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00:00What would you say, if you had to bottom line it, is the secret sauce for the success of Pluribus?
00:06I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say Vince Gilligan.
00:09Like, that's the secret sauce for the success of it.
00:32I would say first, the macro on that is everybody involved.
00:36It's just, it's an incredible crew.
00:39My cast, all the writers, all of the directors, and the support of Sony and Apple.
00:43It takes a very giant village to do a show like that, enable it, empower it, and get it on
00:49the air in the way that Vince envisioned it.
00:51But I do think some of the secret sauce is that Vince is writing from a very pure place of
00:58wanting to explore humanity and defining happiness and success instead of trying to preach anything in particular.
01:04So it's really engendered a lot of interpretive comments from people thinking it's about this or it's about that.
01:11And I think causing some very nuanced conversations instead of the regular binary, everything is black and white ones.
01:18Do you like my books?
01:20Oh, we love your books.
01:22What do you love about them?
01:24Everything.
01:25Your books are an expression of you.
01:27And we love you.
01:29I need you to be more specific.
01:32Character arcs.
01:34Plot turns.
01:35Oh, yes.
01:35Yes.
01:36We love the character arcs and the plot turns.
01:38Believe it or not, I was surprised when we started doing the press junkets and people were bringing up, oh,
01:45this is a commentary on AI, right?
01:47And I get it now.
01:49And I know I look like an idiot.
01:50But I get so focused on playing the character in the story that she's in.
01:56And I try hard not to think about how I want it to be interpreted or what is the theme
02:01that this is speaking to.
02:02I mean, I had one journalist say she thought the entire show was a metaphor for grief and depression and
02:08this idea that it feels like when you're in that space that you're, you know, down a well and everybody
02:13that keeps saying cheer up might as well be speaking a foreign language to you.
02:16And it's irritating.
02:17And I was like, that's incredible.
02:19But while being in it, we didn't discuss how will this be digested.
02:23I think we knew our RAM space was full with making it.
02:26Have you ever read Finnegan's Wake?
02:28No.
02:30I tried to.
02:31In grad school.
02:35It's probably great.
02:37I don't know.
02:39All I know is it made me miserable trying to get through it.
02:42Miriam Shore is a national treasure.
02:44I think we all know that.
02:44I hope we see Miriam again.
02:46I see her as often as I can in my real life because she's just an amazing person.
02:51And we had just met when we started to play that.
02:52And that relationship was very important to us as allies of the LGBTQ community as well as gals, gals that
02:59really just support each other and wanted to see the other ones soar.
03:02And Carolina Widra is also like that.
03:05And that's the magic, I think, that you see in those scenes.
03:08The chemistry, the oddball chemistry of Zosia and Carol and the marriage and deep partnership of Helen and Carol is
03:17very much a product of the respect and the love that we have for each other and each other's work
03:22when we get to stage.
03:24You like omelets, right?
03:26We do.
03:27We love, oh, breakfast food.
03:31Sure.
03:32Sure.
03:32But you, you, like lowercase you, does Zosia like omelets?
03:40Zosia likes, I like omelets.
03:45With Carolina, I mean, she is an actor that's there to play.
03:49She does tons of homework.
03:50She's such an incredibly gifted, talented actor that she gets to set then and is ready to play, as am
03:57I.
03:57And by that, I mean, it's not a pre-planned performance.
04:00It can't be shaped until you see what the other person's doing.
04:03And the more you respect the contribution the other person just made and allow yourself to react to that in
04:10character, to me, that is what looks like chemistry to people.
04:14Because it's that invisible tether between two actors that are allowing the other person to help define where this scene
04:19is going.
04:20I couldn't be more thrilled that both she and Miriam are nominated for their phenomenal work.
04:25It's hard to not talk about Miriam and Carol and not get teary.
04:29They are amazing.
04:30And yes, it's a family.
04:31And there's two parts to that.
04:33And one part is to get to do work like this.
04:35Everything that I've gotten to do with Vince and his crew and his writers has been incredible.
04:40But when you add to that, to get to work with the same people over and over again, to have
04:45a sort of shorthand that I have with Vince, you know, 10 plus, 11 plus, whatever years working together at
04:50this point.
04:51And a crew that I know so well that supports me inspires you to take risks, inspires you to be
04:57more creative.
04:58And that's what they do.
05:00In addition to that, this crew happens to be some of the best in the world at what they do
05:05in every single department, whether it's props or sound or production design, greens, costumes I make, all of it.
05:13And so to get to learn from these guys, it's just a masterclass every day.
05:18It sounds like you're really ready to direct.
05:22Genuinely.
05:23I would like to direct again.
05:25And directing with that kind of support is definitely an amazing thing.
05:30There's no way I could have season one.
05:32I don't know when I will throw my hat in the ring.
05:35I always prioritize the performance because that's what I was hired to do.
05:38And I don't think I would have been able to get enough sleep or brush my teeth if I had
05:45tried to direct season one.
05:46I really do love it.
05:47And I do love talking to the crew.
05:48And I love being part of post-production.
05:50But right now, I have to say, like, it takes every cell in my body to navigate Carol in this
05:57bizarre world that Vince Gilligan put her in.
05:59And I'm having a blast doing that.
06:01I'm very protective of Vince when people hear, like, how long we shoot for.
06:06He is never indulgent.
06:08There is always a reason for.
06:09And the many takes and the many angles, there's a visual vocabulary that he likes to use that requires a
06:15lot of different angles.
