Fans of Apple TV+’s The Afterparty can rest assured the killer will be revealed by the end of the season. Plus, executive producer/writer Phil Lord swears The Afterparty is a “fair play mystery.” There won’t be some random stranger showing up in the finale who turns out to be the killer. The person who murdered Xavier (played by Dave Franco) during a high school reunion party is definitely someone viewers meet during the season.
The Afterparty creator, writer, executive producer, director, and showrunner Chris Miller joined Lord and six of the series’ talented cast members for the 2022 Television Critics Association’s virtual winter press panel. No spoilers were revealed, however, The Afterparty gang did deliver quite a few interesting tidbits – including a surprising revelation about the characters’ names.
Miller explained the characters came first, followed by creating a mystery that worked, with the genre aspect coming in later. “[…] We were sort of looking at each character and thinking about how can we approach the style of what their worldview is, and then as we picked genres for each person then it’s sort of we had to adjust everything and adjust our characters to sort of fit into the world of that style,” said Miller. “And so, it did keep evolving back and forth, but it started with the characters and the mystery first, and then the genres sort of built out of who they were.”
Miller added: “It was a math problem at first. That’s why all the characters’ names start with A, B, C, D, W, X, Y, Z. (Aniq, Brett, Chelsea, Danner, Walt, Xavier, Yasper, and Zoe.)
Each of the suspects has a specific episode in which they lay out the events leading up to Xavier’s murder from their point of view. And each episode unfolds in a different, specific genre.
Ben Schwartz’s character, Yasper, tells his story to Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) as if he’s part of a musical.
“My email when I got it from Chris said, ‘This is what the format of the show is. It’s going to be a murder mystery. Each episode is going to be a different genre. And he said, ‘And your genre is going to be musical.’ And first of all, getting anything from Phil or Chris, I say yes. It could have been anything. And then, literally, a week later when it was time to record the song Chris texted me and said, ‘Hey, do you know how to sing? Do you know how to sing or dance?’ after he had already cast me for the musical.
And I go, ‘Not like Ben Platt, but I can kind of pull it off.’ He goes, ‘Okay, good. I figured you’d be pretty good at it.’ And I was like, ‘Great.’
It was very funny to get cast as that role and then a week later, Chris being like, ‘Oh, and by the way, can you dance or sing?’” explained Schwartz.
Filming in different genres and from various points of view meant the actors had to change up how they played their characters, which sometimes meant taking things way over the top.
“I think it was a really fun way to shade your character too because you kind of get to play how other people see you. So, in Aniq’s romantic, I’m the best friend that idolizes him but I’m in the background. And then when it’s the musical time, it’s time where I think everything is all about me. My character barely notices anything that’s not about him,” said Schwartz. “It’s a really fun tool that Chris used to kind of shade your character in so many different ways. And as an actor, it’s so fun to play in a thriller and then to play in a romantic comedy and to play into this. And everybody’s so talented and amazing, so it’s so fun to watch.”
Ike Barinholtz (“Brett”) gives props to Chris Miller for making it easy on the actors, even with all the shifts in tone.
“He’s been sitting with this story in his head for a long time, so he has kind of mapped it out so specifically and knows all the answers. He kind of comes up to you after you shoot a take and he’s like, ‘That was great. So now we’re going to shoot this, and this is for 104 which is kind of a thriller, and this is Ilana’s POV, and in that, you’re trying to kill her.’ It’s a lot of explanation but he made it so clear and concise that there was never a minute where we were like, ‘Wait, what is this? What am I supposed to be doing?’ He allowed us just to kind of go in there and really just tear it up and have fun,” said Ike Barinholtz.
Ilana Glazer (“Chelsea”) described the switching up of genres as an excellent way to exercise their acting muscles. “And with this incredible cast, it was like we were athletes just stretching it out,” said Glazer.
Dave Franco joked that it was fun to play eight different shades of douche. “Where like in Ike’s episode, I get to be aggro douche. And then Ilana’s episode, I get to be kind of vulnerable awkward douche. It was a good time.”
And speaking of Dave Franco’s douchey pop star/murder victim character, Franco confirmed he did a little research to nail his obnoxious personality.
“I definitely looked at some interviews on YouTube. I probably shouldn’t say who because they might take offense,” said Franco. “I sympathize [with] this character. In the flashback episode, you kind of get to see that he wasn’t the coolest kid in high school, and he wasn’t accepted, and so you kind of get to see why he is acting out now. But I think for anyone who knew that this was based on them, they might take offense because on the surface, he’s a huge douche.”
Even with all the genres covered in season one, Phil Lord joked they have “roughly seven seasons and a movie worth of genres” in mind that wasn’t included in the first season.
“I would have loved to do magic, the magical genre,” said Tiffany Haddish. “And I would love to have done fantasy…a Dungeons and Dragons episode, in particular. I love playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
And what would Franco’s genre be? “I’d like to do a self-serious student film. [That] would have been fun.”
Ike Barinholtz suggested a softcore pornography episode while Ilana Glazer thinks there should be a The Afterparty episode shot in black and white and featuring Buster Keaton-style slapstick.
“Or do like a very grandiose sort of operatic kung fu film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Like things balancing and every gesture is like spinning with wires,” suggested Sam Richardson (“Aniq”).
“I think I would love to do a film noir, like a full-on like detective-type film noir with like Colin Money Cabbage and stuff like that,” added Chris Miller.
Season one of Apple TV+’s The Afterparty premiered on January 28, 2022. New episodes arrive on Fridays.
