\u201cWho are you really? What is real happiness? What do you actually need for happiness?\u201d Rhea Seehorn murmurs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon, steps away from bookshelves stuffed with works like \u201cEast of Eden\u201d by John Steinbeck and the \u201cA Court of Thorns and Roses\u201d series by Sarah J. Maas, when she casually lists these big life questions aloud while leaning over a vegan brownie and cup of tea at a small table inside Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City. I\u2019m still questioning whether I read the street parking signs correctly. But these are queries Seehorn has given hard thought to in recent months. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s what happens when you\u2019re headlining a Vince Gilligan show. Existential reckonings are part of the gig. <\/p>\n
Seehorn is at least familiar with the deep internal struggles that swirl within Gilligan\u2019s protagonists. For six seasons on \u201cBetter Call Saul,\u201d AMC\u2019s hit prequel spinoff to \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d that told the backstory of Walter White\u2019s smarmy lawyer Saul Goodman a.k.a. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), Seehorn played Kim Wexler. The fan-favorite type A lawyer with a perfectly-positioned ponytail was McGill\/Goodman\u2019s principled but increasingly conflicted girlfriend who got caught up in his elaborate schemes and paid a price for his crimes. <\/p>\n
In his first follow-up to the \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d universe, Gilligan opted to forgo revolving another series around a tormented man in favor of one that let the shades of Seehorn\u2019s talent fill the screen.<\/p>\n
Gilligan says that in \u201cBetter Call Saul,\u201d which he co-created with Peter Gould, he saw in Seehorn what he had observed in Aaron Paul years before on \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d \u2014 an actor whose performance propelled a side character, wayward junkie Jesse Pinkman, into a figure that commanded viewers\u2019 attention and became integral to the story. <\/p>\n
\u201cAaron made that character indispensable,\u201d Gilligan says over video call. \u201cIt was like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu with Rhea Seehorn. I hate saying I wasn\u2019t aware of her prior to us auditioning and casting her. But she was just fantastic from Day 1. What Peter and I saw in her was a potential to take a show that, at the beginning, was about one character and make it a two-hander. And I just knew very, very quickly in the early life of \u2018Better Call Saul\u2019 that I wanted to work with her again after it was over.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he set out to create a story where she was No. 1 on the call sheet.<\/p>\n
How did Seehorn process that news? <\/p>\n
\u201cI just cried,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not, as some may have hoped, a Kim Wexler spinoff \u2014 though, she\u2019s still open to that: \u201cI\u2019ll do it. I\u2019ll do it. Anything. A series. A film. A Staples commercial,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Apple TV\u2019s \u201cPluribus.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Apple TV)<\/p>\n
\u201cPluribus\u201d has been a tightly-guarded project for Apple TV with a strict embargo on details that makes it difficult to provide a lot of context to its premise. Here\u2019s what can be said: Seehorn plays Carol, a fantasy romance author who, despite a successful career and seemingly loving relationship with her partner, is described as \u201cthe most miserable person on Earth.\u201d After a signal from space changes the world in a significant way, she must save humankind from happiness. The nine-episode drama premieres with two episodes on Nov. 7; new episodes will be released weekly after that. <\/p>\n
For a while, Seehorn only had the first script to make her assessments about the world Gilligan was building. She eventually got her hands on two more before 2023\u2019s dual Hollywood strikes kicked in. When she finished reading through them, one thought came to mind: \u201c\u2018Wow, this is a lot of me,\u2019\u201d she says, launching into laughter. \u201cHe had warned me \u2014 \u2018You\u2019re going to be in almost every scene\u2019 \u2014 but then you read it and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh … oh.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Careful to be as vague as possible, she continues: \u201cI can\u2019t spoil it. There\u2019s a lot of time I spend completely on my own. I\u2019m not giving away anything am I? Make sure I\u2019m not!\u201d Aside from the way she has to be coy about the series, she\u2019s appealingly unguarded in her enthusiasm for the journey it sent her on as an actor.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Better Call Saul\u2019 was its own animal, but it had the mothership,\u201d she says. \u201cWith this, in our conversations, it felt like Vince wanted to push things to the limit \u2014 it\u2019s genre-defying, tone-defying. It\u2019s hilarious and then gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It\u2019s scary in a variety of ways. It really makes you think: What would you do in this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeking to playfully lean into the show\u2019s interest in exploring happiness and the human condition, in scheduling our meet-up I asked that Seehorn pick a location that makes her happy, which led us to this bookstore near her home. \u201cI buy books constantly,\u201d she says. Her most recent purchase was Rachel Kushner\u2019s spy thriller \u201cCreation Lake.\u201d But lately, she\u2019s been prioritizing William T. Harper\u2019s book, \u201cEleven Days in Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas,\u201d which chronicles the true story of the standoff between inmates and law enforcement. At the time of this sit-down, Seehorn is days away from beginning production in Texas on a film adaptation of the book that will also star Taylor Kitsch and Diego Luna. <\/p>\n
