‘The Morning Show’ Women Are “Nakedly Ambitious” in Season 4: “It’s Fun to Hear Them Say The Quiet Thing Out Loud”

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.[ThisstorycontainsmildspoilersfromthefirsttwoepisodesofThe Morning Show Season Four.]

A looming quest faced the writers on The Morning Show Going Into Season Four. Surpringly, It Wasn’T How The Timely Media Drama Wuldy Predict The Results of the 2024 Presidential Election (Which Wouldn’T Come Until after The Show Wrampped Filming). It was more basic than that, Yet Still as Chaotic.

“WHEN YOU REALLY BLOW UP Something, As We Did at the End of Season Three – I Mean, We Just Set Off Bomb After Bomb – It’s Like, How Are You Gonna Get The Band Back Together in A Way and that you can actually buy? ” Showrunner Charlotte Stoudt Tells The Hollywood Reporter of that task at hand-Particularly, Making Sure Her Co-LEADS/Executive Producers Jennifer Anton and Reese withrspoon Cold Share The Screen After Their Split Path in the Season Three Finale.

The Third Season Ended with A Majoor Coup for the Network at the Heart of the Media Drama, As Alex Levy (Aniston) Prepared to Steer the Merger Between Twos But As Alex Readed to Her Rightful Seat at the Table, Bradley Jackson (Witharspoon) Was Facing Possible Federal Punishment After Turning Herself in the ROLE She Played In A Jan. 6-RELATED COVER UP.

With the first Two episodes of Season Four now Streaming, Viewers Are Beginning To See How Side Studt and Her Writers Room Unraveled Their Bradley Knot, and Uppied the ante for Eve. “Bradley Did DO HER TIME, Just In an UnEXPECTED WAY,“ Explans Stoudt of Bradley’s Current Predicant Ex-Boyfriend, Played by Jon Hamm).

Below, Stoudt (Who Spoke with Thr Ahead of Season Four’s Release) DIVES INTO the Biggest Debates in the Season Four Writers Room While Also Sharing Marion Cotillard’s Casting Story, Clarifying that Boye. Not Exactly ”), Explaing Wyy Brough Brough Back Returning Star Bel Powley and Diving Into The“ Naked Ambition ”for all loud. ”

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We Last Spoke Right After Season Three, and Ten Again WHEN YOU WERE STARTING TO POLOT OUT SEASON FUR.

God KNOWS IF IT MADE Any SENSE or CAME TO FRUITION!

IT DID, VERY MUCH SO! With The Morning ShowYou’ve Always Tackled Serious and Timely Topics, But It’s Also Beloved for Its Soapiness. I’m Feeling Less of the Latter this Season. Do you Feel Like Entertainment is Less Heigheted Now, Because Everything in Reality Is So Heigheneded?

I don’t know if we havek of it in thoss terms. For US, the It’s Always The Characters Are In Their Journy Towards Being More Integrated or More Whole and Intenation As People. This Season Was Where The Story Led Us, and What We Were Very Very Interared In. The Issues of Always to Meld with the emotional life of the people. WHEN WE WEER Starting in this Season Four Writers Room, It Looked Like The [U.S.] Presidential Race Was Going to Be A Rematch with These Two Fairly Old Guys [Biden and Trump]. We Were Like, “WHY DOES AMERICA NEED DADDY SO MUCH? WHY CAN’T AMERICA MOVE ON FROM DADDY?” And Pick Your Daddy – EITHER ONE, they’re still kind of daddies. That led US to THINK, in a very litral Sense, about parents. We have been Thinking About How We Talk About Who Alex Is, How She Became The Way She Is. And It Felt Time to See What What Family Was Like And Learn A Little About Her History [by casting Jeremy Irons and Alex’s dad, Martin Levy].

You joked at the end of season throne that you always wite yorselves into a corner with The Morning Show‘S Cliffhanger Finales. WHEN YOU Returned to the Room, What Was The Easiest to Figure Out and What Was The Hardest?

