Four years after her novel hit shelves and became a bestseller, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones & The Six” has now made its TV debut on Amazon Prime. Now, it has been nominated for nine Emmys, including: Outstanding Limited Anthology Series, Outstanding Lead Actress for Riley Keough and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Camila Morrone.
The series chronicles the rise to fame and ultimate demise of the fictional 1970s band “Daisy Jones & The Six.” As fans of the book, show creators Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber were fairly dedicated to creating a faithful adaptation.
“I was a fan first,” Neustadter told Vanity Fair. “And so for me, it was always like, I would be so mad if someone adapted a book that I loved and didn’t do the right thing. So I kind of always come at it from that perspective. Hopefully — hopefully — people will be pleased.”
Here’s a look at eight differences between the novel and the series. (Warning: spoilers ahead, so tread with caution).
‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ book vs. TV series
1. A documentary takes place 20 years after the band’s breakup
In the novel, the oral history is set in 2016 — so it’s been about 40 years since the band’s first concert in the 1970s. The series keeps the oral history at its core, but frames it as a rock documentary that was made during the late 1990s — about 20 years after the band took off.
“I always knew that an oral history would lend itself well to a mockumentary or documentary sort of situation,” Neustadter told Time. “Later, we realized that a lot (of the book) is allusions to moments, things that she said or he said, but you might be missing the actual scene of what happened. So we got to invent those scenes from scratch — entire moments that we got to write from from beginning to end, which isn’t always the case with an adaptation. It afforded us so much fun and so many kinds of opportunities for drama will hopefully deepen the story.”
2. The band has 5 — not 6 — members
One bandmate didn’t make the cut for the TV adaptation — Pete Loving, the band’s bassist. Pete plays a small role in the book (he only has a few lines), and is the first to leave the band, per Town & Country. But as the sixth bandmate, he is essential in making the band “The Six.”
Instead, the show names Camila (Camila Morrone), Billy’s (Sam Claflin) girlfriend-turned-wife, the honorary sixth member of the band.
Neustadter told Town & Country cutting Pete’s storyline was an easy decision: “If you make a show and you have to cast Pete, the actor playing Pete is gonna want to know what his arc is and gonna want more. So Pete had to go. Sorry Pete! But hopefully people won’t miss him when they see other things in the show that hopefully are enhanced.”
3. Chuck Williams has a different storyline
In the novel, the band’s original guitarist, Chuck Williams, gets drafted in the Vietnam War and is killed in Cambodia.
Chuck (Jack Romano) makes a brief appearance in the TV series as the band’s bassist when they are still practicing in the garage and playing local gigs. But in the show, rather than getting drafted, he decides to attend college and become a dentist.
Neustadter wanted to keep Chuck alive so his character could realize he made “the wrong choice” in not sticking with the band, per Entertainment Weekly.
“When you’re really young and you’re at the crossroads of your life — you can either take a huge risk and join a rock band and hope that something happens for you, or you cannot do that, because how frequently does that work out?” Neustadter told EW. “Knowing that the band becomes huge, you can have fun watching somebody make the wrong choice.”
4. Billy and Camila have a different meet-cute
In the book, the Dunne Brothers perform at a wedding — Camila is working as a cocktail waitress at the same event when Billy notices her.
“My name is Billy Dunne. I’m the lead singer of the Dunne Brothers. And if you give me your number, I’ll write a song about you,” he says to Camila in the book, per Town & Country.
In the Amazon Prime series, the pair meet in a laundromat, and Camila pretends that she doesn’t know who Billy is. Later in the episode, Camila decides to move with Billy and the band from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles — but in the book, Camila and Billy are separated for months before she decides to relocate.
5. Camila’s role is expanded
Camila’s role in the series is developed in a way that is more multidimensional, Neustadter told Time. In the book, Camila comes off as a saintly mother who tolerates a lot from Billy. Her recollections are told almost entirely by the band in the novel, but the show gives her a bigger role.
“We all got very excited about telling the story of a version of Camila that was really human, sometimes goofy, but someone who can understand that bringing Daisy into the band is both good for her and potentially not great for her, but making the decision to do it anyway,” Neustadter told Time.
In the show, Camila also takes on the role of band photographer, and snaps the photo that is used for the “Aurora” album cover.
6. Billy kisses Daisy
The dynamic between Billy and Daisy (Riley Keough) is intense in the book — especially while working on their first album together. Both characters want to front the band, and to reach middle ground, Daisy begins asking Billy personal questions — and they click. While songwriting, Daisy leans in to kiss Billy, but he pulls away and goes home to his wife, Camila.
In the Prime series, Billy gives Daisy a passionate kiss in the parking lot of their recording studio, Sound City — he claims it was to evoke an emotional response so she would get the song right. But Claflin claims Billy is lying to himself.
“The kiss seems in that moment to be something to push her over the edge to get her to sing the song. As a device, it adds so much more flavor and makes the stakes higher. For Billy, he thinks he’s in the wrong for having kissed her. And it’s not about that. It’s about whether he loves her or not,” Claflin told EW.
“He wanted to know what it felt like and has been wondering about that since the day he met her. The tension is palpable. And he carries that up until the final episode.”
7. Lyrics are altered
Only a few song titles from Reid’s novel keep their same name in the TV series — “Please” and “Regret Me” included — but most of the lyrics were altered. “Honeycomb” — the band’s first hit single with Daisy Jones — still made it into the TV series but was renamed “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)” and given new lyrics.
“The lyrics were something we chose really early that we just have to let them go,” Neustadter told EW. “When we went to these music people, we were giving them a lot of constraints. ... We were giving them a lot of, ‘It has to be about this.’ These songs tell the stories, and they have a narrative function. Even if you’ve changed the words, the story that they’re telling, you have to write that song.”
Reid was reportedly supportive of Neustadter’s decision to switch up the songs for the series.
“Taylor was like, ‘You don’t even have my blessing, you have my encouragement. Don’t use any of the lyrics; let them write the songs,’” Neustadter told EW.
8. Billy finds Daisy after her overdose
Near the end of the eighth episode, Daisy almost dies from an overdose. In the book, she wakes up to her fiance, Nicky (Gavin Drea), and decides to leave him. In the Prime series, Nicky sees Daisy and leaves in a panic; Billy enters the hotel room and finds Daisy. When she wakes up, she is in Billy’s arms.
“I loved that change,” Keough told Deadline. “I thought that it was so deeply emotional to have Billy find Daisy and Billy be the one who is there for her in that moment and not Nicky. That sort of says a lot of the things that they can’t say to each other, that Billy can’t say to Daisy.”
When did ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ come out?
The final two episodes of “Daisy Jones & The Six” aired March 24 on Amazon Prime. All 10 episodes are now available for streaming.
“Daisy Jones & The Six” is rated TV-MA for language, sexual content and drug and alcohol use.