She lights up as the conversation veers into the stuff she watched to unwind while shooting \u201cPluribus\u201d: \u201cI\u2019m obsessed with \u2018Chicken Shop Date,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cDo you watch? Can we please use this article to get me on that show? This is my campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rhea Seehorn, who stars in the new Apple TV series \u201cPluribus,\u201d says the show is genre-defying: \u201cIt\u2019s hilarious and then gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It\u2019s scary in a variety of ways. It really makes you think: What would you do in this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n
(Anthony Avellano \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
She wrapped production on \u201cPluribus\u201d last December. Since then, she\u2018s shot an indie film, \u201cSender,\u201d with \u201cSeverance\u2019s\u201d Britt Lower, had a brief family vacation and helped the eldest of her two stepsons get settled in for his first year of college. They\u2019re the kind of life moments, she says, that feed into those big questions discussed earlier and what the show confronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about this reckoning \u2014 a big exploration of who you are. It got me thinking about how we handle really difficult emotions,\u201d Seehorn says. \u201cThere was a constant through line for me about this feeling of anxiety that we all know. When we have those nightmares where you\u2019re running around telling everyone that the barn is on fire and they all keep saying, \u2018It\u2019s fine.\u2019 And you\u2019re screaming that it\u2019s not. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou find yourself thinking, how do I measure success?\u201d she continues. \u201cAbout everything \u2014 relationships, career, talent, ambition. There\u2019s reasons we make armor, sometimes long-term, sometimes short-term. There are choices that are survival skills, that are good for you at one time, that later are no longer the crutches and tools they used to be. The performance Carol is giving at the beginning \u2014 where she hates the life she\u2019s living and questions the people who like her work because it\u2019s not impressive enough \u2014 Vince and I had some deep-dive talks about that as people in the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the philosophy of self and purpose and happiness was not something Seehorn considered much while growing up. Deborah Rhea Seehorn \u2014 she went by Debbie until her early teens \u2014 was born in Norfolk, Va., but spent her childhood in places like Arizona and Japan because of her father\u2019s job as an agent for the Naval Investigative Service, later known as NCIS when it added \u201cCriminal\u201d to its name. \u201cMy dad was not Mark Harmon,\u201d she jokes. After her parents divorced when she was 12, the family stayed in the Virginia Beach area. <\/p>\n
On paper, Seehorn wasn\u2019t primed for a life of acting. But she felt a creative pull: Her mother did musical theater in high school; her father and paternal grandmother painted. And Seehorn and her sister began sketching from a young age. Seehorn initially had ambitions of pursuing a career in design or art \u2014 she majored in painting while a student at George Mason University. She thought maybe she\u2019d land a job doing exhibition design or art restoration at the Smithsonian or one of the other museums around town. But when she was required to take an elective course her freshman year, she saw an opportunity to try something that otherwise felt out of reach to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, at least to me, American television and film had people who looked like models,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t. I thought I would get made fun of mercilessly if I said I wanted to be an actor. It felt the same as saying I wanted to be a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the first class I took, that acting was it for me.\u201d <\/p>\n
