YouTube might’ve started out as a breeding ground for the Internet’s best cat videos, but in the past eight years, it’s transformed from viral video hub to a destination for quality original content online. WIGS, a YouTube channel for women started by producers Jon Avnet and Rodrigo Garcia — yes, both men — features TV-quality scripted series featuring big-name stars like Jason Isaacs, Virginia Madsen, Julia Stiles, Chris Messina, Stephen Moyer, and many, many more of your favorite actors.
Lauren, for example, which launches the final four episodes of its second season on Friday, follows Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario as the titular woman, raped by a fellow soldier in Afghanistan, as she fights her accuser in the military’s troubled system.
Bellisario tells Hollywood.com she was attracted to the style of storytelling because although it seems like short segments, in the end, her script for the entirety of Season 2 was feature-length. “I think what’s fantastic about these vignette style episodes, and what’s awesome about the new season, is … it takes its time. When you put it all together it really is a beautiful, intertwined story.”
Garcia says when he and Avnett conceived of the channel, they hoped to harness the Internet’s power to creat compelling content. “There has to be a way to explore this for content that’s not disposable,” he says. “Our only umbrella was a female in the lead. We’ve just been drawn to whatever material we find good, regardless of whether it’s drama or comedy.”
Hollywood.com has an exclusive sneak peek inside the channel’s one year anniversary party, which also celebrated the launch of the second season of Lauren. The final four epsiodes of Lauren debut Friday, May 17.
More:
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Jason Isaacs Gives You 5 Reasons to Watch ‘Awake’
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