Nerd Reactor had the opportunity to speak with Rhys Ifans, creators Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, Anna Maxwell Martin, and Josef Davies about the series’ darker tone, the real-life inspirations behind its characters, and how there is still hope despite the gloomy setting.

Rhys Ifans on Playing an Obsessive Genius Hidden From History

Fans of Rhys Ifans may know him as Dr. Curt Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man, a scientist obsessed with a cure for his amputated arm. In Star City, he portrays The Chief Designer, who has a different kind of obsession.

“Yes, you’re right,” the actor tells Nerd Reactor about the similarities between Curt Connors and the Chief Designer. “They’re both obsessed. But in this case, the most pleasing thing for me as an actor is that one was actually a real human being, the Chief Designer. With many obsessions, yes, to fly the Russian flag. But also, on a personal level, I think he was a kid who, like many children, stared up at the night sky, saw the moon, and was irrepressibly curious as to what that might present or represent.

“And then what was interesting to me was the fact that he had to do all this without the knowledge of anyone, not just knowing that he was behind the great work that was done, but that he himself is invisible in the whole story. And one could argue the greatest story ever told.”

Star City Explores the Human Side of Life Under Pressure

Ben Nedivi is the co-creator and serves as a showrunner and executive producer. Even with the show’s darker tones, hope is a pivotal part that allows the Soviets to push their space program further.

“I think even For All Mankind, there’s a constant push and pull of the optimism of that show,” Nedivi said. “I think that’s something we wanted to capture – as important as this idea of the pressure that they were under – but also how they overcame that pressure. As people watch the show, you’ll see that the power is in these humans, that overcoming the system, overcoming the odds, to still thrive and still succeed in their own way. That’s to me where I see the hope in the show.”

Revisiting the Soviet Space Race Through a Different Lens

Viewers will be transported into an alternate Cold War setting once again, and because of the Soviet world, it feels completely different.

“There’s also a nostalgia for the simpler time of the Cold War, ironically, even though we were a breath away from nuclear war all the time,” Matt Wolpert said. “It was like, ‘Oh, but those were the days,’ because now everything just feels so kind of incomprehensible. At least then you understood there were two sides and everybody was on one of those sides. And so there is kind of a nice warm feeling about being back in 1969 and in the USSR, weirdly.”

“At least then you knew if you were going to die, who was going to kill you,” Ifans added.

Surveillance and Paranoia

The series captures how the KGB spied on its own people, especially as audiences follow Anna Maxwell Martin as the head of the KGB surveillance department at Star City and Agnes O’Casey as a recruit.

“There was certainly a history in a country where children informed on their own parents,” Martin said. “That was a grim reality. You have to be committed to immersing yourself in a very different type of culture and time.”

Finding Hope Inside Star City’s Dark World

Josef Davies portrays the younger Sergei Nikulov, an engineer who works at Soviet Ground Control. Even when the government is spying on its own people, these characters find ways to persevere.

“Although it’s in the same universe, it’s a completely different world and a completely different experience,” Davies said. “I think it’s more of this setting, and then, as we’ve said before, it’s kind of character-driven, and it’s really the story of people just trying to be human and live and fight for the thing that they’re passionate about. So the oppression and the depression and everything that we’re living in, I think, it kind of just feels more of a tool to help us provide that story.”

Star City premieres on Apple TV+ on May 29, 2026.

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Jake Johnson is known for voicing Peter B. Parker in the Spider-Verse animated films. In Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, he portrays Karl, Paula’s ex-husband, who does not see her as a fit mother.

“I don’t think Peter B. Parker would like Karl at all,” Johnson tells Nerd Reactor. “I don’t think he would be interested in him. I think Karl is so in his little battle for Hazel and doing what he thinks is right that Karl’s not able to see anything else besides his reality and his truth.

“And I think he is 100% convinced he’s right. And I don’t think that’s something that Peter B. Parker finds attractive in people.”

Jake’s character believes what he’s doing is right; however, Bartlett’s character is a whole other beast. One of the most talked-about episodes in HBO’s The Last of Us series featured Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman. It showed viewers that love can bloom even in a post-apocalyptic world. In Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Bartlett portrays an antagonist who would become an obstacle for Tatiana’s Paula.

“I think he’d be awesome because I think he’s a sociopath,” Bartlett said about his Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed character if he were in The Last of Us. “I think he can distance himself from emotion, or just naturally, he just doesn’t have a lot of it. He has a very small spectrum of emotions. So I think he could get it done, and not be worried about consequences.”

