Latest news with #TV+'
Buzz Feed
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Critics Thoughts On Alexander Skårsgard's New Comedy
If you're looking for something completely different to stream this weekend, it sounds like Apple TV+'s new dystopian comedy Murderbot might be just thing. Apple Starring Alexander Skårsgard as the titular android, the show launched with its first two episodes on Friday, and is already boasting a near-perfect critical score of 98% on the reviews aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Curious as to exactly what critics are saying about the timely new series? Take a closer look below... NPR ' Murderbot has managed the impossible. It's found a way to take the oldest, most tired, most overused premise in all of science-fiction – 'What does it mean … to be human?' – and mine it for comedy gold. So, yeah. Murderbot is the best comedy series I've seen this year and I'm gonna be shouting that from the rooftops.' The Telegraph (4/5) 'But despite having all the trappings of yet another dystopian sci-fi series – a genre at which Apple excels – Murderbot quickly proves the shiny, happy opposite. This winning dose of cosy escapism will warm the cockles of any heart, artificial or otherwise.' Radio Times (4/5) '[A] killer adaptation… while this isn't Apple TV+'s first foray into space, action or comedy, this is the first time the platform has gone into a story that blends all three together. With that unique combination, along with the novella's signature premise, the execution of bringing Wells's Murderbot to life has resulted in something rather special.' The Independent (3/5) 'Skarsgård's ability to pair his chiselled, leading-man good looks with a very goofy sense of humour (recently utilised to good effect in Succession) makes Murderbot an enjoyable, lightweight watch. It might not grapple with the big philosophical questions of the present day, but it might give you a – brief – respite from thinking about the coming AI apocalypse.' 'This is one I can definitely recommend, mostly because I enjoyed Skarsgard and his narration and internal dialogue so much.' 'The show is more of a comedy with periodic moments of action, suspense, and pathos. For the most part, the shift in tone and genre works because of Skarsgård [...] His delivery of the voiceover narration is both funny and surprisingly sweet at times.' Apple Paste 'The series is one part sci-fi adventure, one part workplace comedy, and one part snarky excavation of the nature of free will, all interspersed with some truly hilarious snippets from a futuristic space soap opera. (Yes, really.) It is both genuinely funny and surprisingly moving, a sharp-eyed social commentary, and a meditation on the role of both technology and connection in broader society (in every definition of the word). And most of all? It's so much fun.' The Guardian (3/5) 'Though the pacing improves and the characters' interactions become more meaningful as the series goes on, when 'stupid fucking humans' remains the bulk of the commentary and 'I don't have a stomach so I can't throw up but if I did, I would' are a representative sample of humour, it feels like a wasted opportunity.' Empire (3/5) ' Murderbot often seems undecided about what it wants to be. With its short episodes — around 25 minutes — and workplace-comedy set-up, it primes you to expect a sitcom, but it doesn't have sitcom rhythms or structure. It's plot-light and its comedy is less in jokes than Murderbot 's observations of humanity. It is, by its nature, largely about just watching people exist, in their myriad peculiar ways.' 'Skarsgard makes Murderbot a success, even if some readers will lament that he isn't the Murderbot they extrapolated from the page.'