It was taught by Lynnie Raybuck, a teacher and actor who remains a mentor to Seehorn. This is where \u2014 in life and in this conversation \u2014 it becomes clear Seehorn revels in the technique of acting. She grows animated referencing Practical Aesthetics, the acting technique developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy for the Atlantic Theater Company, and detailing her fondness for in-depth script analysis. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it blew my mind the first time I realized that it isn\u2019t magic fairy dust on some people \u2014 that they\u2019re just talented and you\u2019re not,\u201d she says. \u201cThat there is a way to work toward that. As soon as somebody said there was a way to study that and there was a way to get closer and closer to inviting that audience in to go with you on a journey and make it believable, I just was like, \u2018Well, this is what I\u2019m doing for a living.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rhea Seehorn starred as Kim Wexler opposite Bob Odenkirk\u2019s Saul Goodman\/Jimmy McGill in \u201cBetter Call Saul.\u201d (Greg Lewis\/AMC\/Sony Pictures Television) <\/p>\n
She knew it wouldn\u2019t pay the bills right away. She ushered, worked the box office, read stage directions for new plays \u2014 she had days jobs, too, like working at TGI Fridays \u2014 \u201cBy the way, they just offered me suspenders since I never got them.\u201d (She was underage and unable to serve alcohol at the time, so she was a hostess who did expo for the waiters.)<\/p>\n
She eventually landed in New York, working at Playwright Horizons, an off-Broadway theater. After a few years, the pull of L.A. led her west. She was cast in the ABC sitcom \u201cI\u2019m With Her,\u201d starring Teri Polo and loosely based on writer Chris Henchy\u2019s marriage to Brooke Shields. It didn\u2019t last long, but other roles would come along with varying degrees of steadiness. She had a recurring role as an assistant DA in the legal dramedy \u201cFranklin & Bash\u201d and played the best friend of Whitney Cummings\u2019 fictionalized version of herself in NBC\u2019s \u201cWhitney,\u201d which ran for two seasons from 2011 to 2013.<\/p>\n
Then, as \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d was coming together, the casting directors working on the project were familiar with Seehorn, who had auditioned for them many times over the years, and what she could deliver. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I met her was for the producer sessions and there were three actresses who were reading for Kim with me,\u201d Odenkirk says by phone. \u201cThe other two actresses were absolutely fantastic. But Rhea and I had chemistry, and we all knew it. We all felt it. It was undeniable and it was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was cast as Kim, before a last name was even assigned to the character, and with no inkling for how essential she would become to the story. And it quickly becomes clear how she dissects her characters. (Both Odenkirk and Gilligan, without prompting, say that her scripts were often heavily marked up with scribbled notes, highlights and tabs.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI only have one line of dialogue in that first episode, other than the intercom,\u201d Seehorn says, still able to recite it by memory. \u201cThey told me later it wasn\u2019t on purpose that I have almost no contractions in the first couple of episodes and other people do. And I was like, should I ask them if it\u2019s OK to elide \u2018want to\u2019 to \u2018wanna\u2019 or \u2018do not\u2019 to \u2018don\u2019t.\u2019 But then I was like, \u2018No! What if I just try to figure out who talks like this?\u2019 It started to be this thing of \u2018Who is this controlled person? And why would she be this controlled?\u2019 She became so important to me because I had largely built her out of subtext and this private part of her that mostly the audience was my biggest confidant.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rhea Seehorn on starting her acting career: \u201cI thought I would get made fun of mercilessly if I said I wanted to be an actor. It felt the same as saying I wanted to be a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the first class I took, that acting was it for me.\u201d (Anthony Avellano\/For The Times) <\/p>\n
Odenkirk admiringly references Seehorn\u2019s level of attention and their shared approach in defending the emotional intelligence of their characters. He notes the predicament the \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d writers sometimes faced in placing Jimmy\/Saul and Kim, who knew each other so well, in dramatic situations that ordinarily would require more obliviousness or willing unawareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Kim and Jimmy were together, there were times \u2014 not many, but a few \u2014 where one of them was lying to the other one,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it was always a challenge. We\u2019d be like, \u2018Saul knows he\u2019s being lied to\u2019 or \u2018Kim knows Saul is lying.\u2019 And we\u2019d have to find a way around it. Or we\u2019d have to let go \u2014 she\u2019s [Rhea] good at that too … I just love her seriousness of purpose. And her love for losing herself in the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why he\u2019s not surprised Gilligan wanted her to lead his next series.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is formidable in nature,\u201d Odenkirk says. \u201cHer strength on screen is great, her dynamic range is incredible. She has the strength of character of a leading man \u2014 I\u2019m just going to say it. She has the backbone and the steely determination of a leading man.