The Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here, about a fictionalized group of stand-up comics in L.A. in the ‘70s, is back for Season 2 and diving deeper into the dysfunction among this makeshift family at Goldie’s. No longer just about the struggle to make it, Goldie (Melissa Leo) expands her comedy empire by partnering with legendary Las Vegas comedian Roy Martin (Brad Garrett) while trying to figure out how to deal with her 18-year-old daughter, Cassie (Ari Graynor) has to come to terms with a major secret from her past, Nick (Jake Lacy) will struggle with his drug addiction, and Eddie (Michael Angarano), Ron (Clark Duke), Ralph (Erik Griffin), Bill (Andrew Santino), Adam (RJ Cyler) and Edgar (Al Madrigal) all start to question what it is they really want.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actress Ari Graynor (who’s done really terrific work on the series) talked about the deeper character exploration in Season 2, how protective she feels about Cassie, the evolution of Cassie’s journey, why she originally wanted to be a part of this project, and the joy of working with this incredibly talented and diverse cast. She also talked about the experience of working with director Jason Reitman on The Front Runner (starring Hugh Jackman), about Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1988, and playing a real-life characters, along with what she looks for in a project.

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-02
Image via Showtime

Collider:  I very much enjoy your work on the show! I’ve seen the first two episodes of the new season and it definitely seems like some things are going down.

ARI GRAYNOR:  Yeah, there’s a lot going on. First of all, I’m really glad you liked it. I’m happy to hear that. Had you watched last season?

Yes!

GRAYNOR:  How did it compare, for you?

I love how the second season of a show always seems to be when we get way deeper into the characters and their relationships, and their lives outside of whatever the story is that’s being told, and I feel like this season does that.

GRAYNOR:  Yeah, exactly! Last season was so focused on the club and about stand-up, and the stakes were very much related to that world and that space, getting on Carson, getting on the main stage, finding your voice, and fighting for your space. I was so excited by this season because it felt like all of the stories exploded a bit, and you’re really getting a picture, outside the club, of who these people really are, what they’re dealing with, and the distance between who they are and who the wanna be, on a much bigger level. Not only is that a really exciting and satisfying space to look at ‘cause it dives into the world that we all love, of that early ‘70s success in L.A., with the money, drugs and struggle. That gets more colorfully drawn in, as a whole. And these bigger themes of the American dream, going after what you want, compromises you have to make, and the difference between what you think success looks like and what it feels like, are things that are much bigger concepts, and I’m really excited to see how the all come together when it’s edited ‘cause I thought the scripts were really exciting to play.

After doing a season of the show, how did that change your perspective on Cassie, going into and during the second season?

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-04
Image via Showtime

GRAYNOR:  You know, I’ve never done a second season of a show, so I didn’t have any baseline experience to reflect back on. I didn’t really know what that would be. At the end of Season 1, I felt wildly connected and protective of Cassie and of her integrity, her desire, her ambition, and her strength, but I also had a lot of questions, still, after all that. I wanted to know what really makes her tick. Sometimes, in the first season, I felt like she had a real handle on things, and I know for myself and every other creative person I know and comedians, we either self-sabotage, or keep a secret, or have an addictive behavior that affects how you manage to get through the world. I wasn’t sure what that looked like for her and where the soft spots were, so that you could understand more of her inner life and where her behavior was coming from. So, I was really excited, this year, when we started talking. Without saying anything specific, you’ll learn more about where she came from, what her experience was with having a very big, fundamental secret that’s such a shameful part of her own life and that she feels very conflicted about, and what that means for her career and her desire to prove that it was all worth it. And she self-sabotages, so you’ll see how she self-soothes and what her issues are with love and relationships. All of those things were really exciting to learn about. Even though I couldn’t relate to some of the specifics of it, I could relate to her emotional life.

Cassie is a very strong, solid person, who has big dreams and a huge amount of reserve inside, to pick herself up and go. At the same time, this year, we get to see what a struggle it is to do that. With female characters, sometimes there’s a desire to paint them as strong, capable and greatly confident, or they’re a total mess and lost. For me, it was really exciting to play a woman that is so very relatable to me, and that is doing and fighting, but not because it’s easy and comes without effort. She does it anyway. She does it with her fear, with her doubt, and with her self-loathing. That’s an incredibly human experience, and I think that’s fun to watch, with all of these characters, but it’s particularly meaningful to me ‘cause I’ve never gotten to really play a character like that.

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-melissa-leo
Image via Showtime

In the beginning of this, you couldn’t have known exactly what you would get with this show and character because you never get to know what the full journey will be, when you’re doing a TV series. You’ve also said that, when you got this role, you hadn’t been working for awhile and you were having a moment of real self-doubt. So, what was it about this role that snapped you out of that and made you see something in her, in the little you had to go on?

GRAYNOR:  In a very basic and honest way, it was that they saw me in her, which was the first step. It wasn’t like I was in moment of self-doubt and I wasn’t sure if I was gonna act, and I was just rolling in offers with amazing parts. Part of it was that I didn’t want to exclusively do the broadly comedic characters that I had been playing. I still love doing that. After a couple years of doing serious dramatic work, I’m like, “Well, it could be fun to play a really silly, comedic character again.” But, when this came along, it was not only that out of the blue someone had given me this gift in saying,” We see you in her,” but when I saw her reflected back, at least in the pilot, which was the only script I got, it was someone who had been going through a similar process that I had gone through, of trying to find your authentic voice, of trying to find her purpose in her work, of having gone through loss and difficulty, how that effects who you are, and how that makes you meet a deeper, more honest part of yourself.