Japan Today
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
What to Stream: 'Paddington in Peru,' Prince Royce, 'Mormon Wives' and Doom: The Dark Ages
Paddington bear going on an Indiana Jones-style adventure in 'Paddington in Peru' and Alexander Skarsgard playing a robot with free will in Apple TV+'s series 'Murderbot' are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time, as selected by The Associated Press' entertainment journalists: The Dominican-American singer Prince Royce covers hit songs on 'Eterno,' the surprise Bravo hit 'Mormon Wives' returns for Season 2 and there's a new gaming chapter in the groundbreaking Doom series, Doom: The Dark Ages. — Brady Corbet's epic 'The Brutalist' is finally making its way to Max on Friday, May 16. The three-and-a-half-hour postwar saga won Adrien Brody the best actor Oscar earlier this year for his portrayal of László Tóth, a fictional architect and Holocaust survivor who attempts to build a new life in America. It was also awarded the best score (Daniel Blumberg) and best cinematography prizes. Director of photography Lol Crawley shot in VistaVision, a 70-year-old format famously utilized in films like 'Vertigo' and 'North by Northwest.' In her review, AP's Jocelyn Noveck wrote, 'It's about the immigrant experience, and it's about what happens when the American dream beckons, then fails. It also explores a different dream: the artist's dream, and what happens when it meets opposing forces, be they geographic displacement or cold economic calculus.' — Paddington bear and the Brown family go on an Indiana Jones-style adventure in 'Paddington in Peru,' streaming on Netflix on Thursday. This third installment in the charming series has a few changes from its predecessors — in the filmmaker (Dougal Wilson taking over for Paul King) and Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer subbing in for Sally Hawkins). In his review, AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote that Wilson 'can't quite summon the same comic spirit' as King, but added that 'bright and buoyant, will do. If some of King's Wes Anderson-inspired pop-up book designs and skill with fine character actors is missing, the bedrock earnestness and unflaggingly good manners of its ursine protagonist remain charmingly unaltered.' — In March 1988, the students of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. staged a historic protest over the appointment of a hearing president instead of one who was deaf. 'Deaf President Now!,' a documentary streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday, May 16, chronicles that moment and examines its broader impact, like how it helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act. The film's visuals and soundscape were also designed to bring audiences into the Deaf experience. — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr — Somehow, some way it has been 25 years since Britney Spears first put on a red latex catsuit and sang 'Oops!... I Did It Again' through her singular breathy tone, the title track of her sophomore album. Across the album – which includes other hits 'Lucky' and 'Stronger' – she ushered in new millennium as a zeitgeist-shaping pop superstar. Her influence in the decades that followed is unimpeachable, and on Friday, Sony will release a 25th anniversary edition of the record, complete with bonus tracks. — Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter Lido Pimienta returns with an ambitious new album, 'La Belleza.' It arrives five years after her breakout 'Miss Colombia,' and features the inventive artist veering into new, classical influences while maintaining her interest in Afro-Indigenous polyrhythms; the record was co-orchestrated with skilled arranger Owen Pallett. It's a step up for an artist whose embrace of the past has always placed her squarely in the future. — The Dominican American singer Prince Royce covers hit songs on 'Eterno' – offering Spanglish, bachata-infused reimaginations of tracks like 'Killing Me Softly' as made famous by Roberta Flack, the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' Elvis Presley's 'Can't Help Falling In Love,' The Temptations' 'My Girl' and more. — Music Writer Maria Sherman — With shows like 'The Kardashians,' 'Vanderpump Villa' and 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," Hulu is building a roster of reality TV that's quite Bravo-esq. 'Mormon Wives' was a surprise hit when it debuted last year. It's back for a second season on Thursday. The show follows the drama among a group of Mormon women living in the Salt Lake City area who have built a following on TikTok. They call their group of friends MomTok. — After scoring big with 'The Pitt,' Max is looking to keep the momentum going with 'Duster." Co-created by JJ Abrams, the show stars Josh Holloway of 'Lost' as a getaway driver in the '70s who gets flipped by a rookie FBI agent, played by Rachel Hilson. Holloway has described the show as a throwback to when TV was less dark and more fun. It also has a groovy soundtrack. 