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, when the idea for \u201cPluribus\u201d began tugging at Gilligan years ago, in the midst of \u201cBetter Call Saul,\u201d he initially envisioned it having a male protagonist. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I would take these long walks during our lunch breaks in the writers room and, I can\u2019t remember when exactly, but it dawned on me on one of those walks that I really like this young lady, Rhea Seehorn,\u201d he says. \u201cShe\u2019s a really good actor. And I started thinking, \u2018Why does the main character of my next show have to be a guy? \u2018 I was about to say I kind of tailored the role to Rhea, but the truth is, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true. Rhea has so many strengths as an actor, I know she can do anything I threw at her \u2014 just like I knew many years before that Bryan Cranston could do anything. She makes it look easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Seehorn and I speak again a few weeks after our initial meeting, she is video-calling from a nondescript room during a break from production on \u201cEleven Days.\u201d She has already fiddled through a number of jigsaw puzzles and \u201cPaint by Numbers\u201d \u2014 her activities of choice when she needs to turn down her actor brain \u2014 in the time since we last spoke; she reaches for the painting of plants she recently completed as proof. We eventually return to the idea of happiness. What makes her happy right now?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my family and my friends, but it\u2019s also my work,\u201d she says. \u201cCarol, on paper, has many of the things that I want, that many of us want. Success at work, especially in a career in the arts. But she won\u2019t believe the hype. Her mocking of her work and her fans is just a mocking of herself. It\u2019s self-loathing \u2014 like she\u2019s trying to beat people to the punch.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I realized I fully own and will not be embarrassed about the fact that a third leg on that stool for my happiness is my work,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt is intrinsically a part of who I am and I am a better mom to my stepsons and a better partner to my fiance because I get to do what I love.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she\u2019s finding new ways to do more of it. She has become an executive producer on Katja Meier\u2019s Swiss TV show \u201c$hare\u201d and made her episodic directorial debut with \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d \u2014 \u201cI would like to try to direct again. There\u2019s a couple of projects and people I\u2019m talking to about directing on their show. People are like, \u2018Why didn\u2019t you direct the first season [of \u2018Pluribus\u2019]?\u2019 I\u2019m like,\u2019I was trying to remember to brush my teeth with all I had going on.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
She references the children\u2019s book \u201cArchibald\u2019s Next Big Thing,\u201d written by actor Tony Hale, whom she shared screen time with on \u201cVeep.\u201d It\u2019s about embracing the journey you\u2019re on. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re constantly moving your goal post and all it is doing is just s\u2014 on yourself and where you are now,\u201d she says. \u201cCarol missed things until they were taken away. She could have stopped judging everything and judging herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a reminder to embrace the freedom to think outside the box with her performance. The first episode is a high-wire balancing act; at one point, there\u2019s a 12-minute stretch that has her character twisting through confusion, fear, grief, anger and frustration like pretzel dough being looped into a knot \u2014 on her own, yet not alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything made me nervous about Carol,\u201d she says. \u201cAs soon as Vince sent me the script, I was like, \u2018This is bananas.\u2019 You\u2019re on your way to work and you just think, \u2018What if I just took this off-ramp and I fled the scene and it would be all over?\u2019 But then you\u2019re like, \u2018You know what, I\u2019m gonna show up and do my best. Believe me, I did some takes that I\u2019m sure were embarrassing, but I was just like, \u2018When else are you going to try? The time is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, she says, \u201cDon\u2019t be a Carol.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWho are you really? What is real happiness? What do you actually need for happiness?\u201d Rhea Seehorn murmurs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16539,787,68265,146,68260,10138,85,46,68262,1266,68266,68259,68263,5458,68261,789,68264,762],"class_list":{"0":"post-104019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-actor","9":"tag-art","10":"tag-early-life","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gilligan","13":"tag-happiness","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-next-show","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-pluribus","19":"tag-query-seehorn","20":"tag-rhea-seehorn","21":"tag-series","22":"tag-significant-way","23":"tag-story","24":"tag-successful-career","25":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}