David J. Rosen is the creator, executive producer and writer of the series, whose credits include Us & Them, Invasion, Sugar, and Hunters. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a series with dark and comedic elements, and it’s a balancing act throughout the series.

“I think trying to make them laugh is weirdly hard,” Rosen said. “That’s kind of how we attacked the series, actually. We can write the thriller moves, and we have to execute them. But we could know intellectually that these should line up and be good. But you can’t really intellectually know whether or not something funny will land. It’s just a whole different thing. Because of that, let’s write a bulletproof thriller, as bulletproof as we can make it. And then the humor will come from the characters and how they respond to those thriller moments.”

About Maximum Pleasure Guarantteed

Synopsis: From creator and showrunner David J. Rosen, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed follows newly divorced mom Paula (Maslany) as she falls down a dangerous rabbit hole of blackmail, murder and youth soccer. Convinced she witnessed a crime – while simultaneously struggling through a custody battle and an identity crisis – Paula begins her own investigation, one that could unravel a greater conspiracy while also holding the keys to rebuilding her family and sense of self.

Brandon Flynn (“13 Reasons Why”) and Murray Bartlett (“The Last of Us,” “The White Lotus”) also join the ensemble cast, which includes Jessy Hodges (“Barry”), Jon Michael Hill (“Elementary”), Charlie Hall (“The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”), Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg (“Charmed,” “Invasion”), Nola Wallace (The Strangers: Chapter 2, The Strangers: Chapter 3) and Dolly De Leon (“Nine Perfect Strangers,” “Triangle of Sadness”).

The post The Cast of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on Sociopaths, Manipulation and Dark Comedy appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

“I always enjoy fighting with Cush,” Capaldi tells Nerd Reactor about his scene partner. “There’s always a point where we’ve been simmering for a while, and not saying what we want to say. And there are scenes that come along where we actually tell it the way it is. So we’ve had enough. And I always enjoy those because we can sort of let go of those.”

“Yeah, I like simmering with Peter,” Jumbo added. “And then going and hitting bad guys, and then coming back and yelling at Peter, and then going and hitting bad guys. So it works for me really well.”

The action thriller features high-stakes moments, but it’s the dialogue that Jumbo cherishes.

“Oh, I love the action, but I think the dialogue on our show is amazing,” she said. “We have the most amazing scripts. We have the most amazing teams of people who sit around thinking about story and about the way these characters speak and how they place an argument. And it’s a joy to put that language in your mouth. So I would do the dialogue any day, probably over the action.”

About Criminal Record

Synopsis: From BAFTA Award nominee Paul Rutman, “Criminal Record” is a powerful, character-driven drama set in the heart of contemporary London, exploring the impossibility of policing when the truth is up for grabs. In season two, when a young man is stabbed to death at a political rally, rival police officers June Lenker and Daniel Hegarty are forced into an uneasy alliance. But what starts as a hunt for a murderer escalates into an undercover operation to foil a Far-Right bomb plot in the heart of London. Season two reunites Capaldi as ‘Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty’ and Jumbo as ‘Detective Sergeant June Lenker.’

Dustin Demri-Burns, Luca Pasqualino, Luther Ford, Lyndsey Marshal and Peter Sullivan join the cast in addition to the returning ensemble that includes Shaun Dooley, Stephen Campbell Moore and Charlie Creed-Miles.

The eight-episode, season two of Criminal Record debuts the first episode on Wednesday, April 22, with new episodes weekly until Wednesday, June 10.

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Isabella Gomez has been capturing fans’ hearts, going all the way back to the Netflix hit series One Day at a Time. She joins Shrinking Season 3 as Marisol, Sean’s (Luke Tennie) first love, who is now reentering his life, and brings the perfect energy and chemistry to even further enhance the show’s dynamic cast. She was handpicked for the role by showrunner Bill Lawrence after they previously worked together on Head of the Class, and from her first appearance this season, it’s easy to see why.

We got to talk all about building her chemistry with Luke, her character’s possible backstory, where we hope to see the couple go next season, and much more.

“Luke and I talked quite a bit about what it looks like to be first loves with someone and to have that kind of history,” said Gomez. “With all that has gone down with Sean, and also we don’t know much about Marisol, what does that look like to love each other and have that kind of history and then come back to each other at this point in life? And the different coping mechanisms like how much he wants to talk things out and be very by the book and Marisol is more free spirited. It’s very art imitates life.”

The end of Season 3 leaves Sean in a very hopeful and optimistic place starting a new job and moving into a new apartment, which is extremely rewarding after following his therapy journey the past two seasons. So where could things go for the couple from here?

