In playing a sci-fi novelist who suddenly finds herself in a world where every human being, save a select few, has been essentially co-opted by another race of people, Rhea Seehorn has scored another career-defining role. After six seasons on Better Call Saul with show creator Vince Gilligan, Seehorn and Gilligan have reunited to create one of the best and most talked-about shows of the year, Apple TV’s Plur1bus. As Carol, a misanthropic woman committed to reversing a new world order that removes nearly all pain and suffering from existence, Seehorn creates an indelible portrait of a grief-stricken woman who wants to hold on to her pain, while also forcing the few remaining holdouts to hold on to theirs, too.
While Plur1bus shares style points and intelligence with Gilligan’s Breaking Bad universe, it is a decidedly different show that moves away from pulp and into science fiction. Through a new genre, Plur1bus asks questions like What makes us human? Does suffering have value? And do we really want free will? These are heady topics for any series to take on, but Gilligan and Seehorn (this time as the full-on lead) are more than up to the task.
In our conversation, Seehorn and I discuss Carol’s internal quandaries, working with the show’s breakout performer, Karolina Wydra, and the meaning of life as written by Vince Gilligan and performed by Seehorn and her fellow cast members.
The Contending: You are back in Albuquerque with Vince Gilligan, but Plur1bus is a very different show. Did you need any convincing besides working with Vince and his crew again?
Rhea Seehorn: Honestly, all it took was Vince saying that he wrote something for me and that we were going to assemble all of our regular people to do it. I already knew the quality of the writing was going to be the best of the best. Secondly, Vince writes complex characters who grow, evolve, and surprise us. Thirdly, the crew that he assembles, the writers and directors, always gave me a feeling of safety over a decade of doing Better Call Saul. You feel not just safe, but encouraged and rallied to take risks and to try things. It’s freeing to have people who believe in you that much. But then later, there’s this additional level. I was telling Gordon Smith, one of our great directors, writers, and producers, that I get to go to a place where I am not terrified of getting egg on my face in front of them. I can try something in a take that really doesn’t work, and I am not afraid. I’m always (personally) afraid that I’m not going to be up to the task or good enough for myself. But I don’t feel that way with them. It’s like family. I love these people so much now that I’m completely fine turning around and saying that clearly doesn’t work, because I saw that it was reciprocated.
A lot of us experience this. If you are lucky enough to get employed as an actor, this idea that I need to stay within the range of what I’m good at and keep it safe. If I do that, they at least won’t find out that they made a giant mistake. You are terrified to try something and have them think, “Oh, wow, I actually thought she could act, but I guess we were wrong, and now we have to call the network.” (Laughs). Vince will ask me to try things one way, or Gordon, Adam, or Melissa, any of our directors. And they’re also willing to say that tone’s wrong for that moment or whatever. Likewise, my scene partners were such a gift to me on Saul that all of my scene partners, mostly Bob (Odenkirk), but any of them, Patrick Fabian, Tony Dalton, or when I finally got to do scenes with Jonathan Banks, I never felt judged. If I wanted to try something, they were always ready to play along with me. So when I had the great fortune of being number one on the call sheet for Plur1bus, it was imperative to me to make sure that Karolina Wydra and Miriam Shor and Samba Schutte, and Carlos-Manuel Vesga, Jeff Hiller, anybody that came on the show, it was imperative to me that they felt safe, too.
The Contending: Carol has a life most people would dream of. She always wanted to be an author, and she’s very successful at it. But she’s not satisfied. Was it interesting to play a person who was on one level achieving her dreams, but maybe not achieving them in the way she wanted to?
Rhea Seehorn: I would offer two things to that. One is, I don’t think she doesn’t actually like her writing, and I don’t think she’s mocking her fans. I think it’s self-loathing. Okay. She’s very proud of her books. She’s got framed posters all over her office. Copies of the books are everywhere. What she has is something that I do see in a lot of artists. And on my darkest days, I’ve had myself, and I’m sure you’ve had these thoughts as a writer that a real writer writes X type of material, or I’ll be a real actor when I do this kind of material. Then you couple that with somebody who’s such a misanthrope, and also really suspicious of praise.
I think we’ve all been there: wanting to beat people to the punch. Like, I know some people are gonna say, my work’s just popcorn, so I’ll say it first as a defense. Is it Groucho March? The old saying: “I don’t want to be a member of a club that would have me?” If these people like my work, then they must be idiots. Do you know what I mean? Vince is threading in the idea that Carol will believe she’s a happy person when she’s a particular kind of successful, then she’ll be content. What she’s missed is that it was all right there in front of her. Thinking that you should suspend your happiness until a certain thing happens is where it gets dangerous.
The Contending: Carol is convinced that she has to save the world from not experiencing misery, but when she meets with the small group of others like her who haven’t converted, she’s genuinely surprised that they don’t share her view. I think that’s something we often do in life. We assume that when we feel so strongly about something, we’re right, and then we express our opinion to other people, and they disagree with us, and we don’t see it coming.
