From creator/showrunner Ellen Rapoport and executive producer Paul Feig, the 10-episode HBO Max Original comedy series Minx takes place in 1970s Los Angeles and follows self-proclaimed feminist Joyce Prigger (Ophelia Lovibond), as she pursues her dream of putting out a magazine that will change the lives of women. When she crosses paths with Bottom Dollar porn publisher Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson), Joyce quickly realizes that, in order to achieve her goal and further the feminist revolution, she might need to do things a bit differently than she expected, thereby turning her original vision into the first erotic magazine for women.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Johnson and Lovibond talked about loving Doug from the start, the inspiration behind the character, how Joyce is someone with her heart in the right place, the fun of the dynamic between the characters, why this was a hard sell to a network, the Doug-Tina (Idara Victor) relationship, the sister bond between Joyce and Shelly (Lennon Parham), and how satisfied fans will be by the end of the season.
Collider: I’m absolutely delighted with this show. I love everything about it. It’s so funny and the characters are just great.
JAKE JOHNSON: Awesome.
Jake, when this character came your way, what was your reaction to him? He seems like somebody who could have so easily gone in very bad directions, but he’s just so likable.
JOHNSON: I loved Doug, from the start. I grew up around a few Dougs, in terms of uncles and characters around me, who might have been considered shady, but were really sweet people when you got to know them. And I feel like, in entertainment, a lot of these characters are either one thing or the other. They’re either the bad guys, or they’re the good guys. So, it was really fun to be able to play a guy like Doug who, at times, is really shady and what he does is a little skeezy. But the way I see Doug is that he’s just a small business owner, and he’s really interested in capitalism, and he’s really trying to win. He doesn’t care who’s on his team when he wins, as long as he wins, and there was something about that I really was pulled towards. For him, the idea of doing Joyce’s magazine was great. If it has a big feminist audience, great. If it gears towards gay men, great. I liked that he didn’t have judgment. He just wanted to win.
And he also seems to notice when people do their job well and uplift that, in a way that other people likely would not do.
JOHNSON: Yeah. I think that’s partly because he doesn’t care who’s the one doing the good work. It’s not as if you have to be a certain type of person to be promoted. If you’re on his team, and you’re doing good stuff, you could rise to the top with him. That creates a really fun environment at Bottom Dollar.
Ophelia, what was your first impression of Joyce? How much did you get to know about her, and how much were you told about her? She’s someone who could have come across as very uptight and unlikable, but instead, you just can’t help but root for her.
LOVIBOND: I felt like it was really clear in the pilot script. I just reacted to her immediately and had an affinity for her. I could see that where she was coming from was really well-meaning. It wasn’t coming from a dictatorial place. She says things that come out sounding quite condescending, but her intention isn’t to be condescending. I just found that appealing. She’s trying to put her best foot forward, and stumbling and tripping herself up with it. It was quite clear in the writing to me that her heart was in the right place.
What do you think it is about Doug that makes him different to her? Why does she keep going back and deciding to trust him when she isn’t really sure in the beginning?
LOVIBOND: Frankly, I think because she doesn’t have any other options.
JOHNSON: That’s what I was gonna say. She doesn’t have a choice.
LOVIBOND: She’s like, “What do I really have to lose?”
JOHNSON: Nobody else would publish her magazine.
LOVIBOND: She’s been trying for years. And then, when she has this conversation with her sister, she says, “He’s willing to give you all this money. Try it.” Even though she’s stubborn, she does realize that he does have knowledge. He does know things that she doesn’t. He does have expertise that she doesn’t. She wants to use him and use his money and use his platform to get her ideas out there. She naively thinks that she’ll be able to minimize the involvement of nudity, but when she realizes that she can’t, she surrenders to that more, which is when you see her evolving for the better.
JOHNSON: But I also think they both think that they can steamroll the other person. They both think that this is gonna be a very easy match for them. Doug thinks he’s gonna bring this woman, Joyce, on and she’s gonna write these articles, but what’s really gonna sell is the naked men. Even if Joyce leaves, this magazine will do some good business, and then he’ll move on. Very quickly, they realize that they got in the boxing ring with somebody that they can’t necessarily beat, so it’s a new zone for both of them.
It’s fun to watch how they start to care about things that they wouldn’t have necessarily expected themselves to care about. Joyce seems to really start to care about what the photo shoots look like and wants to provide her opinion.
LOVIBOND: Yeah. She thinks, “Right, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. If I’m gonna be involved in this and if this is the only way my articles can get out there, then I wanna have some creative control over what the nudity looks like.” She’s gotta get in there. She’s also quite controlling, that’s another thing.
The porn industry is vast, and you could continue to fall down that rabbit hole. Did you guys do any specific research or things to immerse yourself in that world, to understand the industry and business aspect of it?
JOHNSON: Honestly, I think Doug cares less that it’s porn. There are certain characters who get into porn because they can’t watch enough porn. I think Doug is a character who’s really just in it to sell magazines and units. Bottom Dollar could have been anything. I don’t think he cares what he’s selling. He just wants to sell, and it just happens to be porn. But I don’t take him as an overly sexualized guy. When there’s nude female models walking around, he’s not looking at them and checking them out to decide if he wants to sleep with them that night. He’s thinking, “Is this look gonna sell my magazines?” More than anything else, he’s a capitalist. That’s a really fun thing to play and explore.