'Duster' premieres Thursday. — 'The Chi,' a drama about a young Black community living in Chicago's South Side returns Friday. Critics and fans have praised its portrayal of life as a Black person growing up in a rough neighborhood faced with systematic racism, violence, incarceration, and poverty. Kyla Pratt — known for playing the daughter of Eddie Murphy's character in the 'Dr. Dolittle' films and as the voice of Penny in 'The Proud Family' — joins the cast for season seven. The Chi' streams on Paramount+ with Showtime. — We've seen Alexander Skarsgård as a tech bro on 'Succession' and an abusive husband on 'Big Little Lies.' Next, we get to see his comedic chops as a robot who gains free will in 'Murderbot' for Apple TV+. Premiering Friday, May 16, the show is based on a book series. — Stanley Tucci is once again roaming through Italy. The Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning actor eats and meets in National Geographic's new food-travel series 'Tucci in Italy,' which premieres Sunday, May 18 and streams on Disney+ and Hulu the next day. Each episode of the first season of 'Tucci in Italy' explores a different region in Italy — from Tuscany to Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardy, Abruzzo and Lazio. CNN canceled his 'Searching for Italy' in 2022. — Alicia Rancilio — If you like your games big, noisy and unabashedly gory, id Software's groundbreaking Doom series is hard to beat. Doom: The Dark Ages, the new chapter from publisher Bethesda Softworks, takes the demon-hunting space marine — now known as the Doom Slayer — back in time, sort of. His bosses have hauled the big lug to a quasi-medieval planet that's riddled with hell portals and under siege by the most bloodthirsty monsters yet. The Slayer has his usual arsenal of spectacular weapons, including a 'saw shield' he can fling like a deadly Frisbee, and some levels let him saddle up on a cybernetic dragon. It's like a heavy metal album cover come to life, and it arrives Thursday on Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. — Lou Kesten © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘Your Friends & Neighbors' Star Jon Hamm Made a Broke Millionaire-Turned-Robber Relatable: ‘It's Like Robin Hood — Almost'
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the series premiere of 'Your Friends & Neighbors,' streaming now on Apple TV+. 'It was at moments like these … when I realized how far you could drift away from your own life, without actually going anywhere.' — Andrew 'Coop' Cooper More from Variety Jon Hamm Is Stellar in Apple TV+'s Superb Mid-Life Crisis Drama 'Your Friends & Neighbors': TV Review Tina Fey Asked Lorne Michaels if Jon Hamm Was 'a D--' Before She Cast Him in '30 Rock': 'Let Me Know if He's Funny' 'SNL' Sets Mikey Madison, Jack Black and Jon Hamm as Hosts And therein lies the life lesson of Coop, the uber-wealthy New York hedge fund manager played by Jon Hamm in Apple TV+'s 'Your Friends & Neighbors,' which premiered on April 11. At first glance, it's kinda hard to be sympathetic to Coop after he's fired from his high-profile job and has only six months of money socked away in which to maintain the lavish lifestyle his family is accustomed to. Boo hoo, right? The good news is that Coop quickly discovers a way to continue to bring in the big bucks with no one being the wiser to his unfortunate turn of luck. The bad news: That 'way' could result in trading his mansion for a 6-by-8 prison cell. If you get caught, grand larceny doesn't pay well. 'It's like Robin Hood — almost. Except for one pretty glaring part of it: He doesn't really give to the poor,' Hamm says of Coop, who finds a hefty profit by stealing high-price items from his super-rich friends and neighbors (thus the show title). 'I think there is a relatable aspect to Coop, for sure. Not everybody is worrying about how they're gonna pay their $300,000 mortgage or fix their $200,000 car. But other than the mathematics of scale, I think those are problems that people have.' From Coop's perspective, there are plenty of 'assholes' in the neighborhood with mansions 'filled with expensive shit' that would never be missed and that no one, including the police, would ever suspect a guy like him as the perp. 'The lie he's telling himself is that he needs to feed his family, but there's 'feeding your family' and then there's 'keeping your family in their 10,000-square foot home,'' says show creator Jonathan Tropper. 