Warning: This publish comprises spoilers for The Studio.
The newest episode of The Studio left Seth Rogen reeling greater than probably some other comedic leap in his profession.
Within the Apple TV+ collection’ seventh episode, Rogen’s fictional studio head Matt Remick faces a quandary after realizing that the casting for the studio’s big-ticket movie concerning the Kool-Aid man appears racially insensitive.
He tells PEOPLE it was “the one episode [where] I was type of actively nervous concerning the needle we have been threading” as he breaks down what it was like to get Ice Cube and Ziwe onboard.
Initially, the movie stars Josh Duhamel and Jessica Biel as the primary live-action characters and Ice Cube because the voice of the Kool-Aid Man, with Sandra Oh as his spouse — till Maya (Kathryn Hahn) voices that she has a “nagging concern that one thing is admittedly f—— sus” concerning the casting.
The revelation prompts a panic, as Matt wonders, “Is that this racist? Did we do one thing racist [by casting Ice Cube as Kool-Aid]?”
Apple TV+
Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders, Seth Rogen and Kathryn Hahn in “The Studio”
Maya worries the casting may very well be a “main advertising difficulty” and that social media may “tear us new a–holes” over it, in order that they flip to Tyler (Dewayne Perkins), as a result of he is Black, for an additional opinion. He says he is superb with it, however needs Ziwe and Lil Rel Howery to weigh in too, simply to be protected.
In that assembly, a brand new difficulty arises over the truth that they’ve solid Sandra Oh as Kool-Aid’s spouse, which Howery says shall be an issue in the event that they’re “implying {that a} Black girl will not be adequate to be with a profitable Black man like Kool[-Aid],” which Matt swiftly shuts down.
“The decision with Ziwe, the place I was explaining it to her, was one of the vital nerve-racking moments of my total life,” Rogen says.
The problems proceed to pile up because the episode progresses. They make the entire solid Black — regardless of Quinn’s (Chase Sui Wonders) insistence that the unique solid was simply superb and all of the tweaks are literally what’s problematic — however then their (White) writers drop out of the mission, after which they understand that the entire solid being Black is an issue, too.
Apple TV+
Ice Cube in “The Studio”
Ultimately, Matt realizes how “insane” the entire predicament is and he goes proper to the supply: Ice Cube, himself.
The rapper, 55, units Matt straight. “The Kool-Aid Man is Black. He ain’t White. He ain’t no Mexican. He Black. I am the motherf—— Kool-Aid Man. And in case you get anybody else to play him, now that s—- offensive.”
Apple TV+
Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn and Seth Rogen in “The Studio”
Rogen says that his Zoom name with the rapper the place he defined the thought and was “attempting to get Ice Cube in on the joke” was “legitimately petrifying.”
The worry he felt whereas pitching Ziwe and Ice Cube was really “very reflective of the joke within the present themselves, the place I am attempting to not be offensive and I am attempting to clarify my inventive place.”
“And thank God individuals appear to get the joke as properly,” he says. “However I was fairly nervous going into that episode.”
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New episodes of The Studio premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
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