She was also incredibly confident, and I loved how much she believed in herself. That was a real gift for me. I believe in myself a lot, but I’m also a person who has to deal with a lot of self-doubt and self-criticism. She does that in a different way, but she also knows she deserves to be somewhere. That was a really important thing for me to hang onto and it’s done something great for my own core. That’s the thing with TV, you never know what you’re gonna get. You don’t know what’s gonna develop, and I didn’t know what the show or she was really gonna look like, after the pilot. This season is really exciting to me because it just explores the whole world, in a way that I was craving to see, with the personal lives of all these characters and the world of comedy, which is not just about comedy but is placeholder for anybody artistic and creative and that’s trying to make it, whatever making it means.

Another thing that I really enjoy about this series is this family of comedians because they’re all so different and diverse, and you guys are a diverse group of actors. What has this cast been like to work with?

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-michael-angarano-01
Image via Showtime

GRAYNOR:  I’m so in love with this group and feel incredibly close to them. We’ve all been on a group text, for about two and a half years now. It’s a remarkable group of people, humans, actors and comedians. Everyone is so unique and so specifically themselves, and yet there is real alchemy between us. Something works, both personally and professionally. We were all together more, last season, because the world of the show was much more centered at the club. This year, we’ve been together, en masse, much less frequently, so I miss people, but it’s been so exciting to see the bits of work that they’re doing and following everyone’s path. I also think that the development of some of these relationships is really beautiful. Last season, Cassie was the sole female comic.

This year, Xosha Roquemore joined the cast as Dawn, and she is so amazing, so funny, so smart and so connected. It’s been very exciting for me to have her there, and see her find this whole other element to that space and her journey as Dawn, with all the stuff that she’s dealing with, personally and as a comedian. Love and friendship just takes new forms. People that you’re coming up with, there are conflicts, along the way, there are roadblocks, there are hurt feelings, and there are times where maybe you don’t talk, but you are fundamentally family. I think that’s true of all the characters on the show, and it’s really true for all of us, outside of the show. They’re my family. Whether this is it or we’re on forever, I will always feel that way about them.

You’ve also done a movie with Jason Reitman, called The Front Runner?

GRAYNOR:  Yeah.

How did you find the experience of working with him, as a director?

GRAYNOR:  It was incredible. It was an absolute dream. It reminded me and it validated why you wanna fight to work with great people. When you work with someone like him, who is such a cinephile and a filmmaker who is so deeply embedded in who he is and what he loves and what he cares about, his passion and excitement is infectious. He is the best kind of leader, who both knows exactly what he wants and has a vision and who makes you feel completely safe in their arms, like you’re doing a trust fall. At the same time, because he’s so confident in what he knows he wants and who he’s assembled around him, he also allows such freedom, as an actor, to play around. There would be moments where I would look to him for a note and he would be like, “You’ve got it. You know the thing.” And I’d be like, “Yeah!” And he would also get in there when I really needed it.

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-michael-angarano-02
Image via Showtime

The script is a very timely piece of work that is incredibly nuanced and does not come down on any moralistic side. It does not tell you what to think or feel. It just presents you with a lot of different sides, a lot of different feelings, and a lot of different perspectives and events, and you are left to come to your own conclusions. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but there’s how it felt in the script. I think that’s also very important right now, as we’re living in a culture that is getting extremely black and white in what the right and wrong way to think is. This film opens up the conversation and looks at all sides and all perspectives.

Who are you playing in that?

GRAYNOR:  I play Ann Devroy, who was the political editor of The Washington Post, which was a huge honor and was also something, as an actor, that I’d never done before. To get to say some of the things that were written for her, about why this is important, was a real honor and responsibility to get to give voice to. The dream, as an actor, is to have work line up in such a way that you get your own selfish expression and get to participate in something that feels worthwhile, being in the world, and is a conversation you wanna have. When you get to do that, as an actor, I don’t think there’s anything better.

Did playing a character like that give you a new understanding, appreciation and sympathy for covering politics today?

im-dying-up-here-ari-graynor-rj-cyler-michael-angarano-andrew-santino-clark-duke
Image via Showtime

GRAYNOR:  Yeah, I can’t even imagine. It’s something that we take for granted now, with everything being covered, all the time. This was the moment where that changed. This was the moment where politicians’ personal lives became part of the dialogue, and it’s where journalism was taking a very different turn. I can’t wait to see it. Jason Reitman is certainly a director that I hope, very much, to work with again. I loved every second of it.

At this point in your career, what do you look for in a project? Does it always start with the quality of the script and the character, or is who you’ll be working with equally as important to you?

GRAYNOR:  I think they’re of equal weight. Everything starts with the script. The concept for I’m Dying Up Here is cool, but there’s a million ways that that could have gone. David Flebotte is a brilliant writer, who cares very deeply for every character that is on that page, and he has a willingness to not just look at contradictory behavior, but contrary behavior. Dave really looks for, not only the poetry of the language and of a moment and of a relationship, but also the unexpected ways that people act and act out. When you read something and you don’t know how it’s going to unfold, that’s exciting. With all writing, if it’s not on the page, it’s not gonna be on the screen. I think that’s a lesson that I’ve learned, over and over. Usually your instincts of, “I don’t know if this feels right,” or “I don’t know about this,” are right, and I’ve learned to really listen and trust my gut. When you work with wonderful people, you learn, you’re challenged, and you grow, which are all things that I’m very interested in. I wanna try to put good stuff in the world and be a part of things that I can stand behind and that have meaning to me, and then hopefully to other people. So, yeah, the script and the people involved are definitely the two guiding lights.

I’m Dying Up Here Season 2 airs on Sunday nights on Showtime. The Season 1 DVD will be available on May 29th.

im-dying-up-here-poster
Image via Showtime