Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn teases Breaking Bad creator’s “genre-defying” series

I’m not being coy here, that’s literally all I’m allowed to say about the show’s premise. Pluribus’ official logline is equally cryptic: “The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.” And a few sparse teaser trailers haven’t revealed much beyond a random woman licking donuts and Seehorn’s protagonist walking outside with a frustrated look on her face and spots of blood on her shirt.

For Seehorn, the intense secrecy around Pluribus has been difficult, to say the least.

“My own family knows nothing,” she tells Polygon over Zoom. “My fiancé knows nothing!”

For our fall preview, Polygon spoke to Seehorn about Pluribus’ “slippery” genre-bending tone, filming in Albuquerque (again), and how Carol compares to Kim Wexler. There are absolutely zero spoilers here, but if you look close enough, you may be able to uncover a few clues about Vince Gilligan’s new show.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Polygon: I’ve watched the first three episodes and I love it. Can’t wait for more. But this interview is gonna be tough, because Apple’s basically sworn me to secrecy about the plot.

Rhea Seehorn: Dude, you have no idea how much I’ve been sworn to secrecy.

I can’t imagine. According to Apple, all I can say about the premise of Pluribus is that “the world has changed in a significant way.” How do you describe the show without spoiling everything?

It’s so difficult! I am so excited to start talking to anyone who has seen it. I think one of the coolest things about this show is, it’s not just genre-bending, it’s genre-defying. It’s the kind of show that, even if I wasn’t in it, it would be my type of show, because it engenders conversations about, like, What do you think about that? What would your position be, should you find yourself here?

But also, I tell people, it’s hilariously funny. It takes you on a real journey, and you feel like an active participant as a viewer. You keep thinking you know what the show is, and it’s not that. Do you agree with that?

I do, and I’m already trying to figure out what’s going to happen in episode four. Each episode almost feels like a new show, in a great way.

And yet they are connected. It’s just that Vince is asking you to experience this as it comes. He’s playing with our preconceived notions about not just where we think the story is going to go, but what we would do in a certain situation. And that brings out the thriller, suspense part of it, because you’re like, What’s going to come at me next? There’s a mystery.

That absurdity also lends itself to being really funny in its observation of humans, and how we behave when we’re taken outside of our comfort zones. It also engenders a lot of really deep, philosophical questions that the crew and I wrestled with.

That was a great description. You didn’t spoil anything.

And yet it’s not a logline. Vince has already put out two loglines — they’re both out there floating around in the public already. One is like, “The world’s most miserable person has to save the world from happiness.”’ And another one that was like, “What if you wanted to save the world, and the world was like: Ehhh.”

Let’s take a step back. Vince Gilligan has said he made Pluribus for you. How did you first hear about it? What was that conversation like?

It’s been a long time, maybe from the beginning of Better Call Saul, maybe even before. Back then, he told me some questions and elements he was wrestling with. But at some point, he said it wouldn’t distill down to a story.

Later, he did say that, during Saul, he was watching my work, and something clicked. And he was like, I think it should be Rhea forming this character. That this would somehow get this thing to congeal.

Then he came to me as Saul was ending, and said, “Well, I wrote something for you, if you’re interested,” which is classic Vince. When I stopped crying, I was like, “Yes, I’m interested.” But he said, “I’m not ready to show it to you.” And I said, “That’s okay. I’m on board.”

That’s beautiful. Did you have any input on your character and how she reacts to things in the show?

Well, I don’t even dream of telling anyone how I think it should be written. They have a murderer’s row of writers on this show.

That said, when we were doing Better Call Saul, there was a mothership to that story. There was a reference point, because of Breaking Bad. This was a whole new world, with a really slippery tone that’s very difficult to pin down, that’s also difficult to perform. So I did have the most wonderful experience collaborating with Vince on that, like, What is this world? What is the tone of this? When is it funny? When is it gut-wrenching? Sometimes, we would try the same scene multiple ways, and we did learn together, like, Who is Carol in this moment? Who is she in this moment? Sometimes that involved us painting the same painting with different colors.

But no, I didn’t weigh in on text. I mean, Vince is always respectful of me if I come to him and I’m wrestling with a word or something, because he knows the way I work. I’ve already spent sleepless nights trying to make every word work. So if I have a question, there’s usually a reason. But we did try performance in a multitude of ways. And ultimately, he knows this story further down the line than I do. So if he’s like, We can’t be there yet. Carol can’t be all the way to that yet, I’m always going to honor that.

For the most part, I get the scripts one at a time. I was definitely along for the ride, and very surprised, as you are when you’re watching it.

Image: Apple TV Plus

How do you think Carol compares to your Better Call Saul character, Kim Wexler? How are they similar or different?

They’re mostly very different. Carol has no poker face whatsoever. Even when she thinks she’s not displaying her emotions, it’s mostly just a scowl she just cannot cover. Kim Wexler was extraordinarily tightly controlled in what she let people know about what she’s thinking. Carol can keep a secret. I suppose that’s a similarity. They both have a set of rules and ethics for themselves that are very hard to shake, if not completely unshakable. They really want to follow their moral compass, even when other people tell them they’re wrong.

I think Kim would be embarrassed to say she’d like to be the hero when people need her, but she does want to be. Carol is the ultimate reluctant hero. She absolutely, at all times, until there’s no other stone to overturn, wishes she could be the follower. She’s like, I just totally hope somebody else is going to take the lead in this and tell me what I should be doing, and nobody will!

Yeah, that’s a good point I hadn’t quite picked up on, but she’s desperately trying to find someone to tell her what to do next. And yet, they’re both also fiercely independent, right? Carol has that line in the show where she says “I’m independent.” Unless that’s a lie.

Well, that comes with its own comedic punchline, of course.

But you bring up another good point. I find them both socially inhibited. I think that Kim was her truest self only around Jimmy, and Carol is her truest self only around her partner, and when she doesn’t have the social buffer, she’s very much at a loss socially. I don’t think she knows how to operate in the world without some kind of armor.

This is a lot of years for you in Albuquerque.

[Laughs] It is.

Albuquerque always felt like a character in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. What kind of role does it play as a setting in Pluribus?

I think Vince is a better person to answer that, and that’s not me dodging the question. It feels right for the story. Did it bump you at all when you’re watching, or did you pretty much move on from that quickly?

It didn’t bother me, I was just like, Okay, Vince Gilligan made another show in Albuquerque.

Right? He likes to shoot there. He also has an incredible loyalty to his crew. He’s loyal to the city of Albuquerque, and he just really favors telling stories there.

I do think it lends itself to Carol’s story. There’s something about the landscape of Albuquerque and that city that can so easily be beautiful, inviting and romantic, and then, on a dime, can be imposing and lonely and mysterious. And the fact that those things work together is very much what the show does.

This is your first big science fiction project. Are you a sci-fi fan? Do you have any favorite sci-fi shows or movies or books?

Oh, yeah. I was so excited when Vince told me there was a sci-fi element to it, and that it’s more psychological sci-fi, less space sci-fi (I’m sure I’m not getting those subgenres correct). But I’m a huge fan. I love Black Mirror. I love Silo. I love Severance. I loved all the old Twilight Zones. I used to watch them on repeat when Nick at Nite used to show them, and I got to do one of the new ones with Jordan Peele.

I really love the fan base around psychological sci-fi things. Plus, I was a huge fan of The X-Files. When we went to Comic Con to announce the title, I got to meet a whole new contingent of people that had been waiting for Vince to go back to his X-Files roots. That was fun. I’m excited about that part of it.

Pluribus premieres Nov. 9 on Apple TV Plus.