Plenty of producers would be happy if their TV show landed just one big-time star. “The Studio” booked a constellation.
On the Apple TV+ comedy’s debut season, co-creator Seth Rogen headlines a heavenly host of actors, with Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, and Chase Sui Wonders at the core. Playing movie executives at the fictional Continental Studios, they spend 10 sidesplitting episodes trying to make great cinema while battling the bottom line (and their own foibles). Last month, Rogen, Barinholtz, Hahn, and O’Hara each scored Emmy nominations.
Seth Rogen’s Funny Business To see why, watch the episodes “CinemaCon” and “The Presentation,” which form a two-part season finale. On the eve of unveiling Continental’s new production slate to the world, studio head Matt Remick (Rogen) unintentionally overdoses everyone with a buffet of hallucinogenic drugs. It leads to a screwball search for missing CEO Griffin Mill (guest star Bryan Cranston), who’s been drugged into another dimension. On top of that, the team has to prepare an incapacitated Zoë Kravitz for her own CinemaCon appearance.
As the characters turn Las Vegas upside down, these stars’ singular talents align. Rogen, king of stoner comedy, slides on a stream of flop sweat into a hell of Matt’s own making. Hahn, as flamboyant marketing head Maya Mason, brassily scolds his lack of professionalism while she drags on a blunt the size of a mozzarella stick. Rubber-faced Barinholtz, playing right-hand VP Sal Saperstein, twitches between arched eyebrows of concern and curled lips of outrage. And relative newcomer Wonders holds her own as ambitious junior executive Quinn Hackett. One minute she’s trying to be a team player; the next, she’s screaming at her boss through chocolate-smeared teeth.
Patty Leigh, the jaded producer played by chameleon O’Hara, is the responsible adult in the room, until a grudge pushes her to call in an anonymous news tip about Griffin’s escape. She leaves her voicemail in what can be best described as Christian Bale’s Batman voice.
The show’s galaxy swirls far beyond its main cast. Co-creators Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez recruited a who’s who of Tinseltown celebrities to play heightened versions of themselves throughout the season. Five scored Emmy nominations for their guest spots—Kravitz, Dave Franco, Anthony Mackie, Ron Howard, and Martin Scorsese—as did Cranston for his performance.
Here’s how these performers’ ability to laugh at themselves made “The Studio” a truly celestial event.
Zoë Kravitz’s chill vibes
What’s cooler than being cool? With apologies to Outkast, it’s being Zoë Kravitz. The “Caught Stealing” star exudes je ne sais quoi, especially when prowling rooftops as Catwoman in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.” (Also, there’s the whole “daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet” thing.)
That “it” factor makes Kravitz the perfect foil for Rogen’s tryhard Matt. On the eighth episode, “The Golden Globes,” she deflects the needy exec’s attempts to score an acceptance speech shoutout with the casual dismissal of a high school queen bee.
When Kravitz returns on the penultimate episode, she strolls in with the same nonchalance, until Matt accidentally gives her enough mushroom-laced chocolate to see through time and space. These scenes allowed her to play against type and deliver trippy epiphanies with zero chill. It’s hard to choose a favorite line between “I am the forest” and “We’re skin sausages.”
Dave Franco’s high spirits
“The Studio” let Franco exaggerate his established screen persona. In a hypercharged self-caricature, the “Neighbors” star played with his penchant for smarmy party boy roles and dialed his shtick to 11. Perma-squinted eyes, a smile as cheesy as Wisconsin, the smooth-brained enthusiasm of a bichon frisé—he basically became a meme of himself.
The actor also got the show’s most meta moment. After a throwaway joke revealed he learned to count cards while working on the “Now You See Me” films, his breathless recap narration for the season finale ended with a clip from that franchise. He said it best: “Vegas, baby!”
Anthony Mackie’s suave sham
Mackie always delivers charisma, from “The Hurt Locker” to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When viewers first see him on the third episode, “The Note,” he’s starring in “Alphabet City,” Continental’s fictional crime drama directed by Ron Howard. But the film’s catastrophic, excruciatingly long final sequence sends the studio into a panic.
Matt invites Mackie and Howard to the office for a covert intervention, and the actor is as suave as ever. He lavishes praise on his director. He leaves Quinn—tasked with confronting the talent—starstruck and gibbering.
Then, Mackie drops the conflict-averse facade and bluntly urges the studio execs to save him from cinematic disaster. “Help me help you win,” he demands in a Captain America tone. It’s a deeply satisfying character reveal.
Ron Howard’s power trip
America grew up with Howard, first as adorable Opie Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show,” then as 1950s teen Richie Cunningham on “Happy Days,” and finally as the Oscar-winning director of modern classics like “Apollo 13.” To many viewers, he feels like family. But “The Studio” dared to ask: Wouldn’t it be funny if Opie was a petty tyrant?
The show riotously subverts Howard’s wholesome reputation in “The Note.” The filmmaker becomes an alternate-reality version of himself, consumed by creative self-indulgence and prone to grudges. His profanity-laden humiliation of Matt (over the latter’s ill-fated “A Beautiful Mind” critique from decades ago) culminates in a chaotic physical confrontation—just the cherry on top of an ironically ego-free performance.
Martin Scorsese’s hustle
The phrase “living legend” exists to describe people like Scorsese. The “Raging Bull” filmmaker’s contributions to cinema are legion—and ongoing. “The Studio” rightly cast Scorsese as its revered avatar of artistic integrity.
On the series premiere, “The Promotion,” he shows up as a New York negotiator with Hollywood business savvy. He pitches a serious epic about the 1978 Jonestown massacre, where people were poisoned with a grape-flavored drink. But the hustler becomes the hustled. Matt buys and then kills the project to save the studio’s upcoming Kool-Aid blockbuster, and when Scorsese realizes he’s been had—he knew he should have taken his script to Apple!—the auteur ends up sobbing in Charlize Theron’s arms at a party.
The scene is surely a metaphor for the compromises Matt has to make in his new job, but it’s also comedy gold from a game elder statesman.
Bryan Cranston’s big swing
Lone among the show’s guest-acting nominees, Cranston didn’t play a fictionalized version of himself. But apart from his iconic role as drug lord Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” the prolific actor is perhaps best known for his versatility. Who else could embody a meth czar, a harried dad on “Malcolm in the Middle,” and a blacklisted screenwriter in “Trumbo” with equal believability? So, in a way, he’s the perfect actor to bring libertine octogenarian capitalist Griffin Mill to mustachioed life.
On the season’s last two episodes, he transmutes his character’s rich guy callousness into a feral fugue state. You want versatility from Cranston? Witness him taking Cognac shots with Franco, eating a whole lobster with his bare hands, performing a sex act on a statue, and dangling from the rafters of a convention hall like some half-dead Peter Pan.
