. “I had heard about the show and was like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to watch that, because it’s going to be so great with this group!’” she says. “I threw everything I had into the audition process.” She was cast two weeks before the cameras rolled.

Like Hollis’s friends in the series, none of these actresses had ever been grouped together, either socially or professionally. So, while Brunstetter’s words would lead the way on screen, there was no chemistry guarantee off screen. “You just never know how you’re going to get along,” Chan says.

To ease first-day nerves, director Minkie Spiro (All Her Fault), who shares directing duties with Jennifer Morrison (Tracker) across four episodes each, devised a plan: Invite the leading ladies to her L.A. house for a lovely pre-shoot lunch ... and a competitive 90-minute game of Pictionary, with paper pad, easel and everything. “I wasn’t too shabby, but Chloë was really good,” Carden recalls. Sevigny begs to differ but diplomatically points out, “The intention was to, like, fall on your face in front of someone and push through with humor. It was very good for bonding.”

By the time everyone came together for the first table read, the stars were drawn to one another. “It was like the penny dropped,” Garner says. “We were all so relaxed with each other and open.”

Forming an ace female cast was a start. Brunstetter knew she still faced a challenge in striking the balance between escapist confection and relatable human drama. “The soapy angle is the engine pulling you through, but there’s a lot of rich character work happening at the same time,” she says.

For inspiration, she and the producers talked about films like Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill and the works of Nancy Meyers. She notes, “Father of the Bride is my favorite movie, and I live to emulate that world.”

That credo also meant Hollis’s luxurious yet totally inviting summer house had to be a key player. The coastal abode where all the laughing and crying go down was based on a real spot on Eel Point Road in Nantucket; its interiors were recreated on Stage 41 on the Universal lot in Los Angeles last summer. “It was the most beautiful set I’ve ever seen,” Brunstetter says. With a caveat: “You want the audience to delight in the beauty of the space, but you can’t alienate them either, because you want them to latch onto the characters. It was tricky.”

Overall, she adds, the L.A.-based production “had such a good, good energy.” Garner — who, as an executive producer, helped ensure that the shoot moved from the intended Nova Scotia and stayed local for a California tax credit — brought in food and coffee trucks almost daily. She even baked her blueberry buckle coffee cake, which has become an on-set tradition. “I used to bake it in my first tiny New York apartment kitchen and would take it to my agents,” she says. “I try to keep it up and bring it in either once a season or once a movie.” (The recipe is posted on her Instagram.)

The mostly female cast, along with the female showrunner and directors, yielded a unique behind-the-scenes experience. Sevigny, who costarred in the estrogen-fueled Feud: Capote vs. The Swans in 2024, sensed the shift right away. “We would just be sitting around in our chairs and talking about very personal things very quickly and feeling safe with each other,” she says. “I think not having a lot of men around meant there were no filters.”

Hall adds, “It may be subconscious, but there’s a familiar ease and commonality when you’re with so many women.”

To read the rest of the story, pick up a copy of emmy magazine here.

This article originally appeared in its entirety in emmy magazine, issue #8, 2026, under the title "Bonding Beach."