Cruel Intentions' Brooke Lena Johnson Teases the Biggest Differences Between the Show and the 1999 Film

The clothing may change but privileged teens plotting to ruin each other's lives for a lark has never gone out of style.

Hence the refashioning of the 1999 cult classic Cruel Intentions into a series of the same name, now with a bigger cast of morally bankrupt characters navigating the high social stakes of Greek life on a posh college campus. 

But what else separates the film from the new show?

"Being in a totally different setting, a different time period, a lot more relevant things that are happening now really make it current," Brooke Lena Johnson, who plays ambiguously principled student activist Beatrice, told E! News' Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview. "We still have the ruthlessness and the taboo things, but you get to see no one is a good guy or a bad guy."

Not to worry, there's still a stepbrother and stepsister—Caroline and Lucien (Sarah Catherine Hook and Zac Burgess)—playing psychosexual mind games with each other, as Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe's Kathryn and Sebastian did in the movie.

But the characters otherwise "don't completely line up the way that you know it," Johnson explained. "These amazing actors who are in the show have done such a good job completely spinning them in a new direction."

That includes Sean Patrick Thomas, who played one of the pawns in Gellar and Phillippe's risky game 25 years ago and adds a familiar face to the new series. But while he's portraying a professor (as opposed to grown Ronald) at the fictional Washington, D.C., university where the action takes place, he showed up ready to play.

"The essence that he brought to the show really inspired a lot of us," Johnson said. He "brought that kind of tone [from the original], so we all navigated around that." (As for the rest of the Cruel Intentions O.G.s, she added, "I hope they enjoy this reimagining.")

Her Beatrice is also a new character, the actress noted, and "she has a very strong vision of what it is that she wants. She's very much a fighter, so she'll stand up for whatever she truly believes in and she'll do whatever it takes to get there."

So it sounds as if Beatrice—who abhors hazing and wants to take down the snooty sororities and fraternities at the center of this world—fits right in.

"She's very similar to some of these other characters," Johnson continued. "And throughout this whole series you see this power struggle. It's a very privileged, wealthy setting and you see people trying to make the best of their reputation."

And since everyone checks off a few boxes from both the hero and villain categories, she added, you'll see them all "take a darker road to get where they want to go."

But ruthlessly amoral onscreen activities aside, the vibe among the actors on the show's Toronto set was pure light.

"We had a great family feel to it," Johnson shared, and that in turn created a hospitable environment for leaning into the characters' nastiness. "We could play around with these more dangerous, dark, taboo sides of the show because everyone was so playful and welcoming."

There was plenty of "fighting on camera," she added, but "there wasn't any of that off. You can enjoy the fun and then [off-camera] everyone would just laugh and be like, 'But you're so great!'"

For anyone wanting more of what the classic story—which originated with the 1782 French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses—had to offer, the intentions are still cruel and the liaisons dangerous. But the show "is a breath of fresh air," Johnson said.  "You can see more in detail what [lengths] people go to get where they want to be. "

And even if you know the movie by heart, "anyone who's seen it before is going to be really surprised" by the series, she said. "You don't know what's going to happen next."

Cruel Intentions premieres Nov. 21 on Amazon Prime Video.