James Marsden<\/a> swaggers into the Season 2 premiere of \u201cYour Friends & Neighbors\u201d as Owen Ashe, a cocky, charming and unfathomably rich bachelor. He swerves his blue McLaren directly into the drama of Westmont Village, throwing an ostentatious party and cozying up to the beleaguered Andrew \u201cCoop\u201d Cooper (Jon Hamm) and Samantha (Olivia Munn).<\/p>\n\n\tThe premiere picks up some time after the end of Season 1, which saw Coop exonerated and reunited with his family after he was accused of murdering Sam\u2019s husband. Sam was able to plead her case down to a few misdemeanors, but she\u2019s still a pariah among the Westmont social circles. Hoping to get a fresh start as a realtor, she meets Ashe as the listing agent of her own home.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile Ashe is a stranger to the country club elite of this fictional New York suburb, Marsden has known his co-stars for a while. The role came to him via text messages from both Hamm and Munn.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe grew up in Oklahoma City, and she was friends with my sister, who went to the same high school,\u201d Marsden says of Munn. \u201cShe said, \u2018We\u2019d love to have you on Season 2. It\u2019s a fun role. Please say yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd while Marsden and Hamm had never worked together before, they regularly face off in a fantasy football league. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was intentionally a Hollywood fantasy football league, but it sort of became that over time,\u201d Marsden says. \u201cChris Evans asked me to join 10 or 12 years ago. It\u2019s not very public, though. It\u2019s like a secret league that we\u2019re all in, but it\u2019s pretty laid back. Not in any sort of Hollywood, entitled way. It\u2019s just a bunch of fun guys who happen to be in Marvel movies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tWhen you read the scripts for \u201cYour Friends & Neighbors,\u201d what were your first impressions of Owen Ashe?\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s always easier for me to play a character the further they are from who I am. There are characteristics I share with this guy, but mostly he\u2019s very high energy, high-net-worth, high swagger \u2014 someone who comes into town and shakes things up, disrupts everything going on in Westmont Village and catches the attention of the locals, and primarily the attention of Jon Hamm\u2019s character. So I got excited about playing something different from what I\u2019m used to.<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019ve met people in my life that this character reminded me of, so I tapped into that a little and drew some inspiration from those past experiences \u2014 and got to send them up in a playful way. But ultimately you just realize your duty is to service the story. He\u2019s a nice foil to Jon Hamm\u2019s character, and it\u2019s fun to blur the lines of whether these two are going to end up pals or lock horns at some point in the season.<\/p>\n
\t\tWhat are the subtle keys to playing a charming douchebag?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tYou can\u2019t go too far into douchey territory. You\u2019ve got to make the guy actually intelligent, actually charming. And I think unawareness is the big key \u2014 the more unaware someone is of how unsavory or self-satisfying they\u2019re being, the funnier it is. You need to make sure it\u2019s fun for the audience. You don\u2019t want to put them off or make them think, I just hate this guy. They have to see his charm and have fun watching him do the dance. Unawareness is really the key thing. These people aren\u2019t aware of how inappropriate they\u2019re being, or how arrogant it comes off when they talk about their cars, their money, their Italian clothes. Leaning into the humor of that, playing a character that can be laughed at, is what makes it fun.<\/p>\n
\t\tWhy is he so drawn to Samantha?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHe\u2019s smart enough to recognize the, um, bullshit. (I\u2019m looking around because my youngest son is nearby.) He\u2019s a smart guy, and he sees right through everybody. He can see the people fawning over him because he\u2019s wealthy, and he can pick them apart. He can see if someone is putting on a facade. So, when he sees Sam, he\u2019s curious about why she\u2019s been ostracized from the social cliques in Westmont Village. From the get-go, he can see she\u2019s a straight shooter \u2014 very direct, unapologetic about her past, not trying to hide anything. She just says, \u201cYeah, my husband killed himself, and I was arrested.\u201d And I think he\u2019s fascinated by that. With Sam, he sees transparency, honesty and directness, and that\u2019s attractive to him.<\/p>\n
\t\tHe also has this instant connection with Coop. Does Ashe know more about them and about the community he\u2019s just joined than he\u2019s letting on?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI don\u2019t think he knows anything specific about Coop\u2019s history or Olivia\u2019s history, or any of them. He\u2019s moved to this town to start a new life, maybe calm it down a bit with his daughter. And the biggest weapon in his arsenal is spending money and throwing big parties \u2014 that\u2019s his way of introducing himself to the community. But he\u2019s also probably hiding some darker details. A lot of people like to talk about themselves, but Owen is someone who likes to ask questions about other people, and maybe that\u2019s his way of keeping the attention off of himself. What he does for a living might be legitimate, or it could be a little shady \u2014 maybe he\u2019s got money in offshore accounts. He\u2019s a shifty guy, so I think he\u2019s moved to Westmont for some reason.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut I do think there\u2019s a lot of good in him. There\u2019s a kid in him: He\u2019s very unfiltered and excited about what\u2019s next. He\u2019s enthusiastically interested in what these people\u2019s lives are like and who they really are. He\u2019s drawn to Coop because he\u2019s another one who\u2019s direct and doesn\u2019t mince words. But Owen is good at reading people, and when he looks at Coop he sees someone who isn\u2019t showing his hand fully \u2014 and that\u2019s always a mark of intelligence to Owen. Like, OK, what\u2019s this guy\u2019s secret?<\/p>\n
\t\tDoes he see himself in Coop?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHe does. He even says, \u201cWe\u2019re two bachelors living in this town together.\u201d He likes guys who paint outside the lines. He sees that Coop has a tendency to ride a little closer to the edge than most people do, and that\u2019s something that resonates with him. For Owen, things have to be exciting, and if it gets dull or boring, he moves on. He sees that in Coop as well.<\/p>\n
\t\tI imagine that party sequence was shot over several days. Is it unusual to be in that mode for so long?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s not as fun as it looks, I\u2019ll say that. But it\u2019s not a terrible time. We\u2019re there, and it\u2019s this beautiful estate and music is playing. You\u2019re not drinking real champagne, and you\u2019re in the pool for four hours, when in the show you\u2019re in the pool for 25 seconds. That gets to be a drag. You go, This is what I do for a living. I\u2019m in a tuxedo in this pool at 4 a.m. \u2014 because it\u2019s a night shoot, so you\u2019re shooting until sunrise. It\u2019s good socially. In between takes you can hang with a bunch of people and chit chat. It does start to grind away at you as you do it for 12 hours. How many times am I going to have to dance on the dance floor? How many times am I going to have to jump into the pool with my suit on? It\u2019s not ever as fun as it looks.<\/p>\n
\t\t\u201cJury Duty\u201d is back with \u201cCompany Retreat.\u201d Do you have ideas for a potential third season?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are other minds that work on that. But if it were me, I think it\u2019d be fun to do a tech start-up. But it\u2019s got to be a place where you can\u2019t have your phones. Maybe a crazy Hollywood party or a weekend masquerade party where no phones are allowed.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains spoilers for the season premiere of \u201cYour Friends & Neighbors,\u201d now streaming on Apple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,79291,111,139,69,437,190576],"class_list":{"0":"post-363746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-james-marsden","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-your-friends-and-neighbors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}