“I’ve been pitching a wedding from day one,” said Gomez. “Shrinking seems to have a wedding per season. But there’s so much going on. Sean moves in with his friend Jorge (Trey Santiago-Hudson), and what does that mean for this couple? I think those conversations and conflicts aren’t always modeled for us in media, showing how even when you’re in a happy, loving relationship, there will still be a lot of trial and error.”

There’s one more idea Gomez has up her sleeve. “My real dream is for Marisol and Sean to have couples therapy next season so that we have to go to Harrison Ford to fix us,” she added.

I think we’re all fully on board with that possible storyline, and Season 4 can’t come soon enough.

Shrinking Season 3 is now streaming in full on Apple TV.

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The award-winning performances from Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Michael Urie, Christa Miller, Ted McGinley, Lukita Maxwell, and Luke Tennie over Shrinking’s first three seasons are even further enhanced by the perfectly cast friends, partners, patients, and colleagues that we get to see play with them in this world.

On that note, I’m on a mission to interview as many people from the show as possible, in an attempt to bring something close to a complete oral history of Shrinking to Nerd Reactor.

This week I was thrilled to chat with Rachel Stubington who plays Summer, best friend to Alice (Maxwell). It’s surprising to hear that Shrinking was her first major acting role as she blends so seamlessly into this cast, hitting us with iconic one-liners and comedic relief sprinkled across some often heavy storylines.

“The blessing of being on a Bill Lawrence show, and you see it in Ted Lasso too, is that they’ll take characters in the first season that walk by in the background and then by season three you meet their families and they have a life,” said Stubington. “I think it’s so cool that he weaves them into so many different parts of the story.”

Looking back on when she first landed the role, she remembers, “I had just graduated college and was in the movie theater seeing Jurassic World when I got the email for the audition. I remember reading the character description and it felt like something that I could realistically do, and then I saw right underneath it said Jason Segel and Harrison Ford and I thought ‘It was fun while it lasted’. And now I still can’t believe it. I feel like I have to dissociate a little bit when it comes to Shrinking because it’s so far beyond anything I thought I could be a part of. I owe everything to Shrinking.”

Reflecting on how she has grown as an actor over the course of the show, Stubington comments, “I always want to bring something grounding to Summer and approach her with as much depth as possible. Even when I get scenes where I have one line, I’ll always make sure I know where she’s coming from and what’s going on in her life. I want to see Summer’s mom and meet her family so badly.”

I completely agree, as the show has been telling stories about Summer’s mom and painting her as a wild character for years. In fact, we both had the exact same thought: she reminds us of Jane Lynch as Pam Puckett, Sam’s mom on iCarly. Can we get the showrunners’ attention and manifest this into existence for a future season? Only time will tell.

Tune into our full conversation in the video above. And stay tuned for Stubington’s directorial debut on Copy, Credit, No Pay, which she also wrote and starred in alongside her best friend Jacob Cherry. It will premiere on Vimeo later this month.

The 11-episode third season of “Shrinking” debuted globally with a one-hour premiere episode on Wednesday, January 28, on Apple TV, and continues with one episode weekly through April 8, 2026.

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Joining the cast is Judy Greer, who starred opposite Garner in 13 Going on 30 as a rival. Fast-forward to today, and the two meet in The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2 under tense circumstances.

“Yes, we play characters on opposite sides of something in this show as well,” Greer tells Nerd Reactor. “Yeah, someday someone will cast us as friends again, but we’ll keep our friendship off set.”

The two actors are friends in real life, and thanks to their chemistry, acting opposite each other wasn’t hard.

“You have fun with someone, and you respect their acting,” she explained. “But also, I respect [Jennifer’s] process, and the same with her. And there are some scenes we did in this season where we just kept staying together all the time. And there are some scenes that, when we weren’t actually being filmed, we had to separate because we needed to maintain some kind of decorum.”

Angourie Rice portrays Bailey, who is now older and is more strong-willed in her search for answers, which leads to her encounter with Quinn, portrayed by Greer.

“I think what’s so interesting about Bailey in season two, but she had this in season one as well, is that she’s looking at all these grown-ups around her and begging them to tell her the truth,” Rice said. “And saying to them like, ‘Please, I can deal with it.’ We have a great scene where Quinn says, ‘You have to be careful because you might not like what you find out. You have to be ready for that.’

