New Apple TV+ show, Seth Rogen’s “The Studio” is already being called one of the best comedy series in years.
A love letter to Hollywood, the show follows the newly-appointed head of Continental Studios, Matt Remick (Rogen), as he and his team fight to navigate the ever-changing film industry in a bid to do one thing: make great movies.
Alongside Remick, there’s previous boss Patty (Emmy Award winner Catherine O’Hara) marketing head Maya (Kathryn Hahn), up and coming executive Quinn (Chase Sui Wonders) and the more experienced but far more reckless studio exec, Sal (Ike Barinholtz).
Barinholtz is a no stranger to working with Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg. As well as starring in the “Neighbors” franchise with Rogen, the 48-year-old actor also had a memorable lead role in 2018’s “Blockers,” also produced by Rogen and Goldberg.
As it turns out, Barinholtz was one of the first to be called by Rogen about “The Studio” some years ago.
“Seth called and was like, ‘Hey, we’re doing a show about show business, and I want you to play my coworker on it,’” Barinholtz recalls while talking to Variety Australia from LA.
“I’ve done a lot of stuff with those guys. If they called me and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re doing a movie about you and why you suck and how your parents are stupid,’ I’d be like, ‘Oh, okay, sure.’ I was in right away.”
Though the show has been compared in tone to HBO’s “Entourage,” with many celebrities playing fictionalised versions of themselves, Barinholtz was sold on the idea that “The Studio” aimed to have a similar vibe to the legendary “Larry Sanders Show,” which, as well as featured Hollywood stars playing themselves, offered a behind the scenes look of show business.
And if that main cast sounds impressive, the cameos in “The Studio” only get better – Ron Howard, Bryan Cranston, Zac Efron, Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz and Martin Scorsese, just to name a few.
“Throughout the years and months, every time Seth called me, the project became more and more ridiculously incredible,” Barinholtz says.
“The next call is, ‘I think Catherine O’Hara is going to play Patty.’ A couple months later, ‘I think Kathryn Hahn is going to do it.’
“I’ll never forget, I was having dinner with my kids, and Seth texted me one night ‘We got Marty,’ and I think in front of my my family, I went, ‘Holy fuck!’ I have a six year old and an eight year old. It’s inappropriate.”
Given the names that feature in “The Studio,” Barinholtz knows that getting an early call up was a big deal. But anyone who has seen his work – whether on “The Mindy Project,” “Blockers,” or even his “MADtv” days – knows that he is quickly becoming one of the go to names in comedy and was a very safe bet. Especially given his previous work and undeniable chemistry with Rogen.
“I think that from doing the “Neighbors” stuff, I think there’s like a trust there,” he says of his relationship with Rogen. “I think a lot of those movies, we had a lot of improv moments, and I think he’s an amazing improviser. And my background is improv, so I think that’s a big part of it. You can trust that in a scene, if a person is going to start improvising, not only are they improvising in character, they’re improvising on story, right? Because anyone can come in and say funny lines, but in editing, if the line doesn’t move the story forward, it’s going to get cut. So I think that was kind of the first thing that they knew they could trust me on.”
Like Rogen and Goldberg, Barinholtz is a renowned writer as well. As well as working on shows like “The Mindy Project” and “MADtv,” Barinholtz is also a co-creator and executive producer on the recent Netflix series, “Running Point,” which was greenlit for a second season just weeks after it premiered in February.
“[Rogen and Goldberg] know that I’m a writer and that I’ve spent, you know, 20 years or so selling movies, pitching movies, making movies and TV shows and meeting with lots of studio people,” Barinholtz explains. “And so I think they knew that I had a pretty good understanding of these types of people.”
As much as “The Studio” is a love letter to Hollywood, it’s also an absolute roasting as well. From dealing with difficult actors and directors, to executives fighting or getting in the way of filming (figuratively and literally), to skewering the vanity of an event like the Golden Globes, nothing is off limits.
For Barinholtz, there are too many memorable moments to count, but a few stand out. Like shooting with the iconic Scorsese.
“When I showed up and saw little Marty, he’s standing there, I couldn’t believe it,” Barinholtz remembers. “I mean, he’s the reason I’m here and and at one point when we were shooting that scene, we were trying to figure out a funny thing for my character to say to him. And Marty goes, ‘Well, people always say to me, ‘You’re the reason I’m here.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, God.’
Or the filming of ‘The Oner,’ which is arguably the best episode of the ten-part show.
In this episode, Matt incessantly keeps getting in the way of famed director Sarah Polley who is trying to shoot an important one-take sequence, which “The Studio” cleverly mirrors with a one-take shot of its own (talk about meta).
“We showed up to shoot that episode, ‘The Oner,’ and she came ready to play, and the emotion she was playing was so annoyed and angry… she’s five foot two, and she can beat the shit out of me and Seth Rogen, so I really just was very tickled by her, and just thought she was great.”
Though “The Studio” rips on the antics of studio execs for laughs, it is by no means meant to be a specific bashing of them. While there is definitely some inspiration taken from real life meetings and experiences, Barinholtz says the satire plays a very important part in what “The Studio” is all about.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve dealt with a lot of studio execs at various levels,” he says.
“There are some that I thought were just bad at their job, but a lot of them, I’m friends with still, and I think they’re actually great at their job.
“There are lots of moments that I stole from just meetings with them. I’ve been lucky where I’ve never been on a project that I would describe as incredibly chaotic. Thank God.
“I think the best satire does come from something that you inherently have a love or respect for. I think if you satirize something that you really hate, that can be hard. Because the hate will shine through. And I think these guys managed to walk the line and really, it’s a love letter to Hollywood but it’s also, I think, brutally honest about the state of it and a lot of the inhabitants.”
Barinholtz has heard about the early reviews and some even calling it a near perfect show. While he doesn’t want to buy too much into the praise, the show’s premiere at the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Texas immediately told him they were on to something big. And different.
“You never know, it’s always a new thing. And this is a TV show, and it’s a TV show that’s a little inside baseball. [You think it] isn’t going to connect with people who are not industry or industry adjacent. And it did,” he explains.
“At that screening, Seth gets a pretty big laugh about a minute in, and I was like, ‘Breathe easy. I think it’s going to work.’ And then as you start to read some of these reviews, you don’t want to be lulled too much and be like, ‘Oh my God,’ because then a review will come out an hour later that’s like, ‘I hated it,’ but it is incredibly inspiring and wonderful to read some of what people are writing about it.”
Barinholtz will be busy writing the new season of “Running Point” in the immediate future, but given the love “The Studio” has gotten before it’s even released, can we assume a second season is already in the works?
Barinholtz responds in his most serious tone: “If you look on the back of your iPhone, there’s a number you can call, and that will send you directly to Tim Cook, and if you could say to him, ‘Hey, the iPhone is great. Can we do season two of ‘The Studio?’ That would be fantastic.
“I would hope that we get the opportunity to tell more stories with these people, just because it’s a very rich world,” he says sincerely.
“And I don’t think there would be any shortage of situations to put these characters in.”
Episode one of “The Studio” is available to watch on Apple TV+ now.