'But he's not prepared to admit defeat, and be shamed in front of this community. He's not prepared for anyone to know [that he was fired]. He can no longer pay these bills, and he's not prepared to give up the consumerism and the striving that he's been raised on. And so it's gonna be a journey for him to understand that what these robberies really are both, in a sense, keeping up with the Joneses and also lashing out at the system that failed him.' Coop's inner monologue is effectively woven into the episodes, in which the troubled character explains what he is doing, why he is doing it and what he really thinks about himself. Almost like what Coop would say to a therapist after years on the couch. Tropper says he wanted Coop to own the series' point of view, and the voiceovers were the way to make that happen. 'I thought it's a fun reverse anachronism to have a kind of '60s noirish voiceover in a very contemporary show,' Tropper says. 'What's really interesting to me — and the reason I think those voiceovers work — is no matter what you're watching on screen, you're hearing from the person from a different vantage point. You're hearing from much calmer, detached person than the person who's going through it at the moment.' Tropper adds that using the voiceovers as a device allowed him to 'lock in the tone of the show to an extent.' They illustrate the contrast between the self-destructive, risky things we see the character doing on screen, and when he's reflecting on them later: 'Coop is in your ear making a kind of ironic observation about life.' Hamm thinks of it as Coop stepping back and observing his life from the outside. 'In some way, he sort of disassociates from himself, or the version he used to think of himself, maybe that's establishing another better version of himself. Maybe that's how we grow. But he's at least self-aware enough to observe that he is adrift.' Although his robbing from the rich and, well, keeping it for himself does serve a financial purpose, is there something else behind it that, maybe, Coop enjoys the challenge, the danger? 'I don't know if I wanna put a name to it, and I don't think it's necessarily the danger,' Hamm says. 'I think it's more of the absurdity of the amount of wealth that is accrued in this community that gives him some bizarre pleasure to relieve people of some of that.' Tropper interjects: 'It's very easy to get lost in the trappings of the sexy plot device of the show, which is a hedge fund manager robbing houses. But to me what this show is really about is about a family. It's about the dissolution of a family, and it's about a man who hasn't come to terms with the grief of the dissolution of his family. 'Before he got fired [from his job], he got fired from his marriage — he lost his wife,' Tropper continues. 'And it still hasn't occurred to him that that happened because he took his eye off the ball. He was focusing on the wrong things. And to me, the real danger in acquiring wealth is there's nothing evil about wealth, per se: The danger is the amount of time and effort you spend acquiring it. It becomes consuming, and you're putting your energy into that instead of your family and your marriage and things that will actually mean a lot more to you down the road.' But, as Coop comes to find out, when you take a bite out of the criminal world, it bites you back. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
BBC News
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Studio: Why you need to watch this 'spot-on', star-studded takedown of modern Hollywood
Launching on Apple TV+, a new film industry satire co-created by and starring Seth Rogen nails the business – and features Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron and others as themselves. A film studio head and his team of senior executives eagerly take their seats in a private screening room to watch the new Ron Howard movie for the first time. This is work for them, but they're also beside themselves with anticipation. "I am so excited about watching this film!" says the boss. It's going to be "perfect". Many critics have responded similarly to the series featuring this scene, Apple TV+'s film industry satire The Studio, which has generated major buzz before it even begins this week. One reviewer has called it "2025's best new show to date". Another said it was "the most entertaining and spot-on depiction of Hollywood since Robert Altman's The Player", hailing its "stellar scripts and an ensemble of actors who are having an utter blast". Yet another praises it as "a love letter to the art of filmmaking". The 10-part comedy stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, the beleaguered head of a struggling film studio whose efforts to balance commercial viability with artistic integrity invariably cause problems. The Studio is sharp, funny, stylishly filmed and Rogen is a major draw in his own right, but another reason for the excitement surrounding the show is its extraordinary array of Hollywood A-listers playing themselves. They include, among others, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Adam Scott, Olivia Wilde, Zoë Kravitz, Anthony Mackie, Charlize Theron, Steve Buscemi, Ice Cube, Zac Efron and Dave Franco. Evan Goldberg, who co-created, co-directed and co-wrote the series with his childhood friend and long-time creative partner Rogen, says in the production notes for the show that, except for two who remain nameless, every actor or director they approached to play themselves was up for it: "People's only real question was, 'What's my joke?' 