Inside ‘The Studio’: Showrunner Alex Gregory On Creating Hollywood’s Funniest Show [Interview]

Apple TV+’s new series The Studio might just be one of the best comedies of the decade—if not the best. The show follows Matt Remick (Seth Rogen), the newly promoted head of the fictional movie giant, Continental Studios. It’s a sharp, hilarious window into the heart of Hollywood, capturing both the chaos and the passion that go into making movies. It’s also a revolving door of A-list appearances, with actors and directors popping up in every episode. In many ways, The Studio isn’t just about Hollywood, it is Hollywood.

Nexus Point News sat down with creator, co-showrunner, executive producer, and writer Alex Gregory to talk about how the series came to life, the inspiration behind it, and what it really means to him.

Demet: The Studio dives headfirst into the chaotic, often ridiculous world of Hollywood, and it feels both painfully real and completely unhinged. What was the original spark for the series? Was there a particular moment or industry experience that made you think, "Yep, this needs to be a show?"

Yeah, Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] had a meeting with an executive who, after giving them a bunch of notes, told them, "I got into this business 'cause I love movies, and now my job is to ruin them." And I think they thought that was a very poignant thing, and they made a note of that. That's a really interesting character in a really interesting situation. Comedy comes from pain, and that guy seemed to be in an internal struggle.

I know that Seth and Evan were watching Larry Sanders over COVID, and they were wondering: is there a way to do our version of an insider show about the movie business, as opposed to the late night talk show business? I had worked on Larry Sanders with Peter Huyck, and they reached out to us about doing their version of The Larry Sanders Show, which would be in the world of movies. They thought the guy whose job is to ruin movies would be a perfect protagonist. So that's how it all came to be.

The show obviously pokes fun at the industry, but it also feels like it comes from people who genuinely love it. How do you approach that balance of critic versus affection?

I wonder if it's possible to do a good version of Hollywood if you truly hate Hollywood. I think that, in order to understand why people are in this business, it has to be done affectionately, and I think it allows you to want to spend time with people when they truly love what they do, and they really want to do good stuff.

So the thing with the show is there are no bad guys, there are no villains. Everyone is just trying their best to do good work, but ego and agenda get in the way of all that, which is really most of what happens in Hollywood. I remember when the writers were on strike, my lawyer said "The thing that writers assume is like some sort of sinister plot on the studio executives’ part is really just chaos in this organization." It's not like evil machinery, it’s [that] everyone is just scrambling at all times, and I thought that was really interesting.

So, yeah... We didn't want it to be like, "Oh, this is a savage takedown," because that's not our experience. We've had really good experiences working in the business, and so at the same time, you experience levels of frustration that you could not explain to other people, because so much of your soul and ego is invested in what you're doing that it'll keep you up at night, [even] the smallest thing.

Ike Barinholtz and Seth Rogen in The Studio. © Apple TV+

You showcase that well in The Studio. I felt for the studio heads, then actors, managers, publicists... Everything came together so nicely and I was like, "Whoa, that's so chaotic," but also everyone has their own goals and they have their own love for the industry.

Yeah, and it's amazing. That's an incredible magic trick: to make you feel for a guy who's ostensibly very rich. He's got these amazing clothes, this great job, he's driving around these vintage cars and just feel like, "Oh that poor bastard, he's just gonna get it again." That's no small feat, so I'm pretty happy that worked, and we were able to pull that off where people feel for him.

I want to talk about one of my favorite episodes, "The Pediatric Oncologist" episode was so painful to watch. It was brilliant, funny, and deeply cringe. How did you come up with that storyline? Was there a specific kind of movie zealot or industry figure that inspired it?

The truth is, we were talking about Matt dating someone who didn't think what he did was important. That was the thing. And I blurted out "pediatric oncologist." I've had a lot of experience with doctors. I won't get into why, but I always felt, when I was talking to them, I was like — they do such important work, and what I do seems so trivial by comparison.

And that sort of concept melded with Seth's real-life experiences. He's like, "I've been to so many of these medical banquets or fundraisers, and they — at least doctors — seem to want to take it out on me and just let me know that what I do isn't important." So those two things: where it was like the pediatric oncology, then Seth's experience with doctors just sort of came together in this one extremely cringy episode.

Rebecca Hall and Seth Rogen in The Studio. © Apple TV+

Yeah, it was painful to watch.

When did you start to know that it was gonna go off the rails? What was the moment where you're like, "Uh oh, I see where this is going?"

I think it was when they were in bed. It seemed OK that she didn't know much, but I was like, "OK, this is not gonna end well." They are so incompatible. Her being a doctor, and him being that...

Oh, awesome. (Laughs) I'm so glad you like that one.

The pacing is also wild. It barely gives your brain a second to process the absurdity of what's said. It makes it great. Was the speed something you've planned from the beginning to match the chaos of Hollywood?

Yeah, we wanted people to feel like they were a fly on the wall of Hollywood, and that the pace of things — sometimes the pace of business here — feels like that. It feels so chaotic when things are going or not going, or there's a deadline and people are freaking out, and [then] there's a frenzy. I mean, things happen within this business with seconds to go before some sort of deadline. We wanted to capture that frenzy of it from the start. That was the mission. And then, by deciding to have no B or C stories and only an A story, and to shoot in the oner style, really makes it viscerally panic inducing when you're in it. So that's all very much by design.

The Studio is now streaming on Apple TV+.

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This interview has been edited for clarity.