Peacock’s Laid, from executive producers and co-showrunners Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna presents quite a messy premise.
Stephanie Hsu’s main character Ruby, a professional party-coordinator, discovers, with the help of her best friend AJ (Zosia Mamet), that all the people she has ever had sex with are dying — in the order that she slept with them. AJ helps Ruby set out on a quest to warn all her past partners of this mysterious phenomenon, which Ruby does not want to keep happening, and in the process, the two friends discover more about themselves. Add innocent and sensitive Isaac (Tommy Martinez) and Ruby’s rough-around-the-edges ex-boyfriend Richie (Michael Angarano) to the mix, and comedic chaos ensues.
“It’s a love story of chosen family, and when you’re looking for love in a romantic way, you’re actually also looking to bring someone into this idea of family,” Hsu said of Ruby and AJ’s friendship and how it stands apart from the romance aspect of the series. “I think female friendship is such a deep, deep, not even just extension of that, but a root system of that.”
In the below interview with Deadline, Hsu and Mamet discussed the casting of one particular ex-boyfriend of Ruby’s (hint hint, he plays himself) as well as their dynamic’s arc in the show and also AJ’s love life.
DEADLINE: Did both of you have any hand in the casting of Ruby’s many ex-boyfriends? Are there any stories about how certain actors signed on to the show?
STEPHANIE HSU: I had a big old, tiny hand in that. That was one of my favorite, favorite parts of getting to be a part of the creative team of this show as well. Literally, every single person was hand-picked. One of my favorite stories is going into the writers’ room when they were pitching me the entire season and [giving] me an overview of what the arc would be. They had the sex timeline in the writers’ room, and on the timeline, it said John Early as himself. And I was like, “Do you guys know John Early?” And everybody was like, “No, we’re just huge fans.” And I was like, “I’m friends with John Early.” So I went home that night and texted him to be like, “Are you interested?” He was one of the first people that we cast before we even had a real script for him. We were just like, if he wants to do it, we’ll write an episode for him.
(l-r) Stephanie Hsu as Ruby, John Early as himself in Laid on Peacock
ZOSIA MAMET: I had absolutely no hand other than just being a delighted bystander of seeing who the amazing person was going to be who was coming in that week and getting to watch their incredible work.
DEADLINE: This show is obviously about a bunch of romantic relationships, but why is Ruby and AJs friendship so important as well?
MAMET: I think female friendship, especially as you get older, it serves a very different purpose than a romantic relationship does, and I think sometimes they can be so much more entrenched, specifically, if you’ve been friends with that person for many, many years, and in so many ways, can actually feel way deeper. I think when those relationships are threatened in any way, it feels really, really scary. The journey that AJ and Ruby go on is a very real one. I think people often don’t talk about how, as you get older, sometimes horrible things happen, but also sometimes people just grow apart. It’s really, horribly sad and awful. Keeping those friendships intact and sort of holding them in a precious, delicate way is really important.
DEADLINE: As the series goes on, there’s a rough patch between them. What can you say about their reunion?
HSU: Well, listen, look at us. You want us to be together in the end, don’t you?I’ll say it like that. Don’t you want these two to end up together?
(l-r) Zosia Mamet as AJ, Stephanie Hsu as Ruby in Laid on Peacock
MAMET: We won’t … make you sad? We won’t kiss.
HSU: We won’t kiss.
MAMET: There were a couple of moments on set that where we were doing scenes, and we were like, Should Ruby and AJ just make out? Could they just make out? No, I guess not.
DEADLINE: AJ’s boyfriend Zahc is kind of a dud. Will she have redemption later on? Is there hope for her love life too?
MAMET: I mean, we’re gonna have to see what she chooses there. Andre Hyland is so incredible, and seeing the character come off the page in his interpretation of it was really fabulous. He could have been very two dimensional, and he really, really wasn’t. But I also think it’s interesting, being in a long-term relationship myself there, there are moments in a relationship where I think you can start to put a lot on the other person, and it’s easy to do that and to resent that person and feel like they’re the issue in the relationship. And oftentimes you forget that it really takes to tango, and even if they are maybe the one who seems like the problem, it’s like, “Well, have you looked at your side of the street and what is your contribution to that dynamic or that issue, or that way of being? I think AJ has really blamed him for pretty much all the problems in the relationship, but she really hasn’t taken a look in the mirror. I think when she starts to do that, some things also come to light.
This interview was edited and condensed for length and clarity.