'What do I get to do?'." The stars taking part do have some excellent jokes and several of these big names are sending themselves up mercilessly. If there was an Emmy for "best sport", Kravitz would be a shoo-in for her antics in one episode when she accidentally gets high on drugs. The hero's dilemma Rogen's Remick is an executive who has worked at the fictional Continental Studios for 22 years. He's a movie nerd; the sort of cinephile who will bend your ear about the incredible funeral shot in 1960s political epic Soy Cuba or wax lyrical about the "magical" properties of real film stock. He relaxes by watching Goodfellas for the millionth time. He yearns to make the next Annie Hall or Rosemary's Baby. He loves being around actors and directors and is desperate for their approval but as a studio guy – a suit, a bean-counter – the creatives only ever want to keep him at arm's length. Instead of hanging out with Hollywood's coolest, he has to take meetings with the Rubik's Cube people and the Jenga people because Continental is focused on making trashy popcorn movies with "known brands". When the Continental head is fired after a string of box office bombs, the unpredictable CEO, Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston), selects Matt to replace her. Mill has secured the movie rights to Kool-Aid, the soft-drink mix. He reasons that if a Barbie film can make a billion dollars for Warner Bros, Matt should be able to make money from a movie about the Kool Aid man, the drink's animated marketing mascot. Matt sets to work in the belief that prestige films and box office hits are not mutually exclusive but in a world where TikTok trends dictate film-making decisions, he's quickly forced to question that ideal. He has a major problem in that he can't square his admiration for cinema legends with the need to make hard-nosed business decisions. He can't bring himself to tell Ron Howard that the last act of his latest movie sucks. He can't break it to Martin Scorsese that the studio won't be making his script about cult leader Jim Jones. The Studio is actually exactly the sort of show that a movie nut like Matt would love watching. There are enough easter eggs and in-jokes to delight the most knowledgeable of film fans. For example, the episode about Olivia Wilde making a neo-noir detective film which one character says "sounds like a rip-off of Chinatown" features several references to the Roman Polanski classic. The instalment that revolves around director Sarah Polley's attempt to capture an elaborate "oner" – a long, single shot – is itself cleverly shot to look like one long take; indeed, much of the series is shot in long takes, giving it a fly-on-the-wall feel. Griffin Mill is also the name of the main character in another Hollywood satire, Robert Altman's aforementioned 1992 film The Player. The inspiration for the show It was while rewatching beloved TV series during lockdown that Rogen had the idea for a series similar in tone and style to the hit 90s sitcom The Larry Sanders Show, which was set behind the scenes of a late-night talk show, but about the film industry rather than television. Rogen and Goldberg and the rest of the writing team (Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez) drew on their own experiences in the business as fuel for the storylines. According to the production notes, key to Matt's character was Rogen and Goldberg's memory of a studio executive telling them: "I got into this business because I love movies, and now my job is to ruin them" – a line that has made it into the show almost unchanged. Another classic show Rogen rewatched during lockdown was The Sopranos. Matt Remick does not have a huge amount in common with mob boss Tony Soprano but they do share one thing – a fear that they've arrived at the party too late. In the opening episode of The Sopranos, Tony, who has been suffering from panic attacks, tells his therapist of his "work": "Lately, I've been feeling that I came in at the end. That the best is over." Similarly Matt worries that the golden age of cinema has passed. In episode one, he tells the boss he's replaced, Patty (Catherine O'Hara): "I'm anxious, I'm stressed out, panicking pretty much all the time." The Continental office was built as a temple to cinema but, says Matt, "it feels much more like tomb". Matt's film-loving assistant Quinn (Chase Sui Wonders) thinks she's "30 years too late" to the industry. More like this:• 10 of the best TV shows to