‘Pluribus’ Star Rhea Seehorn on Season 2, and Fan Show Theories

Think your fan conversations about Apple TV’s “Pluribus” are heated? Try being on the actual series set. “We have healthy, sometimes tongue-in-cheek debates about different questions that the show brings up, whether it’s your personal take on what you would do or what you think your character would do,” star Rhea Seehorn tells the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast.

Of course, this isn’t new for Seehorn on a Vince Gilligan show. She remembers having spirited debates with “Better Call Saul” co-star Bob Odenkirk back in the day. “He would be like, ‘well, obviously Kim thinks blah blah blah,’ and I was like, ‘yeah, well, I don’t think so.’ He’s like, ‘yes, she does,’ and I was like, ‘you can’t make me say she thinks that!’ It’s good to have like different perspectives on the same scene.”

Seehorn credits Gilligan for leaving his stories and characters open to interpretation. “There are times where people are telling me their interpretation of what they think Carol is doing, thinking, or is feeling, that it’s interesting to take in,” Seehorn says. “It’s just a facet that I’m like, ‘oh, that could be interesting for me to explore,’ or sometimes they are saying something that I already was thinking about exploring. And then there’s other things, that I’m like, ‘I’m just gonna let that be your interpretation.’”

That includes the viewers that are hoping Carol and Zosia (Karolina Wyndra) might get back together. A problem with that theory: Carol has snapped out of her infatuation, as she’s reminded that Zosia is really a part of the hive mind that wants to also erase her humanity.

See, complex stuff! As Emmy Phase 1 voting comes to an end on Monday, Seehorn drops by Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast to talk about “Pluribus” theories, how her co-stars are nothing like their characters, her anticipation for Season 2 and more. She also looks back at her first time in Variety and takes the 10 Questions quiz. Listen below!

Given the tremendous success Seehorn had playing Kim Wexler on Gilligan’s “Better Call Saul,” she admits it was daunting starting a new collaboration — knowing that the anticipation and expectations would be tremendous.

“This was not only leaving that world but entirely different character, and sci-fi, although his ‘X-Files’ fans were thrilled that he was going back to sci-fi,” she says. “And a female lead, maybe they aren’t going to want that. A lot of factors. And then probably the thing that kept me up more at night in the beginning was not wanting to disappoint Vince. He wrote this for me, and Apple took a gamble on me being the lead of it. A lot, of factors that kept me up, but at the end of the day, I was pretty good at putting that away and realizing the best I could do to service any of those worries was to put my head down and do the work.”

So, does she have any details on Season 2 yet?

“I’ve stopped by the writer’s office to have lunch or say hi, but I haven’t stopped to snoop, and I haven’t called and asked any of them for details,” she says. “It’s not because I don’t care, because I care deeply. There’s an immense amount of trust that their abilities far exceed whatever I was gonna show up and offer, but I also don’t want to put them in a position where they are worried about what to reveal to me and what not to reveal to me. One of the reasons that we get our scripts one at a time is not to manipulate the actors. Because there are things that just aren’t cemented. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, on ‘Saul,’ would tell me that they didn’t want to be in a position where they said, ‘oh my god, this huge thing comes up in Episode 6 for you,’ and then it changes, and it’s not there.”

Seehorn first appeared in Variety on Aprul 26, 1996, via a production chart listing for the independent film “Floating.” “I hadn’t moved out here yet,” Seehorn recalls. “That is a for real, legit indie. Tiny budget, self-funded. I remember that I shot it in Washington, D.C.”

Back then, she was doing theater in the D.C. area, and every once in a while indie films or productions would do through the area. “I remember ‘Nixon’ was shooting there and Barry Levinson would shoot something in Baltimore, and we’d all hustle over there,” she says. “I think ‘Homicide’ was still being shot in Baltimore at the time. I think that was my first full episode of a television series. And then, as I’ve spoken about in the press before, another way that people would get on-camera experience in the theater community there was doing industrials, in-house training videos. Because there’s so many, not just government buildings, but flagship headquarters for different companies, so you would do training videos, which was kind of fun.”

