‘Your Friends & Neighbors’, 2. Sezon Finalinden Sonra Oyunculukta (ve Neredeyse Ölmekte) Yıldızlar Oluyor

[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.”

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] çünkü Sarah Paulson beni o kadar çok güldürüyor ki, bunu yapamadım. Saat sabahın dördü gibiydi ve herkes çok yorgun ve çok sinirliydi. Onlar sinirlendikçe ben de bunun daha komik olduğunu düşündüm ve [Paulson] öyle olduğunu düşündüm. Sonunda gözlerimi sabit tutabilir miyim diye görmek için yüzüme bir eşarp kapattık. Yani evet, bence oldukça zor.

“Gözlerinizin titrediğini hissediyorsunuz ve ‘DURDURUN!’ diyorsunuz. Kendinize rahatlamanızı, kirpiklerinizi kırpıştırmamanızı söylüyorsunuz ve o zaman kirpikler daha çok kırpışıyor,” diye devam etti Peet. “Şu anda bunu düşünmek gerçekten endişe yaratıyor.”

İçin üçüncü sezon Arkadaşlarınız ve Komşularınızİkinci sezonun prömiyerinden aylar önce sipariş edilen Mel, sanki menopoz bir kadın için yeterli bir iç mücadele değilmiş gibi bir endişe dünyasına giriyor.

İkinci sezonun sonunda Mel yeni bir kitap yazmaya başlar. Menopozla ilgili değil – editörü zaten taslağı görünmeden reddetmişti – ama yaklaşık bir yıl önce eski sevgilisinin cinayet şüphesiyle tutuklandığı hayatıyla ilgiliydi. Peet üçüncü sezonla ilgili olarak “ize çıkıp gerçek hikayenin kokusunu almaya başlayana kadar” bekleyin ve “Sanırım” diye ekledi.

(Asker sayısı TR O Arkadaşlarınız ve Komşularınız üçüncü sezon, “ikinci sezonun bitiminden çok kısa bir süre sonra devam eden” “çok daha doğrudan bir devam niteliğindedir”. Evrende birinci sezon ile ikinci sezon arasında yaklaşık bir yıl geçmişti.)

Açıkçası Mel’in çoğunu kızıyla (Isabel Gravitt), kendi bedeniyle ve/veya kapı komşularıyla kavga ederek geçirdiği ikinci sezon gibi bir sezonu daha kaldırabileceğinden emin değilim. Tanrı aşkına, bir köpeği öldürdü. Peet bunların hiçbirini umursamadı.

Peet, Tropper’ın karakteri için menopoz hikayesini yazma biçiminden “çok etkilendiğini” söylüyor.

“Ben onun bunu incelikli hale getirmek istemesi ve bunu yapmak istememesi gerçeğinden faydalanıyorum. [Mel] Peet, “Evin önünde heyecan verici bir şeyin olmasını bekleyen bu yavan eski eş” dedi. “Ve bence bu oldukça nadir bir durum.

“Gerçek ve doğal olmasını istiyor ama harika bir mizah anlayışı var” diye devam etti. “Menopoz çok komik.”

Arkadaşlarınız ve Komşularınız ikinci sezon şu anda Apple’da yayınlanıyor.