watch in March• This new WW2 TV drama is 'stunning'• How Snow White became 2025's most divisive film The decline of cinema in the form of the old-school film studios, as the streaming services become ever more successful, is an underlying theme throughout the series. There's a danger that Continental is going to be bought by Amazon. Ted Sarandos, the co-head of Netflix, has a cameo, stealing the limelight at an awards ceremony. An exasperated Scorsese wants Matt to give him back his script so he can go sell it to Apple "the way I should have done in the first place". Of course, the demise of Hollywood has been predicted almost since the first studio opened its doors. Legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht recalled walking around Hollywood in 1951 with David Selznick, the movie mogul who made Gone with the Wind, as Selznick insisted that movies were over and done with. "Hollywood's like Egypt," he told Hecht. "Full of crumbled pyramids. It'll never come back." And yet three quarters of a century later, it's still there. Several of The Studio's exterior scenes pointedly frame the iconic Hollywood sign in the background of the shot. Hecht had been lured to Hollywood from New York by his friend Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter of Citizen Kane, who telegraphed him to say: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots." The Studio leans into the notion that idiots are over-represented in Tinseltown. Matt's team – Quinn, studio exec Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), and marketing maven Maya Mason (Kathryn Hahn) – are all lovable dolts. Griffin Mill is a lunatic of the first order. But Hollywood has always been happy to poke fun at itself. Barton Fink (1991), The Player and Get Shorty (1995) are among the hits that have sent up Tinseltown. HBO's show Entourage satirised the industry and The Studio comes hard on the heels of another HBO series, The Franchise, about the making of a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style movie. However, The Franchise, although hilarious, was scathing and it was cancelled after just one season. It's difficult to know exactly why it failed to connect with a large enough audience although one reviewer found the show's "constant cynicism" very wearing. In contrast, The Studio is affectionate. It has us rooting for Matt and Continental and maybe even for film-making as an artistic endeavour. After all, as Patty tells Matt: "One week you're looking your idol in the eye and breaking his heart and the next week you're writing a blank cheque for some entitled nepo baby in a beanie. But when it all comes together, and you make a good movie… it's good forever." You could say the same for TV shows. The Studio begins on Apple TV+ on March 26 --
USA Today
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Who is Miss Huang? Meet the college freshman behind the eerily young 'Severance' character
Who is Miss Huang? Meet the college freshman behind the eerily young 'Severance' character "I kind of felt like I was severed in a way because I had so many different things to focus on, but it was all really fun," Sarah Bock says of balancing high school and filming "Severance." Show Caption Hide Caption Sarah Bock on her role as Miss Huang in 'Severance' Just 15 when she auditioned for Apple TV+'s "Severance," Sarah Bock is now a college student juggling work and school. When Sarah Bock first walked onto Northwestern University's campus last fall, she was just another freshman, excited for new classes and friends. But now, Bock finds herself being stopped more regularly by fans of her first true onscreen role. Bock, 18, is a theater and psychology major at Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. But she is better known for her role as Miss Huang in Season 2 of the Apple TV+ original series, "Severance." Directed by Ben Stiller and starring Adam Scott, "Severance" is the top streaming series on Apple TV+. The first season of the thriller debuted in 2022, and after a jaw-dropping cliffhanger, fans eagerly anticipated the release of its second in January. The season finale streams March 21, but fans said goodbye to the eerily rigid Miss Huang during this week's penultimate episode. More: When does the next episode of 'Severance' come out? Season 2 schedule, where to watch In the first episode this season, Miss Eustace Huang is the new deputy manager of the severed floor, taking over the role from Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who was promoted to floor manager. Despite her often-questioned young age, Miss Huang is quiet and follows the rules of Lumon Industries closely. 