The Easiest Was Something We’ve Been Wanting To DO, WHICH WAS TO BRING BACK CLAIRE [played by Bel Powley] in some really instrumental way where sheer she was a story. Claire’s Desire for Revenge, for Justice; and Claire Being Outside the Institution wasting We Always Wanted to Get Back to. I wouldn’t say that was easy, but it was sitting there because we have were so interested in her. WHEN YOU REALLY BLOW UP Something, as We Did at the end of season Three – I MEAN, we just set off of Bomb after Bomb – It’s Like, How Are You Gonna Get the Bande Back Together in A Way and that you can actually buy? That was the Biggest Challenge: How Are We Going to Get the Beople Walking Down The Same Hallway Again Soy They Can Run Into Each Other?

You don’TRIGHT TACKLE THE 2024 Presidential Election, Even Thought the Season Opens in Spring 2024; Insthead is in the backdrop througout this season. Was there anything you had to crash in, in terms of real news stories, like you did you take with Roe v. Wade Last Season?

Not that Much, Actuly. We Were in the Transition from Biden to Kamala [Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee] While We Were Just Starting to Film, But That Was A Perfect Case Where That Wasn’t Really The Story We Were Telling. We Wrening An Election Story. SO EVEN TONUGH THAT HAPPENED, IT WAS KIND OF NOT RELEVANT TO The Journey We Were On.

You did the promise that reese and jen would be together on Screen Again, Despite WHERE YOU LEFT THEM. You Could Have Gone A Lot of Ways. How Big Was That Debate in The Room? DID YOU HAVER OPTIONS YOU WERE CLOSELY CONSIDERING BEFORE LANDING ON HOW BRADLEY WOURT MAKE HER WAY BACK TO The Morning Show?

It All Goes Back to the Core of Both Women. One Woman Believes You Can Improve Things by Being on the Inside of the System, and One Woman Is Highly Skeptical of that. That is a conversation and argument they have have unil the end of time: How to Change Things, How to Make It Better, How Much You Attach Yourself to Mainstream Money and Report Acuratily? That’s going to be an argument they’re going to have unil they’re 85.

DID YOU CONSIDER Following Bradley Into Prison?

What We Tried To Do – Without Spoilers – is to show that bradley Did do it time, just in an ut excluded way. I Think We Had that Idea Early On that Her Incarceration Wound Take an Unlikely Form. Bradley Doesn’T have to be behind bars to have judgment. She Judges Herself Extremely Harshly. That was a key part. I Think Between Seasons Three and Four, She’s Been Living in A Sott of Self-Iimposed Exile in A Lot of Ways.

You set this season up to ask the big quest: WHEN YOU GIVE the WOMEN the KEYS, can they better than the men? Broadly, would you say they handle Power Better?

I Think they do a little better in the sun that evin if they devil is awareness of their biases, that is a victory. A Lot of People in Power Just Double Down. They DON’T GO, “What am i doing wrong, or what Could i do better?” Even as Showrunner and Having Some Power and Trying to Be A Leader Is Enormously Exposing. I a vulneval job; You are Confronted with Your ShortComings on a Daily Basis and You have to Kep Going, Even if You Maybe Didn’t Call That Right. Certainly, Alex Can Reflect. She can learn. I Think they can all learn from their mistakes. That is one thing you can realy say about thee women. They Really TRY to DO THAT.

Across The Board – Alex, Bradley, Celine (Marion Cotillard), Mia (Karen Pittman), Stella (Greta Lee) and Chris (Nicole Beharie) – All of the Women on this Show Ash. They are all are elevated this season; Very Badass in their Quests. DID this feel like a peak season for your female Characters?

