How Off Campus Turns Emotional Intimacy Into Its Greatest Strength

Watch the full conversaiton below

In adapting the beloved novels by Elle Kennedy for the screen, creator and showrunner Louisa Levy faced one of the biggest challenges any literary adaptation encounters, how do you translate deeply internal storytelling into something visual?

Speaking alongside stars Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli, Levy explained that the answer came down to rethinking perspective and emotional access from the very beginning.

“The books have these incredible inner monologues,” Levy shared. “We don’t even have voiceover in our show, so we needed to externalize things.”

That meant carefully building scenes that allow audiences to feel what the characters are experiencing rather than simply hearing them explain it. One of the clearest examples comes in the pilot episode, where Hannah initially sees Garrett as arrogant and frustrating. The show intentionally introduces him through her perspective first before slowly peeling back the layers of pressure and vulnerability underneath.

In introducing Hannah to audiences, rather than defining her through trauma or insecurity, the series introduces her as someone who has already done significant work on herself and knows exactly who she is.

For Bright, that became central to building the character.

“She’s confident,” Bright explained. “She has these cool friends that she trusts and she is so comfortable in her life.”

That confidence manifests in subtle but important ways throughout the series. Hannah doesn’t avoid hockey because she feels intimidated by it — she simply doesn’t care about it. It’s a distinction that gives the character an uncommon sense of agency and emotional maturity within the romance genre.

Levy also loved writing against expectations with Hannah’s character archetype.

“She’s very strong-willed, but you might not expect it from the musical artist character,” Levy said. “Being able to write an artist who also has a little sass was really fun.”

For Cameli, Garrett’s emotional architecture came into focus through a single detail: a Latin tattoo stretching across his shoulders reading nulla gratuitium prandium — “there’s no free lunch.”

The tattoo wasn’t in the original books. Instead, it emerged from Cameli’s own ideas about Garrett’s psychology and upbringing.

“I immediately realized across the shoulder blades where the nameplate goes on the jersey was a really nice symbolic place for it,” he explained. “Underneath the name on his jersey is this belief system that he must earn everything.”

That detail became foundational to the performance. Even on days the tattoo wasn’t visible on camera, Cameli said he kept it present mentally, writing the phrase into his scripts as a reminder of Garrett’s internal belief system.

It also perfectly encapsulates one of the show’s central emotional tensions: Garrett desperately wants validation, but has been conditioned to believe love, approval, and success must constantly be earned.

One of the most effective choices the series makes is refusing to rush the relationship between Hannah and Garrett. Levy emphasized that their friendship had to come first.

“It was really important to us in the writers’ room to build out the steps of their friendship,” she said. “Hannah learning to trust Garrett is the crucial fundamental thing that needed to happen before anything else could happen.”

That trust develops gradually through small but meaningful moments such as Garrett watching Hannah’s drinks at a party, the comfort they begin finding in conversation, and eventually the willingness to share painful parts of themselves with each other.

Bright noted that Hannah even surprises herself with how quickly she begins trusting Garrett.

“She’s telling him things that Ally doesn’t even know,” she said. “There is a real sense of understanding between them very early on.”

Cameli added that the emotional intimacy of those scenes came from the safety the characters create for one another.

“You’re giving it to somebody that you love and is able to receive it without judgment,” he explained.

Levy jokingly called Cameli “a professional yearner,” but that longing becomes one of the defining textures of the romance. Off Campus intentionally lets Garrett fall first.

“It was really important that Garrett falls first,” Levy explained.

The show carefully tracks the shift from playful sparring into genuine affection. What begins as banter and competitive energy gradually transforms into longing through glances, pauses, and emotional attentiveness.

With music being central to the story, Levy jokingly described the show as “a stealth musical,” explaining that music became deeply embedded into the DNA of the series from the writing stage onward.

The musical journey especially transforms Hannah’s arc as the show allows audiences to watch her discover her voice emotionally and artistically.

As the other love interest for Hannah, Justin’s role as a musician becomes especially important because he represents something Hannah longs for beyond romance: creative confidence.

“He has an ability to externalize the emotional aspects of his life and put that into music,” Bright said. “That’s something she longs to have.”

Ultimately Garrett and Hannah don’t simply fall in love because they are attracted to each other. They fall in love because they create space for one another to become fuller, more honest versions of themselves.

Hannah helps Garrett reconnect with hockey on his own terms rather than through the pressure and pain imposed by his father. Garrett gives Hannah the safety and encouragement to rediscover her artistic voice. And that mutual growth is what gives the series its emotional depth.

Q&A on the series Off Campus with creator & showrunner Louisa Levy and actors Ella Bright and Belmont Cameli. Moderated by Mara Webster.