Rhea Seehorn: Vince would remind me all the time that Carol is an extraordinarily reluctant hero. That played a huge part in the scene you’re talking about, because I remember thinking at first, “So, is this when Carol finally takes a shower, puts on makeup, does her hair, and gets dressed up nice?” I’m thrilled that we held off on that. Throughout the show, it was very important to Cheri Montesanto, who does my makeup, and Trish Almeida, who does my hair, and Jennifer Bryan, who is in charge of costumes, as well as Vince, that this immense grief that Carol’s in should not be treated like a shawl that she can shuck off by episode two. Sometimes we don’t get up and brush our teeth. Some days it’s just too hard. We wanted that to be real and consistent. When we were going to do the meeting scene, I asked Vince about trying to figure out her look. I said she clearly has presented books to publishing houses, and she does these book signings, so she knows how to put on a show, and if she wants everybody to think that her way is the right way, and that they should start a revolution, then do you think she does herself up? Vince said, No, she might try, but honestly, she was hoping to show up, and somebody else would lead the revolution. Then I started laughing.
Carol was hoping just to volunteer to bring chips and dip to the revolution, not run it, and nobody’s helping. (Laughs). Then, like you brought up, she finds out: “Oh, you guys don’t even think we should do anything.” What? It was so fun for me to play. It was the second script. Even though we filmed that scene later for logistical reasons, it was one of those true moments where we were not trying to play it funny. The stakes are very real. What’s funny is just human nature, being the person in the room who’s screaming that the barn is on fire, and everybody is looking at you like it’s not that bad. (Laughs). I’ve also been in the place where you’re so upset about something, and people are looking at you like, Wow, you sound crazy. And a part of you knows you do look like a lunatic. Because you’re becoming crazier the more they say there’s nothing wrong. As the brilliant Menik (Gooneratne), who plays Laxmi, tells me You look like a hot mess. Why would we want to do anything you’re saying? And you’re aware, I’m not exactly making a good example for my argument, am I? It’s fun playing these scenes because Vince presents salient points on the other side. There’s a whole lot of us right now, myself included, who think, on certain days, about certain things that we absolutely know, that the world would be happier this way instead of that.
The Contending: I was watching the Devo documentary, and I promise, this will make sense in a second. I was a little young for Devo when they were popular, so I didn’t really get a lot of the subtext in their music. They have a song called Freedom of Choice that, if you just listen to it blindly, you think they’re saying we want the freedom to choose. But the actual lyric says what we really want is freedom from choice. It’s hard not to watch Plur1bus and think its themes don’t speak to our modern life. “If we could just elect the right king…”
Rhea Seehorn: I stayed pretty far away from thinking of or playing any particular theme or topic. I know Vince did not write the show with that (topicality) in mind. There are people who think the show is a commentary on AI, but the truth is, Vince started writing it 10 years ago. And AI existed, but it wasn’t the debate topic that it is now. There are other people who think it’s a commentary on the pandemic lockdown that hadn’t happened yet when he started writing this. I talked to a journalist who thought the entire thing was a metaphor and meditation on grief and depression, which you could see it that way.
This idea of feeling like you’re down in a well, and everybody is trying to cheer you up, and you can’t reach them, and they can’t reach you. Divisiveness in politics or religious zealotry, insisting that if everybody converted, then they would get it. Self-help, zealotry, and many other things he wanted to write about are just human nature. Of course, Vince lives in the world that we’re all living in, so tons of stuff came in. But he writes in a way, and I tried to perform it in a way that inspires questions, not answers.
The Contending: My wife made the point to me while watching the show that maybe the folks who disagree with Carol aren’t necessarily wrong. Maybe if there wasn’t grief, if there wasn’t pain, if there wasn’t suffering, then giving up these emotional highs and lows isn’t so bad. The show does not decide for the viewer whose perspective is correct.
Rhea Seehorn: There are pros and cons to both sides. So what do you do with that? To me, constant contentment is not joy, like the fact that they all know everything. Everybody knows everybody’s thoughts. I will never laugh out loud at something that somebody says again, because I would already know what they’re going to say. There’s no new art, right? There’s no sense of wonder ever again. You can’t be in awe of somebody inventing or creating something if you all took part in making it. But then that would lead me down this rabbit hole of, is there something wrong with me that I think it removes joy if there’s no ambition? Am I talking about competitiveness? Why does it have to be that one person’s better at one thing?
We’re also asking questions about privilege. If you can’t feed your family and you dig ditches all day and live in a war-torn area, what they’re offering is far better, right? Absolutely. Carol acknowledges, and Diabate calls her on it, that she’s coming from a place of privilege with these questions she’s asking. To your wife’s point, what she was bringing up is: Okay, but if you take the argument all the way and say, “What if this is better?” Then let’s talk about what we would lose if we did that. If the whole world was neutralized and there was no free thought, would you consider that a life well lived?
