The creator of Your Friends & Neighbors knows the world is dark right now. And he knows you want to escape. The solution? An addictive soap opera starring Jon Hamm, Olivia Munn, and Amanda Peet that gives us ultra-wealthy characters in extreme circumstances. It’s a cross between Big Little Lies and Breaking Bad, and the first two episodes stream on Apple TV+ on April 11.
“We need good entertainment right now, and there’s an escapism to this show that I think is a lot of fun,” creator and showrunner Jonathan Tropper tells Glamour. “But beyond that, I think we could all stand to look inward. Yes, we have to expend a certain amount of energy on survival and accumulating financial security, but at some point we need to spend our time on the relationships in our lives…and on the things that give our lives meaning. Otherwise, one day you wake up and you’re 50 and you’re getting fired in a hot tub.”
Jon Hamm—who plays Andrew “Coop” Cooper, the 50-year-old in question who gets fired in a hot tub—says the themes of middle age, being a parent, rampant consumerism, and the haves and have-nots are what drew him to the role. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is even better than I thought it could be,’” he tells Glamour. “It resonates a little deeper and makes for a richer, more profound look at what could just be sort of a soapy world. It’s smart, and it’s sexy, and it’s great looking.”
The women at the center of Coop’s life—current fling, Sam (Olivia Munn), and ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet)—would certainly agree. They’re not cookie-cutter cut-outs who only exist to go shopping and get into catfights. They’re just as interesting as Coop, perhaps even more so.
“I loved the world so much,” Munn tells Glamour. “I love that it’s this ecosystem of incredibly wealthy people who are just, like, eating each other alive. They’re at the top of their game, and it’s never enough. Nothing is ever, ever enough.”
It’s a sentiment that Munn is all too familiar with, having seen some of the excessive wealth that’s permeated select areas of Los Angeles. “I walk down the shopping areas around Beverly Hills or on Little Santa Monica and see a big store with a name. It has one candle in it. And I’m like, ‘How do you guys afford the rent on this business? What are you selling in there?’”
And yet, there’s also something fun in exploring the lives of those who don’t blink an eye at dropping $25,000 on a Birkin bag. (I mean, if only The White Lotus‘s Victoria Ratliff were part of this show.)
Below, Munn and Peet open up how they related to their respective characters, and why we just can’t look away from the lives of the ultra-wealthy. Says Peet, “All these rich people who are teetering on and on the brink of losing it all…[it’s] like a Jane Austen novel, with these status-obsessed society people.”
Glamour: Olivia, you play Sam Levitt, a single mom going through a divorce in the wealthy suburbs of upstate New York. What drew you to the role?
Olivia Munn: I related to my character. My character is middle class. My character is not born into wealth like everyone else. Everyone else in this show, they are born from wealthy families. They have Ivy League lineage. They have the stepping stones laid out for them to get to where they’re eventually at the top of the ecosystem, with the three mansions and the private schools and all of that. My character doesn’t come from that world at all. She married into this.
I grew up in a military family. I remember coming to L.A. and just the amount of wealth that I saw when I was 22 coming to L.A. for the first time…I mean, it was a different level. I didn’t know what certain brands were. I’d never heard of Cartier. I was like, “What is this?” It was interesting. Only because I’m exposed to it do I now know about it.
That’s fascinating.
Munn: My life was happy, even though I didn’t know about [that kind of wealth] at all. I think it’s just a really interesting world and a character to play of somebody who now has had a taste of this. And her whole life is being threatened because she’s in the middle of a divorce, and it could all go away in a heartbeat. If she hadn’t known about this life, in this world, it wouldn’t matter. But now that she does, it seems unfathomable for her to be happy anywhere else.
I still walk around L.A. wondering what people do to live in some of these houses, which aren’t even mansions, but cost over $2 or $3 million. I’m working my butt off and feel like I’m barely affording rent on my one-bedroom apartment.
Munn: Sometimes I walk down the shopping areas in around Beverly Hills or on Little Santa Monica and see a big store with a name. It has one candle in it. And I’m like, “How do you guys afford the rent on this business? What are you selling in there?” But there’s always somebody who will come around and buy a $50,000 candle.
It’s so true. And it’s wild. Meanwhile, Amanda, your character, Mel, comes from a different world. How did you relate to the story, and what should we think of Mel’s estranged relationship with Coop (Jon Hamm)?
Amanda Peet: Jonathan Tropper wrote about these exes who still have unfinished business, and I think that’s really fun. Even though they’re happily shtupping other people, they still can’t unstick. I also like books and movies and TV shows that get into that idea of, Do I really know you? You’re my spouse. I sleep next to you, or you’re my best friend and I know everything about you and I see you every day, but do I really know who you are? I think that’s always really suspenseful. And I think it’s really fun that Mel and Coop still want to fuck each other and they have this ongoing romantic saga from college. And yet there’s a lot of rage.
Munn: What I love about the two of you is that you as Mel broke his heart into pieces. You shattered his heart and he wants no one else in the world but you. And that’s a really sad thing to watch, especially if you’re this girl.
There’s some very heavy themes in this show, but it’s also a bit of a soapy drama.
Munn: These are people who have incredible wealth and are crumbling in front of your eyes. They are destroying their own lives. It is incredible to watch people with so much just systematically lose it all.
Peet: Olivia just articulated it really well. Like I said, it’s really suspenseful to watch someone who has a double life. I think that that’s such a delicious conceit. And Jon Hamm’s character isn’t really the only one. Even Olivia’s character [is trying to] keep up with the Joneses. All these rich people who are teetering on and on the brink of losing it all…like a Jane Austen novel, with these status-obsessed society people.
Your Friends & Neighbors streams on Apple TV+ beginning April 11.
The post Your Friends & Neighbors Is the Soapy Drama You’ve Been Waiting For appeared first on Glamour.