There was a bit of wish fulfillment WHEN YOU WRITE THESE Stories. It’s Fun to See Women Be Nakedly Ambitious. It’s Fun to Hear Them Just Say The Quiet Thing Out Loud, and Be Really Mouthy and Push Back. I Really delight in that. Things Will Happen in Our Lives and We Bring Them Into The Writers Room, and My Advice When Something Terrible Happens is to Find a Way to get it on the page. It’s Very, Very Cathartic. WHERE IT BE YOUR MOTHER OR An Executive Saying Something to You, Like “Ouch,” You Can Write It In. That is the fun of writing television. Or WHEN YOU THINK OF THAT GREATE COMBABACK, But You THINK OF IT A Week Later, We’ll Just Put it in the script.

Marion Cotillard Joins this Season in a Key Role. DID YOU HAVER SPECIFICALLY IN Mind for this Part As Savvy Media Operative Celine Dumont[[Whose Husband (Aaron Pierre), It’s Been Revealed, Is Having An Affair with Stelh Stelh]?

I HAD IMAGINED This Character As Someone Who Was Not American, Who Could Be A Little Different than the Other Women in Power. There isn’t just one kind of woman seeking Power, and Women Don’t All Seek Power the Same Way. They have a figurent motivations. I WANTED This Woman to Exist Very Much in Contrast to The Women We Already Knew On this Show. THEN WE Found Out Marion Was A Big Fan, and We Went Straight To, “OH, GOSH, How Can We Get You To This? How Can We Sweeten?”

Marion Had Such A Strong Point of View Right Away. She Mentioned These Dynastic Families in France Who Never Elevate the Daughters; Only the Sons. [Her character] Celine Looks at Her Brother and Says, “WHY CAN’T I DO ALL The THINGS HE DOES? WHY not? ” This Question of, “WHY CAN’T WOMEN DO ALL The THINGS MEN GET AWAY WITH WHEN THEY’RE’RE EMPOWERED?” I Like, Who Decides this? Marion is Also Quite Mischievoous and Playful. I LIKED The IDEA THAT She ​​Wuld come in and you would see steella [Greta Lee]Who is Very Sincere About Women and Progress, Compared to Celine, Who Has A Different Way of Deling with Pressure Than the Ladies We Know.

DID YOU BRING HER On in A Long-Term Capacity, or Is this A One-Season Story You’re Telling? [[Note: The Morning Show Has Been Renewed for Season Five.]

I Never Say Never. With All The Characters, Unless the’re Dead, There’s Always, Who Knows? In My Mind, They Still Exist Somewere in the World of TmsEven if they’re not on screen.

A major theme you tackle this season is ai. I Imagine it’s tricky wheau writing to know if will still feel fresh when it it airs. But Ites. WHEN TACKLING DEEPAKS AND THE IMPACT IT HAS ON YOUR Characters, Did that Provoke Interesting Conversations in the Room and With Your Cast About How The Industry SHOULD BE ENGAGING WITH AI AI?

Ai is a Massive, Massive Complex Topic, SO we TRIED TO ASK: How Are People Genuinely Using It In NewsRooms? Start there: What is Our World Thinking ABOUT AI? What is the World of Journalism Thinking? With all of the our stories, unless the topic can bring Out Something Emotionly Resonant and Challenge a Character on a very personal level, then it it is to bean in the Season. What happles who tech becomes a Way to look in the mirror and ask: Who am and Really? And, am i on the right path? There are Many, Many Things We Could Have Covered That We Didn’t, That Are In The World and Are Incredibly Urgent.

You Began the Season with this High-Tencing Moment of Alex Saving An Iranian Athlete Who Wants to Defect. This Season Keeps Up That Intensity in Every Episode I’ve Seen So Far. How does the ending set up another season?

Certainly, I don’t think these Characters have Finished their Journey. They have’t quite learnedoeohh about themselves yet.

Th EY Always Need to Learn More…

They do. Being A Human is a Really Complicited Thing!

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The Morning Show is Now Streaming Its First Two Episodes of Season Four on Apple TV+, With New Episodes Releasing Weekly on Wednesdays.