A Little White Lie is a 2022 American independent comedy film written and directed by Michael Maren and based on the 2013 novel Shriver by Chris Belden. It stars Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, and Zach Braff. The film is about a handyman with the same name as a famous writer who is mistakenly invited to a literary festival and is welcomed by fans and writers, but is exposed as an imposter when the real Shriver arrives.
Production was initially set to begin in 2017 but was postponed to 2020. With a new cast, filming began in February 2020 and was one week shy of wrapping before the COVID-19 pandemic halted production until over a year later. It was released in theaters and video on demand on March 3, 2023.
A famous writer named Shriver is invited to attend a college's literary festival, but the invitation is mistakenly sent to a "down-on-his-luck" handyman with the same name who has never even read a book. Despite this, he accepts the invitation and travels to the college, where he is welcomed by fans and other writers, and even begins a romance with an English professor. Eventually, the real Shriver arrives and exposes the handyman as an imposter.
- Michael Shannon as Shriver
- Kate Hudson as Simone Cleary
- Romy Bryne as Teresa
- Don Johnson as T. Wasserman
- Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Delta Jones
- Aja Naomi King as Blythe Brown
- Benjamin King as Jack Blunt
- M. Emmet Walsh as Dr. Baldwin
- Perry Mattfeld as Layla
- Mark Boone Junior as Lenny
- Giorgia Whigham as Charlie
- Jimmi Simpson as Detective Karpas
- Adhir Kalyan as Victor Bennet
- Wendie Malick as Dr. Bedrosian
- Zach Braff as the real Shriver
- Kate Linder as the college president
- Peyton List as Sophie Firestone
The film was originally scheduled to be shot in Canada in 2017, but there were issues with assembling a crew and the production was moved to West Virginia, where it encountered financial difficulties. In early 2020, while Maren was prepping for principal photography to begin in New Orleans, new producers were brought in and quickly changed the location to Los Angeles. With a new crew and cinematographer, Maren said in an interview, "The DP that I had actually storyboarded the entire film with was suddenly not available and didn't want to do a film that we only had two weeks to prep. So there were days on the film at the beginning where we would shoot a 12-hour day and then I would go out with my [assistant director] and we would be scouting that night. The hotel where we shot, we didn't lock that location down until Saturday and we were shooting on Monday, so the production designers had one day to try to prepare those sets". Filming commenced in February 2020 and was then suspended due to COVID-19 three weeks into filming and one week before completion. After being halted for 400 days, filming completed after a six-day shoot.
A Little White Lie premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival on October 14, 2022. Paramount Pictures and Saban Films released the film on March 3, 2023 in limited theaters and digital platforms.
