Amanda Peet is smashing “sad divorcée” tropes as Mel, ex-wife of Jon Hamm’s reprobate character Coop in Apple TV+ series Your Friends & Neighbors. The actress talks us through five things to consider…
1 Know your creator
I had read Jonathan Tropper’s novel This Is Where I Leave You, and then I read the last one, Everything Changes, which actually has overlap. It’s about a divorcé who ends up living in this apartment complex with these dudes. It has a lot of similarities in terms of midlife and anxiety, and there’s an ex-wife.
Tropper gave me the first two episodes. I thought it was a really fun idea that she’s a shrink who then steals self-destructive behaviors from her patients. And that was the moment I wanted to play her. But I knew he was a great storyteller and that the characters were going to have depth, and that he had a wonderful sense of comedy in my opinion, and also a wonderful sense of dialogue.
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2 Break the mold
Tropper didn’t want her to be ‘a wife.’ His big thing was that he really wanted to convey this spark between them that they can’t let go of, and obviously, I’m a huge romantic comedy fan, so I thought that was really fun and different. A lot of the depictions of middle-aged divorcées, they’re sad. We have a bunch of girlfriends on the couch on a Saturday night with white wine, being lifted up by their girlfriends and forced to go on a date, that kind of thing. And I didn’t see that at all. He didn’t write that for her. That wasn’t what he was interested in. Tropper had told me in the very beginning when he was pitching me the show, he said, “This is a real romance,” which is so weird when you have divorcées who are having a romance. So, I just didn’t know how he was going to do that. But I found it to be so poignant when I read it, and I’m assuming he did too, because I think we gave a lot to it. You can just drive something into the ground, and then despite having had the best intentions and having such promise in that romance, especially when you meet when you’re so young, I find it even more poignant because obviously it’s hard to grow with someone for that long.
3 Have crush-worthy chemistry
It was just really easy. I knew Jon Hamm a little bit in passing, from seeing him at a party or something like that, and I’m a huge fan of his work. He’s very crush-worthy. But yeah, whenever I was playing the scenes very angrily, they were like, “Don’t forget, he melts you a little bit.” And they kept wanting to find that part underneath, I felt was really fun. I think it’s on the page so I can’t take credit for it. The biggest thing that Tropper kept saying to me is that he kept just talking about the heart of the show. He wanted it to be this very strong connection between them that never dies. So, I wonder if maybe that was part of what drove him to write her a bit darkly, because they are alike in certain ways. For the scene where we go back to college, we shot basically in order. So, Jon and I knew each other really well by that point. That episode meant a lot to me because of the romance.
4 Collaboration is key
This is going to sound corny maybe, but Tropper is so feminist in his approach on set. He’s so collaborative. He seems to be OK with hearing from me if I want something to be slightly different and he’s open to getting into it with me. And then, he also is so thoughtful about the fact that my children are in school in LA. It’s like when you’re visiting schools with your kids, they’ll say, “Oh, this school, they really see the whole child.” And then other schools, they’ll say it’s just academically rigorous, but nothing else. It was little things like blocking or, the part where Mel is upset before the birthday party and the daughter’s putting makeup on her. He’s just very open. I was like, “How about if I’ve taken to the bed and then we go to the bathroom to do the makeup?” Or the fight scene with Olivia [Munn]. I was like, “Let’s really make it weird. Let’s make it go on slightly too long. It’s slightly weird.” He’s very collaborative. But anyway, he just is sane, which I think is incredibly rare in a showrunner. And generous. He doesn’t lead with his ego. He’s really a proper storyteller. Olivia and I will say, “Hey Jonathan, let’s try this.” And he’ll be like, “OK, that sounds cool.” And if he doesn’t like it, he’ll just say, “No, that’s stupid,” or whatever.
5 All work and no play…
The self-defense class scene was really fun. It was really great. Olivia and I had such a good time. Yeah, all those ladies who make up the group of the friends and neighbors are master theater actors, and we just had a ball. For the punching scene, we had to get a stunt person because we had to both be careful, and I had a frozen shoulder, so, we really actually choreographed it. We had stunt people help us make it so that we would look like we were having a pretty nasty fight, a pretty good brawl.
I’m still madly in love with acting, and I’ve gone on such a huge journey, and I think it’s true what some people say, the older you get and the more you do it, the more you realize you shouldn’t be working so hard. Holland Taylor, my best friend’s partner, always says, “No one wants your 100%.” I don’t want to overthink it because it just speaks to me, but I think it’s true for athletes too. Something about being in a state where you’re not trying too hard can be very critical. I think what’s so exciting is to be given the chance to keep learning.
I keep testing myself. How much more real can you make it? How much more can you not try to arrange your face or orchestrate this take? I still find it so delicious, the whole process of trying to pretend that it’s real. It sounds so simple, but I still feel challenged by it. And so, it’s been very exciting for me. I think it’s just about really good writing, it’s not really a particular kind of role. Even if it’s like one scene, it’s about looking for that challenge of really good writing.