06:16And so you have to repeat the scene for every time that camera setup has changed.
06:21For one thing, the back lot that is the cul-de-sac is the exteriors.
06:25And then the interior, some of the interior of that house, Carol's house, is built on the back lot, but
06:30not all the way through.
06:32So there is also the first floor and the second floor as a set built on the sound stages.
06:37And so sometimes I am literally doing the exterior of a scene until I come through a door.
06:42And then in a couple of days, doing after I came in the door.
06:46And how do I keep it straight is I am a prep freak.
06:50That's all I can say.
06:51I just, I love script analysis.
06:53I love homework.
06:54I love all of it.
06:55But even when there's no dialogue, I know Vince wants as many story beats, if not more, than if it
07:01was, you know, full verbal dialogue the whole time.
07:04So I'm going through and deciding what would she be thinking here?
07:08What would she be thinking there?
07:09Why would she start to do this activity?
07:11Why would she cross over there?
07:12Why is she not talking?
07:13I personally love that he didn't just weirdly make my character do monologues when she's by herself in her house.
07:20He completely assumes the intelligence of the audience, that you will go on that ride with me without having to
07:25be told what to think or how to feel.
07:28Cheers.
07:29Oh, cheers.
07:39It's not too sweet.
07:41I always worry I don't add enough water.
07:43It's perfect.
07:44Yeah.
07:46Because I can add more if you want the water.
07:50I do think Carol's long isolation that she got put in, plus the existential threat that it would last forever.
07:56If she didn't change or decide, like, I guess I'm just going to try to be in a relationship with
08:03her, she was just going to die alone on the couch watching Golden Girls, which if you have to die
08:09alone on the couch, watching Golden Girls is the way to go.
08:11But I'm just saying, like, you know, this existential threat, which is another thing I think many of us experienced
08:18in the pandemic.
08:18And I remember a therapist saying to me, like, it's causing so much anxiety because there isn't an end in
08:24sight.
08:24We just don't know when this will be over.
08:26It isn't like, can you make it 30 more days?
08:28So for Carol, I do think it is a voluntary delusion of sorts, but I also think that isolation broke
08:35her.
08:36And I think Vince and Adam Bernstein that directed the episode when Zosia comes back and I hug her, I
08:42think we do see that Carol very vulnerable for one of the first times since her wife's death.
08:47I don't know if Zosia is being manipulative or has any real feelings or if there's a way to disentangle
08:56those because they do think this is an act of love to change me.
09:01I'm a little surprised by the number of people that have told me, like, I hope Zosia, you know, there's
09:06a lot of people that love Zosia and Carol together, which I love as well.
09:10And I'm so thrilled about that. But when they say, like, I hope that they get back together and stay
09:15together, I always say, do you mean, like, if Zosia becomes like a real person and not part of the
09:21hive mind?
09:22They're like, no, no, no, just as they are. Did you see the finale?
09:25Feel like there was a big line crossed with the stealing of the eggs thing.
09:28That's just me. Feel like it's a big flag.
09:30I don't think I could just demand the eggs back. And I did ask about that because they're imperative to
09:37infect the coarse way to say it.
09:40Like everyone is higher than that's what the argument that Carol keeps having with Zosia.
09:45If you're saying I have agency and you love me, then don't do this.
09:48And she's saying it's because I love you that I have to.
09:50You people make no goddamn sense. Do you know that?
09:55We want to make you happy, you say. Your life is your own, you say.
10:00An agency. I've got all this agency. But, I mean, I guess I have agency just until I don't?
10:12Carol, if you were walking by a lake and you saw somebody drowning, would you throw them a life preserver?
10:19Of course you would. You wouldn't think. You wouldn't wait. You wouldn't try to get consensus on it.
10:25You'd just throw it.
10:27They are very lawyerly. They do not lie, but they are, you don't have to say manipulative, but extremely specific
10:33about how they word things.
10:35Even when she says she prefers to be a vegetarian.
10:40Yes, they prefer it. It's just not what they're doing.
10:42Vince sometimes would talk about it. It's like parental love.
10:44Like, he would say, you know, manipulating your child into wearing a coat to go outside.
10:51Is that manipulation or is that love? If you know it's what's best for them.
10:54I don't know what it is, but it's just this giant crate in the driveway.
10:58And I have very few guesses about what he's going to do with that.
11:02But I don't think it's a mother-in-law ADU. I don't.
11:05I don't think it's, I don't think she's renting it out.
11:07I don't know. I don't know what she, but I don't know what she's going to do with the bomb.
11:10I really don't.
11:11And the good news was playing Carol, like, I didn't need to know.
11:15Because I actually think she made a rash decision.
11:18I personally, and we'll see, I'll go to episode one and I'll be a big fat liar.
11:21And I'll find out that apparently I had a whole plan and wrote it all out on a whiteboard.
11:24I don't know.
11:25But I thought in the moment that Carol is very rash.
11:30We've seen it.
11:30She's extremely impulsive and rash.
11:32And her trying to calm that part of her down didn't result in anything good.
11:37It just resulted in having a fake relationship with somebody that stole my eggs.
11:41So I think she's so angry and, importantly, terrified in that moment that this clock is ticking again.
11:49That she asked for the biggest threat that she can think of.
11:53But I don't think she's really figured out what to do with it.
11:56That's my thought.
11:57Okay, let's hope she doesn't end the world because I'd like this to keep going on.
12:01Same.
12:02Same.
12:02I really hope she doesn't end it for six or seven seasons.
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