'It was fun to have this sort of unexpected young person down there," Stiller says. "She's just very inscrutable in the way that so many of the Lumon managerial people are.' Bock says she's enjoyed watching this season with friends and reflecting on memories that began more than three years ago. It all started with 'Winnie the Pooh' Bock says her first acting gig, at age 5, was a children's theater production of "Winnie the Pooh" in her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. What kept her coming back to the stage was the community and ability to convey important messages. "As I've gotten older, I've been able to recognize the power of it more, which makes me love it even more," she says. "I've started to learn more about the art that I respond to and want to create." Auditioning at 15, becoming a fan A common talking point for Bock's role is her age ― both in and out of character. In Miss Huang's opening scene, in which she introduces herself to members of the severed floor, Mark Wilkins (Bob Balaban), an employee at least 50 years her senior, asks, "Why are you a child?" To which Miss Huang famously replies, with absolutely no emotion, "Because of when I was born." She auditioned for "Severance" at 15, sending a self-shot tape in which she read through that first scene. About a month later, she hopped on a Zoom call with Stiller. A month after that, she flew to New York to read through a few scenes with Tillman. Miss Huang interacts mostly with Mr. Milchick throughout the season. Ahead of getting the role, Bock said she'd never watched an episode of the show, but her parents were fans. "I hadn't personally watched it, but I had walked into the back of the living room a couple times when they (parents) watched it and I was like, 'Oh, the guy from 'The Good Place' looks different. What is the show?'" Bock says, referring to star Adam Scott. "But the night I got the audition, I binged the entire first season in one sitting just because I got so invested and became a huge fan." By the time production began on Season 2, Bock was 16, and still in high school. Her scenes were mostly filmed at sound stages in the Bronx, with a seven-month hiatus due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. "It was a long, long time and obviously, there was a break in between, but I feel like even in the show you can kind of see I grew up a little bit," Bock says. "It's kind of crazy to watch." Initially, she continued her enrollment at a North Carolina public school system during filming, but eventually she transferred to a hybrid magnet school, which allowed her to take high-school classes online. She'd film for an hour or so and then squeeze in about 30 minutes of schoolwork before returning to the set. "I kind of felt like I was severed in a way because I had so many different things to focus on, but it was all really fun," Bock says. Getting into character Sitting in her college dorm room, Bock is cheerful and bubbly, in contrast to Miss Huang's persona. "I would hope that I'm pretty different from her," Bock says. "I definitely wouldn't be able to stare down John Turturro (Irving B.) or Tramell Tillman in the way Miss Huang does in the show." To get in the "Miss Huang headspace," Bock analyzed the performances of Tillman and Patricia Arquette (Harmony Cobel), who play strict upper management characters. She also listened to a Spotify playlist of "intense, dark songs" featuring the Theremin, an instrument she plays in a few episodes. The Miss Huang conspiracies A character introduced without warning and with little to no backstory has resulted in a whirlwind of Miss Huang conspiracies. Is she a clone? Is she the child of Mark and Gemma? Bock says she hears a theory that Miss Huang is a robot the most. "I'll get DMs from people just saying, 'You are a robot.' Nothing else," she said. By the ninth episode, Miss Huang's exit, fans still don't know much about the character. But they learn she's a student at the Myrtle Eagen School for Girls, the same cultish boarding school Harmony Cobel attended as a child. At the end of the episode, she's given a Jame Eagan bust, also given to Cobel many years earlier. She is then sent on her way, earmuffs and all, to start her next chapter with Lumon Industries. Balancing college finals, interviews with Jimmy Kimmel Bock spent her first semester at Northwestern University under the radar, making friends and soaking up the college experience before her face would be displayed on TVs across the world. Bock's social media features traditional group photos with her girlfriends, accompanied by "Severance" promotional media and then most recently, clips from an interview with Jimmy Kimmel earlier this month. "I kind of feel like Hannah Montana, the best of both worlds right now," Bock said, laughing. "I mean, today I had a final for one of my classes and then I came here and I'm doing some interviews." How to watch Season 2 of 'Severance' The Season 2 finale streams March 20 in the U.S. and globally on March 21. "Severance" is available for streaming on Apple TV+ with a paid subscription. Contributing: Gary Levin
