Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne have played a husband and wife in the Neighborhood movie franchise.
The pair reunites for the Apple TV+ comedy series Platonic, which finds them playing one-time best friends who fall back into each other’s lives.
They share an all-consuming friendship that gets them into wild situations.
Byrne tells TV Fanatic exclusively that while Rogen and creators Nick Stoller and Francesca Delbanco were all draws for her to sign on the dotted line, she connected with the platonic relationship between her character Sylvia and Rogen’s Will.
“I have a dear friend who is a guy, and we’ve always had a platonic friendship, and I’ve definitely been under the scrutiny of other people going, ‘Hold on, wait, you’re just friends?'”
Byrne says that Platonic is “pure comedy” and that viewers should expect “emotional resonance,” but at its core, the show is very much about entertaining the audience while challenging expectations.
Byrne said that it was similar in tone to the comedy she’d done in the past with Rogen.
Rogen says he likes to pick roles he can connect with and felt that what he heard about Platonic included the elements of a show he would watch.
While he has played this kind of role on the big screen, he felt the show’s concept was “unique and original for television.”
Rogen liked that the show played like an R-rated movie, and he thought it was essential to make the other aspects of the show resemble set pieces you would find in a film.
Rogen believes viewers will connect with Sylvia and Will’s relationship because people change as they grow.
“As you get older, people make mistakes. They grow apart; they join relationships that you don’t love. You get yourself swept up in relationships,” he added.
“A lot of the show is about whether or not you are kind of choosing to be friends with these people, and whether or not you’re choosing to accept their flaws and whether or not you value how much they accept yours, and how people change.”
“Inherently, there’s something you like about each other, and often, you kind of have to weigh the cost-benefit analysis of all of that as you get older, and I think these are two people who are reconnecting and really seeing if their friendship can last into adulthood basically.”
Byrne agreed with Rogen, noting that “the arc of the story is also very specific,d it asks questions relatable to many viewers about friendships.
“Can these people reunite in this intense kind of friendship with the chapter they’re now at in their lives?”
Bergen teased that they are both at big grand forks in the road in their personal lives as they try to establish what comes next.
“They’re big personalities, and I think they clash, but they also bring out the best and worse in each other.”
Rogen says their relationship is “very poignant, but destructive at times.”
“Platonic follows a platonic pair of former best friends approaching midlife (Rogen and Byrne) who reconnect after a long rift,” the official logline teases.
“The duo’s friendship becomes all-consuming — and hilariously destabilizes their lives.”
In addition to Rogen and Byrne, the ensemble cast includes Luke Macfarlane, Tre Hale, Andrew Lopez, and Carla Gallo.
Platonic is produced by Sony Pictures Television, where Stoller’s Global Solutions has an overall deal. Byrne, Rogen, Stoller, Delbanco, and Conor Welch executive produce.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
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