{"id":78743,"date":"2025-10-16T16:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78743\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T16:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:19:08","slug":"billy-crudup-on-cory-bradley-break-up-worst-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78743\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Crudup on Cory-Bradley Break Up, Worst Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from the fifth episode of The Morning Show<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, that didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter three seasons of will they-won\u2019t they tension between Billy Crudup<\/a> and Reese Witherspoon<\/a>\u2018s characters on The Morning Show, ousted CEO Cory Ellison (Crudup) and comeback anchor Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) finally, briefly got together.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut quickly after their kiss in episode three \u2014 in which they ended up in bed together \u2014 Bradley received information from an anonymous source tipping her off that Cory could be involved in the larger cover-up story she\u2019s investigating this season. In order to get to the truth, she peeks through Cory\u2019s phone while they\u2019re on a date, and eventually her suspicions bubble over into a scorched-earth confrontation, where Cory is so insulted by her accusations that he shuts the door on their finally blossoming romance by episode five\u2019s \u201cAmari.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, Crudup unpacks the tortured romance between Cory and Bradley \u2014 promising some version of resolution by the end of the season \u2014 and pulls back the layers to Cory\u2019s season four rebuild to reveal what makes him tick, what makes him combust and why his Stella (Greta Lee) betrayal is the thing that will end up haunting him for years to come.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tLast season ended with Cory on the outs, after he was booted<\/a> from the top office of what is now UBN. Were you worried about Cory\u2019s future on the show heading into season four?<\/p>\n

\n\tI confess, I was never worried about Cory! Cory is never worried about himself. The fascinating part was going to be how the writers were going to give him an opportunity to find his way back. I knew it was going to happen one way or another, and making him a Hollywood producer seemed like a more impossible task than somebody running news these days! But, how perfect for Cory to be stuck in yet again another den of vipers, and find his way back so he can settle the score? He does not like losing, so the notion that he would have left this opportunity of being CEO of UBA because he was outsmarted by somebody like Paul Marks [Jon Hamm] is intolerable. He imagines it psychologically as a single battle in a long war and that he has more stamina than anyone else, so he\u2019ll find his way back.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow fun was it getting to play a movie producer this season?<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, it was fantastic. They left the agonizing moments to minor vignettes \u2014 I\u2019m sure for movie producers it\u2019s quite the opposite, where most of the time is spent agonizing. But for our show, a lot is the glory with only minor moments of defeat. There is a moment when he talks to Alex Levy\u2019s [Jen Aniston] agent, played by the spectacular Will Arnett, that, for the first time since I\u2019ve been playing him, Cory wears his heart on his sleeve in a different way. The fact that the writers, producers and directors allow for a character to expand in such a creative way was novel to me. I found it exhilarating in ways I have not anticipated, so I was reading each script with surprise and delight.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt didn\u2019t take long for Cory and Reese Witherspoon\u2019s Bradley to get together this season. After three seasons of tension, Cory and Bradley kissed and ended up in bed together in episode three. Did you get a heads up ahead of time that this was finally happening?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo! When I read the script, I called my assistant who has helped me with all of Cory\u2019s lines for the seven years we\u2019ve been doing this, and we both gasped at the same moment that Cory and Bradley were going to so quickly and so unceremoniously, in a single scene, make something happen that\u2019s been burning for six years. I sort of blacked out after that single moment, but I think both of them did a fastidious job of keeping the boundaries up as best they could. <\/p>\n

\n\tThey knew there was something between them that was chemical as well as ideological. But there were corporate boundaries up that are part of the structure this series has been exploring, despite the fact that they had a friendship and that last season she had severely undercut him in a way he had not anticipated. But there was still that hierarchical boundary in place that Cory did not want to cross and that Bradley appreciated, and now he\u2019s not at the company anymore. They\u2019re all free agents, and it turns out that whatever chemistry was there before, it didn\u2019t take long to light the fire.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBilly Crudup with Reese Witherspoon on The Morning Show season four, while still in the throes of their short-lived romance.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was it like filming Cory and Bradley\u2019s first sex scene?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was all there on the page. I remember during the table read when the stage direction came that they kiss, and there was an audible gasp from Reese. A sigh of relief. Reese has a very good way of managing those situations. It took the pressure off for all of us, and it was something we all enjoyed in a way I hope the audience will enjoy.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, their relationship doesn\u2019t last very long.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, how could it possibly! (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy do you think Bradley so quickly began doubting Cory?<\/p>\n