“And I think for Bailey, that’s a big question. But she believes that it’s going to be worth it, even if the truth is painful; it’s worth knowing. For Bailey, ignorance is not bliss. And so I think that’s really interesting that she’s got this drive and curiosity. And she doesn’t care if other people don’t want to give her information. She is going to push harder for it.”

The series co-creator, Laura Dave, who wrote the novel the series is based on, is back as an executive producer.

“It’s funny that you use the word reuniting,” Dave replied to my comments about reuniting as a theme for the second season. “Because I had three words above my desk when I was writing the book: salvation, redemption, and forgiveness. And then the fourth word that popped up was reunification. So you just hit on exactly everything I was trying to move toward. I always think of this, and I think of Hannah’s story.

“This is something that we all talked about very early on, as this is a normal woman who finds herself in extraordinary circumstances. Every day, women find themselves, all people, in circumstances they could not have imagined. And when the volume is turned all the way up, you’re going to see what matters most to you. And what matters most to Hannah is her daughter, her family, and there isn’t any length she won’t go to protect them. And I think that’s something we can all relate to. So that’s how I think we merge it, the propulsion with the family, because the two are speaking to each other constantly.”

About The Last Thing He Told Me S2

In season two of The Last Thing He Told Me, when Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) shows up after five years on the run, Hannah (Jennifer Garner) and her stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) find themselves in a race to figure out how to reunite their family before the past catches up to them.

Based on Laura Dave’s newly released sequel novel “The First Time I Saw Him,” the second season also welcomes new and returning cast members Rita Wilson, Judy Greer, Augusto Aguilera, Josh Hamilton, Nick Hargrove, Michael Galante, John Noble, Michael Hyatt and Luke Kirby.

The Last Thing He Told Me is produced by 20th Television and Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, a part of Candle Media. Created and adapted by Laura Dave, alongside Academy Award-winning co-creator Josh Singer, The Last Thing He Told Me was the first collaboration between the married Dave and Singer, who both serve as executive producers alongside Garner and Hello Sunshine’s Witherspoon and Neustadter. Emmy Award nominee Aaron Zelman joins season two as co-showrunner and executive producer with Singer. Daisy von Scherler Mayer and Merri D. Howard also serve as executive producers.

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The new threat is Titan X, and yes, Godzilla and Kong will have to team up once again.

About Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

The second season stars Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Joe Tippett and Anders Holm. The 10-episode second season of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” will premiere worldwide on Friday, February 27, 2026. It will debut with the first episode, with a new episode every Friday until May 1, 2026.

Synopsis: Season one of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” tracks two siblings looking to uncover their family’s connection to the secretive organization known as Monarch. Clues lead them into the world of monsters and ultimately down the rabbit hole to Colonel Lee Shaw (played by Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell), taking place in the 1950s and half a century later where Monarch is threatened by what Shaw knows.

Season two will pick up with the fate of Monarch — and the world — hanging in the balance. The dramatic saga reveals buried secrets that reunite our heroes (and villains) on Kong’s Skull Island, and a new, mysterious village where a mythical Titan rises from the sea. The ripple effects of the past make waves in the present day, blurring the bonds between family, friend and foe — all with the threat of a titan event on the horizon. As previously announced, season two will feature Kong, Godzilla and introduce a new Titan: the enigmatic Titan X that is now officially on the loose. Titan X isn’t just another monster; it’s a living cataclysm. When its massive bioluminescent form breaks the surface of the ocean, the world seems to hold its breath. In “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” season two, Titan X stands at the center of the mystery – an ancient force emerging from the deep, its purpose uncertain, its power unmatched, its awe and terror in equal measure.

New season two guest stars include Takehiro Hira, Amber Midthunder, Curtiss Cook, Cliff Curtis, Dominique Tipper and Camilo Jiménez Varón.

The second season is executive produced by Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell from Safehouse Pictures, alongside Chris Black, Jen Roskind, Matt Shakman and Lawrence Trilling.

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With the first episode of the Drops of God second season, viewers will get to see how the end of the first season has affected the two siblings.

“By the end of season one, I got a lot of inheritance, big wine, and got a new girlfriend,” Yamashita tells Nerd Reactor. “But in season two, Issei’s a totally different person because he has to break it up with his girlfriend. He loses his interest in wine, and actually, he’s haunted by his nightmare because he discovered a shocking secret about his past. So, you know, until he faces his biggest fear, he can’t go on with his life. So yeah, there’s a lot of happening in season two.”

There is a time jump between the Drops of God seasons, and Camille has been doing great with her new business.

