Emma Appleton and Bel Powley on Everything I Know About Love: 'We were standing in the street in pig costumes!'

Emma: "When we first meet Maggie, she's just finished her university gap year and she's moving to London, starting her adult life in a big city with her friends, and just figuring out what that looks like and what direction she wants to go in. She wants to dive in head-first and experience all of the things that she's going to experience in her twenties."

Bel: "Birdy is Maggie's childhood best friend, they've known each other since they were 11 years old. Birdy is quite an anxious and nervy person - she's the meekest of the group!"

Bel: "I read the book when it came out. My best friend — my Maggie! — gave me the book to read, which I thought was a nice and beautiful thing, and I was completely obsessed with it. I remember reading it and thinking 'if this gets turned into a TV show, I want to play Farly' — who then became Birdy!"

Emma: "I didn't read it until I got the job! I had heard of it, and I had lots of friends who said Dolly Alderton is amazing, then I auditioned and got the job and I was like, 'okay, I need to read it now!' And I loved it instantly."

Bel: "It was incredible, we were so lucky. She was with us every single day of filming, so she was there if we had any thoughts or queries or ever wanted to change a line or had any ideas about our character. She was really collaborative and gracious in handing over her story, which is based on her life and inspired by her book, so she couldn't have been more incredible with that."

Emma: "I second everything Bel just said — she was an absolute dream to work with!"

Bel: "We built sets in Manchester, so we shot all of the interiors of the house there, and a lot of interiors of pubs and bars and stuff, but we did do a couple of weeks in Camden to make sure we were making it authentic. It was really hectic, shooting in Camden! We were like, 'oh, we wish we were shooting the whole thing in London', and then we went to shoot in Camden on a Saturday night and we were like, 'this would never have been able to happen!' But we were definitely really lucky, and really glad we did those two weeks there. We shot on Primrose Hill at dawn, that was really magical."

Emma: "So much fun! When they brought the oufits out, China [Moo-Young] the director was like, 'obviously I'm going to go for the most ridiculous one, we're not going to play it safe'. So yeah, we were standing on the street in an inflatable pig outfit, or a massive pancake costume. I think people did genuinely think we were leafleting!"

Bel: "It was so ridiculous, and so much fun. The pig outfit, especially, I found so funny because it came deflated, and you had to put it on and one of the costume people had to go inside and inflate it with a sort of backwards vacuum cleaner! We were shooting in a normal street in Manchester that they hadn't locked off, on a Monday morning — people were going to work and we were just there in these pig costumes, it was ridiculous!"

Emma: "It's so important, because it's only been the past few years that we've had programmes showing that on screen, and it is relatable for all of us, it makes us go 'oh my God, I'm not the only one thinking that'. If it's shown on screen, maybe that opens up a discussion about those things with your friends."

Bel: "I hope we've made a show that's really true to the general female experience. Hopefully women of all ages — even my mum, she was in her twenties once! Those themes of love, heartbreak, friendship, sex and dancing I think are universal for women, so hopefully everyone relates to it."