\n\tAs much as they have in common, they have vastly different life experiences and Cory\u2019s way of managing his career is somewhat in opposition to the way Bradley thinks about herself and her career. They\u2019re after the same thing \u2014 a leveled playing field on truth \u2014 but the ways they go about successfully navigating that are wildly different and for Bradley, the draw to conclude that Cory\u2019s ornate way of handling hierarchy is that he\u2019s duplicitous and untrustworthy gives in almost immediately. She has a habit of not trusting her heart and not trusting her emotional instincts, so the instinct that kicked in most quickly was her protective on, and ultimately that\u2019s what disappoints Cory the most. Because for the first time probably in his adult life, he felt seen by another person in a way that feels humane, and to so quickly be undermined by someone he trusted breaks his heart.<\/p>\n

\n\tCory is so upset when Bradley confronts him this episode that he shuts her off completely. Why does this hurt him so badly?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe says it when he\u2019s like, \u201cYou used the opportunity that I was sharing something intimate with you to look through my phone while we were on a date.\u201d The phrasing of it is so juvenile, and it points to the ways Cory is immature, emotionally. That was an enormous breach of trust. But Cory responds in the way an adolescent might \u2014 how can you not see what an impossible problem what you\u2019ve just done is? And the way it came up was scorched earth. I couldn\u2019t see another way to do it, in playing Cory. It was the level of disappointment he was feeling over someone he had pined after for six years, because her ideological integrity was too difficult to manage.<\/p>\n

\n\tCory didn\u2019t do what she thinks he did. He does a lot of things, and he admits to most of them. So when he says he did not do something, particularly in this situation with someone he thinks he can be authentic with, he is saving the clarity of his ethical purity for these moments. There\u2019s no chance he would have done something to jeopardize the well being of a community because a chemical company wanted to make more money. There is every chance he\u2019s going to burn down a CEO because he takes advantage of his patriarchal inheritance, but not this. He\u2019s got an ethic, and it mostly has to do with supplanting the accepted patriarchal hierarchy. That\u2019s the thing that ruined his mom and he has made his life\u2019s mission to deconstruct as best he can from the inside. But when it comes to hurting people who are already oppressed, that is the opposite of Cory\u2019s idea of working in the corporate structure.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you think Bradley and Cory can be repaired at this point? And, do you think they should be? Are they good for each other?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think they are ultimately great for each other. I think they are probably 10 years out! I don\u2019t know if the show will run long enough for them to work (Laughs). They both need a lot of therapy and development, but I think they are phenomenal for each other and if they can both get on the other side of whatever is haunting them, they could be incredible catalysts for each other\u2019s rise.<\/p>\n

\n\tWill we get resolution about where they stand by the end of the season?<\/p>\n

\n\tNot resolution, but I think we\u2019ll find the potential that they could salvage some of their gratitude for each other.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCory (Crudup, right) betrays Stella to get in Celine Dumont\u2019s (Marion Cotillard<\/a>) good graces and back inside the halls of UBN.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere on the Cory ick scale would you rank him using Stella\u2019s (Greta Lee) affair with Celine\u2019s (Marion Cotilalrd) husband (Aaron Pierre) to get back into the company?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s his worst. Because Stella was really an ally. And this is interpersonal stuff that he knows full well is very complicated. He\u2019s got his back against the wall and having to have the conversation with Chip (Mark Duplass) where Chip has the upper hand on how to pivot his career is demoralizing in a way he didn\u2019t expect, and he acts out of selfish instinct, which is not his typical response. His instincts are typically selfish, but they\u2019re usually thoughtful. He tends to work the long road, and this is one where he acts instinctually. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe says to Celine, \u201cI didn\u2019t want to tell you.\u201d I think that\u2019s the truth. That he walked into that room and didn\u2019t want to tell her. The wreckage of that is something he\u2019s going to have to contend with in the future. That being said, one of Cory\u2019s favorite things is to play corporate games with the people who have decided to play corporate games. He doesn\u2019t do it with subordinates, but people who have decided to be a part of this corporate structure and work their way in a capitalist system, as far as he\u2019s concerned, are fair game. Stella was not that until she was, and then she became fair game. Even still, I think that is a thing he will look back on and regret profoundly.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the biggest media themes this season is tackling AI and deepfakes. How do you feel about how the industry and the people in the industry should be engaging with AI?<\/p>\n

\n\tLike everybody else \u2014 vastly unqualified to comment. The appearance of it is something we\u2019re all catching up to and I suppose if I had a valuable opinion on it I wouldn\u2019t be an actor. I\u2019d be a software engineer or a responsible government official who wanted to regulate a new technology that has the potential to alter the way we live in a social and economic way. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat do you think Cory will think about AI after this season?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019ll probably think he can outsmart it.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Morning Show releases new season four episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV. Read THR\u2019s episode five interview with Nicole Beharie<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from the fifth episode of The Morning Show.] Well, that didn\u2019t last long. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[55293,146,85,46,7987,46009,9718,10233,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-78743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-billy-crudup","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-jennifer-aniston","13":"tag-marion-cotillard","14":"tag-reese-witherspoon","15":"tag-the-morning-show","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78743","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=78743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}