Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Studio.
The latest episode of The Studio left Seth Rogen reeling more than potentially any other comedic leap in his career.
In the Apple TV+ series’ seventh episode, Rogen’s fictional studio head Matt Remick faces a quandary after realizing that the casting for the studio’s big-ticket film about the Kool-Aid man seems racially insensitive.
He tells PEOPLE it was “the only episode [where] I was kind of actively nervous about the needle we were threading” as he breaks down what it was like to get Ice Cube and Ziwe onboard.
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Initially, the film stars Josh Duhamel and Jessica Biel as the main live-action characters and Ice Cube as the voice of the Kool-Aid Man, with Sandra Oh as his wife — until Maya (Kathryn Hahn) voices that she has a “nagging concern that something is really f—— sus” about the casting.
The revelation prompts a panic, as Matt wonders, “Is this racist? Did we do something 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 could be a “major marketing issue” and that social media might “tear us new a–holes” over it, so they turn to Tyler (Dewayne Perkins), because he’s Black, for another opinion. He says he’s fine with it, but wants Ziwe and Lil Rel Howery to weigh in too, just to be safe.
In that meeting, a new issue arises over the fact that they’ve cast Sandra Oh as Kool-Aid’s wife, which Howery says will be a problem if they’re “implying that a Black woman is not good enough to be with a successful Black man like Kool[-Aid],” which Matt swiftly shuts down.
“The call with Ziwe, where I was explaining it to her, was one of the most nerve-racking moments of my entire life,” Rogen says.
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The issues continue to pile up as the episode progresses. They make the whole cast Black — despite Quinn’s (Chase Sui Wonders) insistence that the original cast was just fine and all the tweaks are actually what’s problematic — but then their (White) writers drop out of the project, and then they realize that the whole cast being Black is a problem, too.
Apple TV+
Ice Cube in “The Studio”
Eventually, Matt realizes how “insane” the whole predicament is and he goes right to the source: Ice Cube, himself.
The rapper, 55, sets Matt straight. “The Kool-Aid Man is Black. He ain’t White. He ain’t no Mexican. He Black. I’m the motherf—— Kool-Aid Man. And if you get anyone else to play him, now that s—- offensive.”
Apple TV+
Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn and Seth Rogen in “The Studio”
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Rogen says that his Zoom call with the rapper where he explained the idea and was “trying to get Ice Cube in on the joke” was “legitimately petrifying.”
The fear he felt while pitching Ziwe and Ice Cube was actually “very reflective of the joke in the show themselves, where I’m trying to not be offensive and I’m trying to explain my creative position.”
“And thank God people seem to get the joke as well,” he says. “But I was pretty nervous going into that episode.”
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New episodes of The Studio premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
Read the original article on People
