Rhea Seehorn says she's on "Team Carol."
In the Apple TV series Pluribus, actor Rhea Seehorn stars as Carol, a bestselling romance author who suddenly finds herself living in a world where everyone around her is bound together by a "psychic glue." They share memories and knowledge and they are happy and peaceful. The only problem: Carol's not interested in joining them — especially if it means losing her own sense of self.
"I would absolutely be Team Carol as far as arguing the necessity and the positives of individual thinking," Seehorn says. If the world were taken over by group think, she explains, "There's never going to be a joke that you haven't heard. There's never going to be a surprise behavior that makes you laugh. And that's just such a source of joy for me that I just can't imagine that contentment is the same as happiness."
Seehorn previously played Kim Wexler in AMC's Better Call Saul, co-created by Vince Gilligan. He is also the creator of Pluribus. Seehorn says Carol's character was originally imagined as a male protagonist, but was rewritten for her to take the starring role. Gilligan "wanted to play with tone and take wild swings as far as [the series] could be darkly comedic, or it could be darkly psychological ... and he was impressed at my ability to do those things," Seehorn says. "I'm certainly very thankful for it."
Interview highlights
On playing angry characters in Pluribus and in Better Call Saul
There's this idea [that] anger can be a miasma almost, that can spread. And we've all seen horrible things can happen when you just are riling people up. ... But at the same time, it is a necessary emotion, which, I think, is one of the arguments in the show that I side with — the idea that all of the emotions are important, not just happiness. …
Because I'm a woman playing the role … it felt as though I was taught that anger was unpalatable, specifically from females, and that I should find a way to make it palatable. … When I was much younger, I would scream. As a teenager, you know, screaming, yelling, like the typical arguments you have over hairspray and idiotic things as a teenager. … My parents were divorced, and so it was a household of three women, my mom, and my sister and I. … But, you know, you kind of grow out of this. …
I don't think it's OK to scream and yell in someone's face, but I think I have become conflict avoidant in the suppression of that anger to a degree that's not healthy. I will stand up for somebody else, though, in a heartbeat. If somebody else is being mistreated next to me, I'm in there. I'll take you to the mat. But if it's at me, I tend to swallow it and try to figure out how I can make it better.
On how she prepared to play the role of a romance novelist
I went to The Ripped Bodice, which is an amazing romance novel store. ... And I just slipped in and looked around. And I have to tell you, one of the first things that struck me is the amount of sub-genres and the specificity of these sub-genres. … I watched a couple of people do readings from their books, and I was really surprised at the breadth of people, of fans, listening. There was a lot of people dressed like early Stevie Nicks, in a beautiful way. But then there was also … [a] couple that looked like they came straight from a corporate job. … People younger than me, people older than me. It definitely widened me to how huge this genre is and how much it encapsulates all the different novels it has.
On changing her name from Deborah, which was her first name, to Rhea, which was her middle name
I got a little chunky in puberty, and kids started yelling at me, "Hey, fat Debbie, do you want some more Little Debbie's?" (which are snack cakes.) … I was just like … I just need a fresh start. And I think I identify more with my middle name. And weirdly, there was no issue with kids that had known me forever. Everybody just sort of was like, "Yeah, that makes sense."
On her father being a counterintelligence agent
I knew he was investigating things and I knew that they were secretive, but I didn't have a lot more details than that. And I am loathe to say that my head was too far up my butt as a teenager to actually be interested in what my parents actually do. And then he died when I was 18, so I didn't get to ask a lot of the questions that I wish I had asked. …
My Dad's favorite answer to everything was, "What are you, writing a book?" If you even just said, like, "Where are you going?" … And I thought I was so brilliant when I was 15 that I finally had a comeback. And I said, "Yeah, I am." And he said, "Well, then leave this chapter out."
On her father's drinking
Apparently he was a heavy drinker for most of his adult life, but it just didn't get labeled as alcoholism, you know? And my dad was the life of the party and very, very smart, very, very funny, with a super dry wit. … The idea that he was in the Tet Offensive and, as far as I know, never talked to anybody about it, and that you would have a life built of a lot of secrets. … I don't remember him ever saying that he had anybody to talk to about it. So I just bring that up because I think self-medicating was going on for quite a while before it physically became a full-blown issue and then full-blown disease.
On how she became an actor
I was obsessed with television, film, and as a kid in the suburbs in Virginia, I'd never known anybody that had even the loosest association with the entertainment business and thought it was just an impossible dream. And then, in my first year at George Mason University, you had to take an elective in the arts that was not your major, and my major was fine arts. And so I took an acting class. … It was not an emotional, ooey-gooey class — I took plenty of those later — but this was a hardcore, do-your-homework, script-analysis class using practical aesthetics that was developed out of the Atlantic Theater. And I just was in love with the fact that if you work really hard and study, you can incrementally get closer and closer to being good at this and hopefully one day great at this. …
And then I started going to D.C. theater, which I think is some of the world's best theater … and [I] was just like: Immediately, I have to do this for my life. I don't know how many day jobs I'm going to have to have. It was not about being famous. I knew that I had to be an actor and I'd support myself, however I had to.
Lauren Krenzel and Nico Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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