True Blood came out and had more male nudity than female nudity, and that seemed to be celebrated. Game of Thrones had full-frontal male nudity. Euphoria does. But it seems to have stayed very largely in the world of HBO. What’s it like to be part of telling a story that isn’t constrained by those boundaries? At the same time, is it surprising that we’re still talking about how those boundaries exist?
LOVIBOND: Personally, yes, I do think it’s surprising. I get it. I understand it, intellectually. But I don’t know why it’s still so shocking. Most of us watching these shows have been around nudity. I wonder what it is that is still so titillating.
JOHNSON: I know that the first incarnation of this show, that I was attached to long before Ophelia was, we did a pilot of this at CBS. They tested it and the CBS executives and the fan base did not wanna see all those penises. So then, we brought it to HBO, after that. It lives at HBO because there’s not many places that it could even live at. Who else is doing a show like this? It’s not gonna be on any network. It’s not gonna be on any of these streamers that really make their money off-network. Apple can’t do it because they’re concerned about their phones, and you don’t wanna get people mad at you. There are two places that are willing to do nudity, so all those shows have to go there.
There’s such a fun push-and-pull between your characters. I love how they each give a little to the other, throughout the episodes. What do you most enjoy about that back and forth between the characters and exploring that dynamic, as they get to know each other better?
JOHNSON: It’s a different dynamic, but with New Girl, with a Nick and Jess scene, you knew that they were gonna be opposites on some stuff. It’s really fun to be doing a scene and, when I’m reading it, even before we’re at the table read, and Doug is doing something, I can imagine how Joyce is going to react. So, when her character walks in, there’s a laugh and a feeling of excitement before she even talks because you know she’s going to hate this idea. It just creates tension. As an actor, there’s that tension on set. If you’re doing a big scene, you feel that tension. When we’re opposites, and you know you have to say something that her character is going to hate, it’s awkward and it’s fun to say it.
LOVIBOND: It’s fun to say it. When she finds out that the mob are distributing the magazine and she’s been so naive about it, and he’s explaining the profitability of it and the strategy of it, and that it’s pure pragmatism and pure making money, she’s like, “But this is amoral.” He asks about thinking about something before you die, purely as rhetoric, and she’s like, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense. How could anyone answer that question honestly?” I loved doing that back and forth. She takes things quite literally and her sense of humor is a little off. When he’s got his glib, throwaway comments, they don’t quite land with Joyce. I love doing those scenes.
JOHNSON: Totally.
LOVIBOND: I love playing around with how big or not we should go with it, and how knowing or not she should be. Is she taking it literally to annoy him, or is she just completely unaware that he’s being sarcastic?” I love those back and forth scenes.
I also love the relationship between Doug and Tina. Clearly, they have a history together and she seems like his ride or die. What do you enjoy about that relationship and getting to really explore that dynamic?
JOHNSON: Idara [Victor] is great. She’s really fun to do scenes with and it’s really fun to connect with her. She and I like to talk about the Tina-Doug thing and create our own little backstory for it. Those scenes are really fun to do because it’s her. She’s really fun to work with. I also think there’s a great love there, on both sides. She understands Bottom Dollar, the way he understands it. They’re the only two who see the entire place of Bottom Dollar in the same dream that started a long time ago. I like characters that have a really long history with each other and who knew each other before, when they were working out of the back of their car. I like that Doug and Tina were doing the same thing that the big company is doing now, driving around in a car, handing out magazines on the side of the road. I like that about them. I think that’s really fun.
I also really love the relationship that Joyce has with her sister. There’s something so special about the two of you guys together. What do you enjoy about playing that relationship? Do you ever just want to crack up in some of those scenes?
LOVIBOND: Lennon [Parham] is so funny. She’s brilliant at improvising. She’ll just throw loads of different takes at you and it spurs a completely different reaction. They must have had real trouble choosing takes with her. You can say things to your family that you wouldn’t to a friend. You can be more candid. And they can call you out on things more readily. You see that between the two of them. You see Joyce learning things from Shelly that she was completely unaware of, that then inform the magazine and inform her. But doing those scenes with Lennon, really early on, put a twist on things that you wouldn’t see coming. She just would deliver her dialogue in a way that you didn’t anticipate. She’s so funny and so unique.
JOHNSON: She’s a killer.
LOVIBOND: She’s just brilliant. It was very hard to keep a straight face, working with her.
What can you guys say to tease where things will end up this season?
JOHNSON: I don’t wanna give anything away, but apart from being in it, I’m a fan of the show and I think it’s good. I think episodes six, seven, and eight, and seven and eight, in particular, are unthinkably good episodes of TV. What happens is that all these stories start to come together and the characters really start to crystallize in a very fun way. I don’t wanna say anything that’s gonna happen, but I think it will be very satisfying to people who like this show. The show takes you to really fun places.
LOVIBOND: It’s the little inklings that you get. You might have an inkling that it might go off this way. The fact that there is tension between Doug and Joyce, and how that friction might end up, those episodes satisfy.
JOHNSON: Totally.
Minx is available to stream at HBO Max.