The Season One finale of Maximum Pleasure guaranteed drops tonight on Apple TV. The series has been another tremendous showcase for Tatiana Maslany, who plays Paula, a single mom and magazine fact checker who gets embroiled in a criminal conspiracy after developing an online relationship with a camboy. Look for my finale thoughts later in the week. In the meantime, here's an interview I had with Maslany in late May at the ATX Television Festival —this was part of the same conversation that later appeared on TV Is Good — where we talk about her process as one of our most versatile actors, and how this show is and isn't like previous TV jobs on Orphan Black and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Alan Sepinwall
What in the script that made you interested in playing Paula?
When I read it, I was like, I don't know what this looks like tonally. I can't get a grasp on it. And also when I did the audition, I was like—I did two auditions for it, and I totally blew it both times. Like, [groans] ah! I felt very off, very out of my body, like I couldn't kind of figure out who she was, in a way that was like really confusing to me. What I've come to realize is that I think the script was actually working on me in a way, where the character is at a point in her life where she doesn't know who she is anymore. The major relationship in her life has been destroyed by a big betrayal, and she's trying to figure out how to stand again, how to speak again, when you've lost that person that you are in reference to. I think I was actually responding to the material being quite deep. Instead of, Oh, I'm doing a bad audition," it was like, Oh no, Paula doesn't know who the hell she is.
I would have assumed that at this stage of your career, you're offer-only [i.e., doesn't have to audition for roles].
No, not at all. I mean, some things are offers and some things you audition for. I've—I've asked to audition for things that I got offered and then lost the job. [laughs] Because sometimes it's just not right. And to me, auditioning is one of the main ways that we as actors stay sharp, feel like actors, and actually show what we can do, which is take direction, change depending on what somebody gives you, depending on who you're reading opposite. There's so much information that you can get.
Alan Sepinwall