It’s Friday, which means another episode of The Afterparty is now streaming on Apple TV+. From Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the duo behind The LEGO Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse comes a genre-bending murder mystery with an all-star cast, who recently gathered together at TCA to answer questions about the show. “It is a fair play mystery,” Phil Lord shared, “which means that somebody did it and it is someone that you have met.”
(Apple TV+)
Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) is trying to find out who killed the famous pop star Xavier (Dave Franco) during a 15-year high school reunion afterparty at his Bay Area mansion. Interviewing everyone in attendance, each episode retells the same story from a different point of view, causing the genre to continuously change. “We were sort of looking at each character and thinking about how can we approach the style of what their worldview is,” Chris Miller revealed. “ As we picked genres for each person, then we had to adjust everything, and adjust our characters to fit into the world of that style.” The co-writer and executive producer also revealed a fun fact about the characters’ names. “It was a math problem at first. That’s why all the characters' names start with A, B, C, D, W, X, Y, Z… Aniq, Brett, Chelsea, Danner, Walt, Xavier, Yasper, Zoe.”
Casting those roles was as simple as Chris and Phil thinking about who they’d like to see in the role and sending them a message. For Ben Schwartz, his email explained the show’s premise and genre changes, with a not that his Yasper’s episode would be a musical. “Literally, a week later when it was time to record the song, Chris texted me and said, ‘Hey, do you know how to sing? Do you know how to sing or dance?’”, Ben Schwartz laughed. Although both Ben and Dave Franco were given some assistance through a vocal coach and choreographer.
“They really surrounded us with the best people where we couldn't fail,” Dave Franco shared, who plays the self-absorbed Xavier. “The music producer on my songs, this guy, Stelios [Phili], he works with incredible artists like SZA and MIA and somehow got saddled with me as Xavier on this one. And then during the music video, my backup dancers literally danced for Justin Bieber and some of them had danced for Michael Jackson. And I truly remember turning to them at the beginning of that day and being like, ‘You guys, I am so sorry your life has led to this,’” he joked. Dave also enjoyed the ever-changing depiction of Xavier depending on whose side of the story is being told. “It was fun to play eight different shades of douche.”
The complexities of reliving the same moments in time over and over from different perspectives meant that all eight episodes of The Afterparty had to be filmed more like a movie than an episodic series. “[Chris] kind of comes up to you after you shoot a take and he's like, ‘That was great. So, now we're going to shoot this, and this is for 104 which is kind of a thriller, and this is Ilana's POV, and in that, you're trying to kill her,’” Ike Barinholtz explained about the process of changing his portrayal of Brett. “It's a lot of explanation, but he made it so clear and concise that there was never a minute where we were like, wait, what is this, what am I supposed to be doing? And he allowed us just to kind of go in there and really just tear it up and have fun.”
“We had to do the beer ski scene a bunch in a row,” Sam Richardson explained about one of the most embarrassing moments for his character Aniq. “So where I was passed out and then I wake up and the ski pours beer all over me and I get up like, ‘Who did this?’ I had to do that in different genres of ‘who did this?,’ ‘Who's done this?,’ ‘Who did this?’”
“It was such an exercise,” Ilana Glazer added about changing her depiction of Chelsea. “With this incredible cast, it was like we were athletes just stretching it out.” The change of perspective also meant changing details like set dressings, camera lenses, lighting, and even costumes. “One of my favorite ones is in Brett’s episode, Zoe’s wearing fishnet tights,” Ilana laughed. Ben Schwartz added that in Yasper’s point of view, he’s wearing hamburger shoes and a fancier jacket despite being in the same clothes while talking to Detective Danner, who can see what he’s wearing.
The Afterparty is meant to be pure fun, but the changing perspectives of the narrative also brought about a deeper meaning. “It was really at the end of the day about empathy for other people and how we can see the world through our own myopic lens,” Chris Miller revealed. “If we just take a moment to look at things through other peoples' point of view, realize that they're more human and complicated and not just a two-dimensional stereotype. We're also trying to have a lot of fun so it's not like a lecture series or a soapbox but it's definitely a thematic that's running through the whole season and these guys did such a great job trying to sell their own worldview and get a glimpse into how everyone sees themselves.”
New episodes of The Afterparty release Fridays on Apple TV+.