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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 9 of “The Studio,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
While sitting down to read the script for the latest episode of “The Studio,” which features Zoë Kravitz’s character unintentionally taking mushrooms, the SAG-nominated actor got a little high to set the tone.
“I sent Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] a lot of crazy text messages. It had been a while since I had taken mushrooms, so I was just remembering that and really trying to make it as accurate as possible. Mushrooms are so specific,” Kravitz tells Variety. “And then, the rest of this is about letting go and being free. And the whole point, actually, is that you are not in control when you’re tripping.”
In this season’s penultimate episode, titled “CinemaCon,” Kravitz eats cookies at a chaotic Las Vegas suite party hosted by Continental Studios head Matt Remick (Rogen), not realizing that the “old-school Hollywood buffet” is actually laced with shrooms. The catch is that it’s the night before CinemaCon, where Kravitz is expected to give a big presentation teasing her upcoming film, “Blackwing,” meaning it’s up to Matt to clean up the mess and save everyone’s jobs.
It’s a huge scene featuring nearly every member of the ensemble, including fellow guest star Dave Franco, who hilariously shouts: “You just had 21 grams of shrooooms!” Kravitz says that when she saw how wild Franco was going, she knew the key was to play off his energy as she begins eating the cookies.
“I thought, ‘The more serious and the more chill I am, the funnier it will be,’ so I was just using that to know if that’s where he’s going to be, I’m going to be the opposite of that,” Kravitz says. “It was so fun. I mean, the hardest thing, honestly, is to not laugh and to not break. You don’t want to be that guy.”
The pressure to not break is higher for a show like “The Studio,” which features many one-take sequences similar to those in “Birdman.” Coming off her directorial debut “Blink Twice” gave Kravitz a new appreciation for what Rogen and his team were implementing with the camerawork.
“The technical part of it was the easiest for me — especially after directing a film, you just have more understanding of what’s going into making these shots work,” Kravitz says. In fact, “The Studio” cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra also worked with Kravitz on “Blink Twice,” so the two already had a shorthand.
After Kravitz’s energy gets dialed up to an 11 once the shrooms kick in, Matt and Sal (Ike Barinholtz) usher her into a bedroom. Matt steps out for just about 30 seconds and more shenanigans (naturally) ensue as Kravitz has an epiphany about being stuck in a forest for hours. That’s when it really hits Matt that Kravitz is far gone.
“I was really in a zone and just trying to stay loose, and then, at the same time, be ready for when the camera comes in because of the long take,” Kravitz says. “It’s this funny combination of being completely out of it and [remaining] very precise because of the camerawork.”
Kravitz recalls filming even more outrageous moments that ultimately didn’t make the cut, including one with Kathryn Hahn, who plays marketing head Maya Mason.
“There was a whole part where [Matt and Sal] come back in and I’ve built a fort and I’m holding French fries, making crazy animal noises and rolling around. I think I break a vase and it shatters everywhere, and then Kathryn Hahn tackles me to the ground, slaps me in the face and sings ‘Kumbaya’ to me — which I’m so sad didn’t make it,” Kravitz says. “Being slapped in the face by her was the honor of a lifetime.”
While Kravitz didn’t find herself relating too heavily to the situations in this episode, she did find the awards show sequence in Episode 8 more familiar. In that episode, Kravitz pretends that she doesn’t care about winning best director until Matt, desperate to be thanked in her acceptance speech, learns that she’s been faking it.
“Obviously, in order to be involved in any kind of awards circuit, to get nominated, really, you have to participate a certain amount, which means you want it. And that’s fine! But people do kind of play this game that we’ve all agreed to where you act like you don’t care. And it’s OK to care,” Kravitz says. “Awards do matter, to a certain extent, maybe to our egos or whatever — and they also don’t matter at all! It’s actually really complicated.”
English (US) ·