“You’re Killing Me” Panel Recap: Brooke Shields and Amalia Williamson Bring the Fun to ATX TV Fest

Cozy mystery streamer Acorn TV kicked off ATX TV Fest with their newest show, You’re Killing Me. With two episodes already available and a third debuting next week, the packed house got a behind-the-scenes peek and a surprise announcement. Saved for the end of the panel, star and executive producer Brooke Shields revealed that the brand-new show has already been renewed for Season 2 based on the success of the first two episodes (it’s Acorn TV’s number-one series launch of all time).

For the uninitiated, Shields plays Allie Chandler, a successful mystery writer being nudged toward retirement, who finds herself reluctantly partnered with Andy (Amalia Williamson), a scrappy aspiring podcaster and true crime enthusiast who lost her management and her money, just as her star was rising. Together, they’re tasked with co-writing a novel. But a real murder, naturally, complicates things.

“It’s a generational story between these two women who are at very different but very pivotal moments in their careers and their lives,” Shields explained, “and they find themselves paired with each other, and neither one of them are happy about it, but they are stuck with each other.”

The division of labor between Allie and Andi turns out to be surprisingly complementary: “She brings the forensics, I bring the motive and the story,” Shields said of Williamson’s character. “We team up, and we’re almost smarter than the actual cops.”

Shields traced the series back to her long creative partnership with showrunner Robin Bernheim, with whom she’d previously collaborated on Quantum Leap plus Netflix projects Castle for Christmas and Mother of the Bride. “After we did these movies, I said, ' Look, we work well together. You get me, you get my comedy, you get my drama. Why don’t we create a series?’” The idea of a generational dynamic between women was central from the start, and the cozy mystery genre felt like the right vehicle. “How do we combine those two and make it entertaining? Not too dark, but not a dumb show.”

One of the panel’s most entertaining stretches was the story of how Williamson landed the role. She described the audition process with the self-deprecating candor of someone who’d clearly made peace with the anxiety of it: “I get a lot of auditions for these big dream roles, and you kind of have to do it and then forget about it.” She did her initial read at 10 PM with her husband standing in as a scene partner — “He is not an actor at all,” she said of her hockey husband, Brendan Leipsic — and was eventually called in for a chemistry read over Zoom with Shields.

“Those things are so horrible to do,” Shields said sympathetically. “Everything is against you, and nobody is able to be their best.” But for their Zoom read, the dynamic clicked immediately. “The minute we were on, the whole thing, it was just there,” Williamson said. Shields, notably, had not memorized the twelve-page scene she’d been given. “I was probably equally as nervous,” she admitted. Williamson’s casting was announced last year during Acorn TV’s debut event at ATX TV Fest last year.

The Season 2 news was undoubtedly the biggest surprise of the panel, but close runner-up was lWilliamson’s reveal about being pregnant during production. She found out just days before production began in Nova Scotia, quietly turning to Shields for support. “I was so scared,” Williamson said. “I thought I was going to lose my job.” She told Shields early, and Shields immediately went into protective mode, advocating for Williamson behind the scenes and suggesting she keep the news quiet for a while. “It was our baby,” Williamson joked. She also credited Shields’ Hulu documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, as formative. 

The production’s base in Nova Scotia came up repeatedly as both a bonding crucible and an unexpected creative asset. “We were working 16-hour days in ridiculous locations,” Sheilds revealed. “It was not luxury in any way, shape, or form.” But that shared hardship, she said, was precisely what let them translate the on-screen dynamic into something real. Williamson noted that Shields never complained, arrived every day smiling, and set a tone that made the whole set feel lighter. “If your number one is a curmudgeon, it’s not going to be fun,” she said. “And Brooke made it so fun every single day.”

The show's generational comedy is clearly drawn from life. Shields has a 20-year-old and a 23-year-old at home, and said the ribbing she got from Williamson was indistinguishable from what she gets from her own daughters. But Shields was careful to frame the show’s generational dynamic as more than just comedy. “These are two women at very different stages in their lives. One doesn’t know where her mother is, one doesn’t have a daughter, and there’s this emotional dynamic that’s actually a true one. There’s this through line of two women in this generational relationship, learning from each other how to be confident in their own female myth. It gets told almost subliminally, under the guise of a humorous mystery.”

The panel also touched on the show’s third lead, Tom Cavanagh, who plays Jack, the fish-out-of-water detective newly assigned to Founders Cove. He wasn’t on the panel, but both women had plenty to say about the experience of working with him.

“He does this thing with the dialogue; he changes it all up,” Shields said. “It can either make you crazy or it brings the most out of it. There’s improv on a level that is its own thing.” Williamson illustrated the point by describing a moment when she instinctively took one of Cavanagh’s lines, which felt more appropriate coming from her character. It wasn’t really stealing, not on a collaborative set like the one Shields worked hard to establish.

The comedy of the show emerged as a recurring theme: its difficulty, its underratedness, and its specific function in a show like this one. “Comedy is often the hardest thing to do,” Shields said. “It’s always been a mainstay in myself. I’ve used it in my life, I’ve used it as a deflection. But comedy just for comedy is not the value. The value of this show is that we can be dramatic, too. The comedy allows us the freedom to really delve into the more emotional stuff.”

Williamson, who credited her previous comedy work on Letterkenny and other Canadian productions with building her confidence in the genre, offered a complementary take: “I think people underrate comedy because it’s seen as frivolous. What I love about it is that it frees the audience up to be vulnerable to the other stuff.”

You’re Killing Me Season 1 continues streaming on Acorn TV with new episodes debuting every Monday through the season finale on June 22nd. Season 2, again set in the fictional Maine town of Founders Cove, will consist of six hour-long episodes and go into production later this year.

Stay tuned for more coverage from ATX TV Fest.