Rhea Seehorn has had a hell of a year. For years she had garnered a reputation as a great underappreciated talent, but that has all changed now thanks to Pluribus. A series about one of the only people on Earth not to have their minds taken over by an alien virus, Pluribus is not only critically adored, but recently became Apple TV’s most-watched show. And Seehorn is front and centre through it all. However, today she has bigger things on her mind.
“You gotta tell me how to crack the code,” she pleads before we’ve even said hello. “I’m an avid crossword puzzler, but I cannot beat the Guardian crossword. I cannot crack it, and I need to figure out what the problem is.”
If you’ve seen Pluribus, in which she plays a grouch forced to save the world against her will, the delightfulness of Seehorn in person might come as a surprise. She is bright-eyed and alert, sitting forward in her seat and fully engaged.
“I love making the show,” she says. “It has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, and the most rewarding. People are coming up to me and they want to talk about what the show is bringing up in them, and the thoughts it’s making them have. That’s been absolutely beyond satisfying.”
But perhaps not surprising. Pluribus is the sort of show that deliberately takes its time unfolding the grand mystery at its core. Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, who finds herself unaffected by the alien virus that has affected the rest of the global population. While they all operate as a mass hive mind – existing peacefully, if creepily, in a state of unquestioning happiness – she finds herself tasked with restoring individuality to the world. To complicate matters further, everyone seems especially attuned to her behaviour … perhaps because millions of people die whenever she loses her temper.
While creator Vince Gilligan has claimed that it’s partially autobiographical (it’s hard to see it as anything other than a reaction to his post-Breaking Bad celebrity, and all the sycophancy that goes with it) it’s also strangely universal. It’s the kind of high-concept show that has inspired a fervent obsession online of a level not seen since Lost. This obsession is something Seehorn respectfully prefers not to investigate.
“I’m too much of a scaredy-cat to look online,” she reveals. “My friends tell me, even on social media, to never scroll down. I know eventually there’s going to be a comment that’s just like, ‘She is an ugly idiot who should never be on screen again,’ and then I’m just going to want to go do Lego sets for a week.”
A bizarrely large chunk of the discourse online revolves around whether Carol should just give up and enjoy the simple pleasures of having her mind controlled. Seehorn doesn’t see the appeal.
“When I think about happiness and joy, it always comes down to surprise,” she says. “Being surprised by others’ accomplishments. But in that world, there are no new books. There is no new art. There’s never going to be a belly laugh, because no one can surprise you. I’ll never get to do a crossword puzzle again, because I already know all the answers, because I made the crossword.”
The story of how Seehorn got the Pluribus role has been told before, but it speaks volumes. Gilligan initially envisioned the lead as a man, but after seeing her in action on Better Call Saul, where she played Kim Wexler, he swapped the character’s sex purely to carry on working with her. Seehorn has been working since the 1990s, but this is her first series lead. Those who know her understand the pressure this must put on her.
“I watch Pluribus and my heart hurts for how long Rhea must have spent in physically and emotionally challenging states,” says Bob Odenkirk, her Better Call Saul co-star. “When we did Saul, we lived together with Patrick Fabian, and we all helped each other through the show. I wonder how she is doing with decompressing.”
Seehorn laughs when I mention this. “It’s so funny that he posed that question, because he called to check on me after he saw a couple of episodes,” she says. “He probably just wanted me to make fun of myself, because Bob has seen how my little squirrelly brain decompresses. There are art projects all over the house. There’s a Lego set, a jigsaw puzzle, embroidery, painting, hundreds of almost-finished crossword puzzles.”
Does she miss living with co-stars? “People thought it was weird,” she replies. “Bob started it. He called Patrick and I after season one and was like, ‘Do you guys think we should just live together?’ And I was like, actually, yes. All of our partners and spouses know each other and are friends, and none of us are skeezy. And it can be mentally taxing to come home by yourself.”
For Pluribus, which shoots in Albuquerque, she continued the tradition by moving in with Trish Almeida, the head of the show’s hair department, during production. “This one took longer to shoot, and it was challenging. A lot of explosions of anger, or suppression of anger in the moments when Carol is not allowed to show those feelings. A lot of time by myself, too. Sometimes even just seeing somebody for a cup of coffee can make your week.”
The season one finale airs on Boxing Day and, without wanting to spoil anything, it ends on such a tantalising cliffhanger that the next batch of episodes cannot come fast enough. While they are definitely coming – Apple knows a good thing when it sees one – Seehorn can’t give a concrete date.
“They’re in the writers’ room right now,” she says of Gilligan and his team. “But I don’t have a timeline of when they’ll complete that process.”
At this point I make a small strangulated yelp of frustration, to which Seehorn responds with a sense of calming reason. “I don’t think anybody is sitting around going, ‘Let’s just make them wait,’” she says with a smile. “I know my writers. They take such great care. Plus, the scope of this show is huge. Think about the episodes where everybody disappears. We’re in a working city. There were cars driving by all the time. They all have to be erased.”
But does she know what’s coming next for Carol? “I know the same as I did on Better Call Saul – one script at a time,” she says. “I never have any idea where it’s going. I haven’t a clue what happens next season. A couple of big things happen in the finale. And I gotta tell you, I haven’t a clue in the world where they’re going.”