“It was a lot of pressure,” Geffrier said. “Because then we have to do better than season one. So, you know, the pressure is different, and you’re reunited with your character, but it’s three years later. So a bit different, and that was really interesting. And of course, the best part was to see everybody again, the entire crew and the cast, everyone. So that was the big gift for the second season.”

Drops of God is inspired by the manga, and the show explores the senses similar to the source material.

“We really were inspired by the manga,” Executive Producer Klaus Zimmerman said. “So in the manga, the characters do extreme things because they feel that the extreme sports or extreme situations bring them to a very deep consciousness where they can understand things. And it goes pair and pair with the perfection of wine where they need to be at the top of their league to understand the wine, to taste the wine.

“So it’s a quest. It’s an internal quest that they go through, and whether you make yourself blind, your taste becomes stronger because you only focus on the senses of smell and taste, and if you go deep diving, it’s also something where suddenly your heartbeat goes slower, and you have a different feeling in your body. So these extremes I think, are very interesting to explore and related to the wine extreme that we’re talking about.”

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The season ended with a bombshell of a cliffhanger as we see (spoilers ahead) Carol, played by Rhea Seehorn, and Manousos, played by Carlos-Manuel Vesga, finally on the same page. The Others, reluctantly, helped retrieve a deadly weapon for Carol. What will Carol and Manousos do with this weapon? Will they even use it?

It all seemed fine earlier when Carol and Zosia, portrayed by Karolina Wydra, were having a great time together. However, the former was able to snap out of this fantasy when she discovered that Zosia and the Others already have her frozen eggs, and they hope to have her join the hive mind. Carol felt betrayed because they did this behind her back, and they don’t seem to care about her choices.

“Carol herself is fighting with what emotion she’s allowing to rise to the surface, right?” Seehorn tells Nerd Reactor. “There she is, willingly being a bit delusional in this relationship with Zosia. And hanging on to the parts of like, ‘Okay, it is factual that there is sincere love for me in this. They do care about me. I think I can hang on to that.’ But at the same time, that terrible scene where she was like, ‘You cannot love Manousos the same as me.’ And it’s so disturbing. It’s disturbing for Carol as a writer, I think, in the literal sense of it’s not possible to love two things exactly the same.

“But it’s also this much larger existential philosophical crisis of then the love for me is not unique, which led the crew and me to have these late-night discussions of, ‘Does love have to be unique?’ Carol cannot accept that that’s real love, which is a very interesting question to pose. So she willingly went along with this delusion. And then to find out that they have betrayed her in such a horrific way to her is the end of that illusion and the end of that delusion.”

Also, check out our interview with Karolina Wydra and Carlos-Manuel Vesga as they talk about the show, including the Darien Gap episode.

Pluribus Season 1 is now available to stream on Apple TV+.

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An otherworldly influence has resulted in people all over the world being connected through the mind. There are pros and cons to this, with the pros being peace and understanding. However, Carol fears that people are losing their individuality, and she’ll go to great lengths to try to reverse the process.

“I must say [Carol] is very dissimilar from me, which was a lot of fun to play,” Seehorn tells Nerd Reactor. “But I could identify with [her]. I think I have been in situations where I’m like, ‘Somebody should really do something about this,’ but I’m hoping it’s somebody else. I’m a really good follower, but I’m not positive that I would lead the charge. Although I don’t know… I’m better at standing up for other people than myself. So usually those are the times when I march forward. Maybe I would just keep watching Golden Girls and never get off the couch. I don’t know [laughs].”

Episode 2 introduces viewers to the “Pirate Lady,” who is played by Karolina Wydra. The connected people believe that she can be a valuable person to help persuade Carol. As a viewer, I’m busy trying to figure out how this is all going to play out.

“When I first read it, I was, ‘Wait, wait, what? What is happening?'” Wydra said. “It’s so mind-blowing. And it’s so exciting because I haven’t read anything like this for TV. The character, the world that he created, all these things. There’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers; there are certain things like that. But this has never been created. And so reading that was really exciting.

“It was definitely enthralling to read it and scary to even know where to begin to tackle such a big idea. When I met with Vince, I had so many questions about who these people are, how to break it down, his vision for it, and what he had in mind for it. That’s where it all started with having these conversations and piecing the little things.”

The nine-episode drama series debuted with the first two episodes on Friday, November 7, 2025, with new episodes every Friday through December 26.

Pluribus has already been picked up for a second season, and the show is described as “the most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.”

Joining Seehorn and Wydra are Carlos-Manuel Vesga (The Hijacking of Flight 601), Miriam Shor (“American Fiction”) and Samba Schutte (“Our Flag Means Death”).

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