It’s not every show that a benchmark of success is how many people have cried. But when it comes to teenagers, as Emily Alyn Lind has seen from the many TikToks her sister has sent her of reactions to her new show “We Were Liars,” making them feel something is an accomplishment.                           

“It’s such an interesting phenomenon because you’re like, ‘Why do I feel like this is successful that I’ve made these kids cry?’” Lind says. “Just evoking any sort of emotion, especially from teenagers, means a lot to me.”

The series, which is an adaptation of the hit 2014 YA novel by E. Lockhart, follows Cadence Sinclair, who spends every summer with her wealthy, well-connected family on their compound off Martha’s Vineyard. Cadence experienced a brain injury the previous summer that has left her with memory loss, and no one around her will explain what exactly happened. The series flashes between the two summers, as Cadence tries to solve the mystery of her amnesia and what has happened with her family’s various characters.

Lind, who is best known for the “Gossip Girl” reboot as well as the “Babysitter” Netflix films, was initially hesitant about another teenage project.

“I was filming in London and hesitant to look at another YA television show because I had already done one recently and have been way more focused on writing my own stuff and trying to get my own stuff into production. But I read the pilot and I thought it was really great,” she says. “I was really engaged and wanted to know what happened next, and I think that’s rare.”

Given her amnesia, Cadence is an unreliable narrator, which was intriguing to Lind while reading the books prior to shooting.

“She sees things and we have to choose as a reader to believe her or not because it gets quite mystical and unrealistic how she does see the world,” the 23-year-old says. “And I thought that would be interesting to bring to screen just because it can read youthful, it can read sweet. And I didn’t pick that up: I thought it was quite terrifying. This girl is deciding when she has amnesia and she is on heavy drugs and abusing them and is kind of out of her mind that she’s deciding to put this beautiful rose-colored glasses lens on it. And I thought that that was really dark, and so I was attracted to that.”

Lind, who is the daughter of actor Barbara Alyn Woods, has been acting since she was five years old. Her first role was a movie called “Enter the Void,” and the experience of being on set had her hooked immediately.  

“I went on set and I experienced what it was like to be free, to improvise, to be crazy, to work with real artists. And I just never wanted that to end,” she says. 

She grew up watching movies on TCM and going to indie theaters around Los Angeles, and she’s inspired now to make projects that resonate with young people today.

“I think the young adult audience is a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And I won’t say that kids need to watch noir films, I’m not pushing it that far, but there’s so much media out there that isn’t of this time that we think kids will shy away from because it’s too old or whatever. But there’s something about pop culture at the moment where I find that if a group of people sway toward one thing and make it big enough, people will watch it and love it,” she says. “I just don’t think kids are as dumb as adults think they are. And so that’s why I liked ‘We Were Liars.’”