10 QUESTIONS WITH RHEA SEEHORN:

1. Childhood nickname: “‘Britches.’ I had a habit, I’ve been told, as a toddler, running away from the house and just running to other neighbors and playing with their dog, or going in their backyard, joining other people’s barbecues. People would call my parents and let them know where I was, but they would run after me, calling me ‘Britches,’ because when I would go on my teetering escape, could not keep my pants up to save my life, apparently.”

2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you were into it now: “Eating Campbell’s cream of potato soup in its condensed cold form straight out of the can.”

3. Go-to Karaoke or sing-in-the-shower song: “I’m not a karaoke person, but when I am dragged or somebody has a birthday and they really, really want me to do it, it’s Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper.’”

4. Give me an alternate title for your show:  “Oh, dude, that’s so hard. I can’t believe they were even able to come up with a log line. I give them all so much credit. It’s an impossible show to explain!”

5. What’s your secret talent?: “Tedious, methodical following of instructions, like everything from a Lego set to like building an Ikea piece of furniture, or somebody saying we can’t figure out how the VCR works, learning to caulk a bathtub. I will sit and patiently and start over when I mess up again and again and again.”

6. Favorite ice cream flavor: “Peanut Butter and Chocolate, together.”

7. The one item you couldn’t live without: “My family and my pets. I have two cats, Auggie and Milo. They have their own Instagram account.”

8. What TV show in all of history do you wish you were a cast member of?: “‘Six Feet Under.’ Or ‘Pen15.’”

9. Fictional character you most admire: “Sarah Lancashire’s character in ‘Happy Valley.’”

10. Your favorite piece of advice: “I think one that I come back to all the time is, and I’ve gotten it in various different phrasings from various different parts of my life, but it’s ‘Keep your side of the street clean.’ If something goes poorly, you can still examine, what was my side in this, is there anything I could do differently. The things that you can’t change, at least make sure your side of the street was clean.”

Also on this episode of the Awards Circuit Podcast: “Matlock” star Kathy Bates.

Bates’ first appearance in Variety was on March 10, 1976, for the play “Vanities.” Says Bates: “That was the first really cool role I had to play. A friend of mine from school wrote it. We were one of the longest-running plays off-Broadway for awhile — five, six years.”

But then, when the show moved to the Mark Taper in Los Angeles, established stars were cast in the play. “Sandy Duncan played my part, and so we got to be the ‘B team’ that went in at the

10 QUESTIONS WITH KATHY BATES:

1. Childhood nickname: “Well, my grandmother called me Dosha when I was bad and Kitty when I was good.

2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you were into it now: “Canoeing. It was my favorite thing. I went to the YMCA camp, and in a beautiful place in Hardy, Arkansas, and I learned how to canoe, and I was really, really good at it. I was about 11 or 12. I loved it.”

3. Go-to Karaoke or sing-in-the-shower song: “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

4. Give me an alternate title for your show:  “Mrs. Opioid”

5. What’s your secret talent?: “I can whistle.”

6. Favorite ice cream flavor: “Depends, there’s a restaurant in New York called Balthazar, and they have profiterol with vanilla and this wonderful hot fudge sauce, but my favorite flavor would probably be Salt and Straw, the one that they have with salted caramel. Oh no, you know what my favorite one is? Mint chocolate chip.”

7. The one item you couldn’t live without: “It would probably be a pillow of some kind.”

8. What TV show in all of history do you wish you were a cast member of?: “The first one that came to mind was ‘The Twilight Zone.’ The other first one was ‘Ponderosa.’”

9. Fictional character you most admire: “I was going to say Scout in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ There was another one, my favorite, but she was a real.. she wasn’t fictional. She was a real woman. She was part of the English underground during World War II, and she had one leg because she had one foot was blown off and she did all of these amazing things there.”

10. Your favorite piece of advice: “Somebody said to me about this business, ‘you have to have a head like a bullet and a heart like a baby.’ I think that’s probably a good advice for life..”

Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.