[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the Your Friends & Neighbors season two finale.)
Olivia Munn wasn’t even supposed to be here.
When Munn signed on to do the Apple TV series Your Friends & Neighbors, it was a one-season thing. But by the time she filmed episode the second episode of season one, appropriately titled “Deuce,” showrunner Jonathan Tropper asked if she would stick around. Munn tells The Hollywood Reporter now that she “waited until the end of the season to make that decision.”
“When I was reading the first season, I really loved the idea of these people who are so wealthy that they’re not going to clock when one of their expensive watches are swiped,” Munn said. “There’s some people who just are so wealthy they don’t even know what they have, yeah? I just thought that was really clever.”
For one season.
“The first time you have no idea, right? Your expectations are really low, and then for it to be so well received was so exciting,” Munn said.
But then the pressure to avoid a sophomore slump really sets in. Your Friends & Neighbors attempted to match the whodunnit mystery of season one with the introduction of a new mysterious character, Owen Ashe, played by James Marsden. Unfortunately, Ashe ends up just as dead as Samanatha Levitt’s (Munn) last romantic partner, Paul Levitt (Jordan Gelber). Well, the second time he ends up just as dead.
In the ninth episode of season two, Ashe is presumed dead after a crazy, drug-fueled night that ended with shots fired and some slippery marble. The character didn’t actually die-die until the final episode of the season, however, when his SUV ends up at the bottom of a lake. Coop (Jon Hamm), Barney (Hoon Lee) and Nick (Mark Tallman) make it out — as I write this, Ashe is still down there, and he’s not coming up (not alive, at least).
In a Zoom conversation with Marsden and Munn, I asked the guy who is now in all the TV shows and all the movies if he played Ashe any differently as “seemed dead” vs. “actually dead.”
“No, because to me, I’m always thinking about the audience,” Marsden said. “The audience has to believe he’s dead, so I just fully commit to that he’s dead. And then maybe, you know, something happens and he just sparks back to life.”
The something that happens here is ketamine serving as a late-stage defibrillator.
Ashe is, of course, not the only dead guy to not be a dead guy. The most famous one of our time is probably Jon Snow (Kit Harington) on Game of Thrones. He was stabbed in the back, quite literally, by Night Watch traitors, but revived by a witch using the power of the Lord of Light.
Anyway, Munn explains it much better than me, and we paused the interview for her to bring Marsden up to speed in great detail. He gamely listened to what Snow/Harington did, and then responded, “I did that.”
Jon Snow (Kit Harington) in Game of Thrones.
Courtesy of HBO
When you work as much as Marsden does, you’re bound to die a few on-screen deaths. Those odds skyrocket when you star on a show with “Dead” as the first word of its title.
“I died in Dead to Me. I died every episode of Westworld. So I die quite a bit. I don’t know why people want to see me dead,” Marsden said, adding of his personal technique: “I do closed eyes with, like, one kind of halfway open on the side.”
“I died in one show and and I didn’t tell my mom,” Munn said. “I forgot, and it was really traumatizing to her. Like, they see me — I’m dead. I get zipped up in a body bag. She’s like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I was like, ‘Mom, it’s just TV.’”
“You forget how impactful it is on some people when they’re watching,” Marsden said.
Amanda Peet, who plays Sam’s frenemy (and Hamm’s ex-wife) Mel Cooper, could not recall having died on screen. She has a painful memory, however, of playing a character in anaphylactic shock on Jack & Jill (1999-2001; she played Jack.)
“All the cast members had to lean over me to be like, ‘Are you OK?’” Peet remembered in a separate Zoom conversation. “The camera was over me, too. I was supposed to be on the ground with my eyes closed, [but] Porque Sarah Paulson me hace reír tanto que no podría hacerlo. Eran como las cuatro de la mañana y todos estaban muy cansados y enojados. Cuanto más se enojaban, más divertido me parecía y [Paulson] Pensé que lo era. Así que finalmente nos pusimos un pañuelo en la cara para ver si podía mantener los ojos quietos. Entonces sí, creo que es bastante difícil.
“Sientes que tus ojos parpadean y dices: ‘¡BASTA!’ Te dices a ti mismo que debes relajarte, no mover las pestañas y luego éstas se mueven más”, continuó Peet. “En este momento me genera mucha ansiedad sólo pensar en ello”.
Amanda Peet en Tus amigos y vecinos.
AppleTV+
Para la tercera temporada de Tus amigos y vecinosOrdenada meses antes del estreno de la segunda temporada, Mel está entrando en un mundo de angustia, como si la menopausia no fuera suficiente lucha interna para una mujer.
Al final de la segunda temporada, Mel se sienta a escribir un nuevo libro. No sobre la menopausia (su editor ya rechazó ese manuscrito sin haber sido visto) sino sobre su vida, en la que, aproximadamente un año antes, arrestaron a su ex bajo sospecha de asesinato. Espere hasta que “ella siga el rastro y comience a olfatear” la verdadera historia aquí, bromeó Peet sobre la tercera temporada, y agregó: “Supongo”.
(Las tropas cuentan THR eso Tus amigos y vecinos La tercera temporada es “mucho más una continuación directa” que “comienza muy poco después de que termina la segunda temporada”. Había pasado aproximadamente un año en el universo entre la primera y la segunda temporada).
Francamente, no estoy seguro de que Mel pueda aguantar otra temporada como la segunda, en la que pasó gran parte peleando con su hija (Isabel Gravitt), su propio cuerpo y/o sus vecinos de al lado. Mató a un perro, por amor de Dios. No es que a Peet le importara nada de eso.
Peet dice que quedó “muy impresionada” por cómo Tropper escribió la historia de la menopausia para su personaje.
“Soy el beneficiario del hecho de que él quería darle matices y no quería hacer [Mel] “Esta ex esposa insípida que está en el frente interno, esperando que suceda algo emocionante”, dijo Peet, “y creo que eso es algo raro”.
“Quiere que sea real y natural, pero tiene un maravilloso sentido del humor”, continuó. “La menopausia es jodidamente divertida”.
Tus amigos y vecinos La segunda temporada ahora se transmite en Apple.