The Contending: I was thinking about the character of Diabate (Samba Schutte), who gets everything he wants. It reminded me of an old Twilight Zone episode where a gangster dies and finds himself in what seems to be a holding zone, and his “guide” tells him he can have anything he wants. So he gets to win all his card games, have the prettiest girls, and all that. But there’s no excitement in it. He doesn’t like it. He decides he wants to go to the other place. Then his guide says, “This is the other place.” So, what if what you want isn’t really what you want?
Rhea Seehorn: Oh, interesting. Yes. Yes. And what if the pursuit of life’s ups and downs and getting through them is what life’s about? Maybe there’s no ending place that we should be trying to get to. Now that I think about it, when you’re with your therapist, as I believe everyone should be, (Laughs) and they’re saying, What thing would make you feel secure? What amount of money in your bank account, or what job, or what accolade, would make you stop worrying?
What if you fear that you’re an imposter, that it’s all going to be taken away from you? There’s also the existential fear that you’re never going to get away from. There’s climate change, and so many other concerns, but somehow you’ve got to get out of bed tomorrow morning and still try. One of the things that makes me try is, can I better myself? Could I hopefully help someone else every day? Although I’m backtracking again now, because I guess the others think we’re helping everybody all the time. (Laughs).
The Contending: In speaking of the “others,” it would be a terrible mistake if I didn’t mention your work with Karolina Wydra, as your guide in this new world, Zosia. She finds a way for you to feel, as an audience member, a level of affection for her, even though she has this flat affect. She’s a conformist in this new existence. There’s a sort of box that she’s in as an actor that she’s not allowed to veer outside of without breaking character. She has to play it straight all the way through and somehow give you something to play off, which she does even though it’s infuriating for Carol.
What a find, what an incredible actress. I watched her rise to the challenge of building this character along with Vince and our other directors and writers. They had defined it, and they weren’t sure exactly what it would look like. It’s one thing to conceptualize it on paper, but Vince is there trying to dial into these very fine-tuned modulations. What’s a smile that looks peaceful but not creepy? What’s a gaze that looks attentive but not reciprocal of my (Carol’s) emotions? She has to be sentient. You can’t look like a robot. You can’t look like you’re just high on Valium. You’re absolutely attentive and listening. There is compassion for Carol’s pain, but she won’t meet it. Not only is that usually an actor’s greatest tool, listening and reacting, but it’s human nature for us to mirror facial reactions and to mirror where the tone of a conversation goes. She’s not allowed to do any of that. Karolina has to invite the audience to care about her. Even a defiant, super-suspicious person like Carol is sensing some benevolence. At first, it’s almost out of necessity that she’s the only person I have to help me get information. Nobody’s talking to me. This person at least seems kind enough.
She’s also got this undercurrent for Carol, primal things going on where it doesn’t hurt that she looks like a supermodel from my fantasies. But Carol’s going to go home and be completely alone. And the last thing she wants to do is just sit in her grave. Carol wants a job. That’s why she becomes a super detective woman. Karolina gave me all of that and even had these tiny advancements that Vince would talk to her about throughout the show, where the others are somehow emotionally learning as well. At first, she doesn’t get when Carol’s joking. Like with the grenade, you see her start to understand Carol’s sense of humor, which was really fascinating to me. Because they have all the greatest minds in their head, but with all the greatest minds in the world, that doesn’t mean you always know when someone’s joking, which was really interesting to me.
The Contending: This is a very different show from what viewers might have expected from Vince. The pulp background of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is perhaps a little easier to attach oneself to. The response to the show has been fantastic, but when you took this on, did you worry whether people would get it?
Rhea Seehorn: Thank you. I’ve been told, but I’m too thin-skinned to read anything. (Laughs). I’m very relieved and grateful that the response has been so great. Sure, I was worried. When you’re making anything, you wonder. This one felt uniquely strange in a great way. Immediately, when I read the first couple of scripts, I thought, This would be the kind of show I’d watch. I was thrilled to be the person to play it and challenge myself with it. I knew there was this great plot device as this event happened. And the great lens of sci-fi that’s refracting all these moral and ethical questions, just like you mentioned with The Twilight Zone, where you think you know what you would say, but you don’t. And reexamining what it looks like to be human? You’ve got a great plot engine and a mystery. It’s beautifully shot and very cinematic. But then it’s also this deep dive psychological portrait that swings from dark, weird comedy to absurdist comedy, and then to very quiet, studied internal moments. I hoped, because Vince has always assumed the intelligence of his audience. He has gained a following of people who feel rewarded by that trust, that there would at least be a solid core of people who would go for the ride even when you don’t understand what’s happening, and who believe that his changes in pace and dynamics are all for a purpose.
What I didn’t expect and have been overjoyed to see is that it touched not just a chord, but multiple chords with people. Including journalists who want to talk about what it brought up in them, what it’s making them think about. This show, which at its core is a portrait of a woman who’s in complete isolation…I can’t tell you how many people have told me they are getting together with friends to talk about it, to watch it together. People who say, This is the only show my teenagers will watch with me. I didn’t expect that, but maybe we are all wrestling with a lot of these really big philosophical questions and just don’t know how to talk about them. This show is a conduit.
