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Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed: Creator, Cast Premiere Episodes Interview

Published

3 months ago

May 24, 2026

Apple TV has, throughout the years, cemented itself as a platform of curiosities, offering televisual projects that resist easy genre categorization. David J. Rosen‘s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, starring Tatiana Maslany, is no exception, following a single mom fighting for custody when her life is upended by being a witness to a murder.

Or so she thinks.

In the series, Maslany’s Paula, a fact-checker for a reputable news organization, can count her simple pleasures on one hand, squeezed by her demanding boss, equally demanding ex-husband and PTA responsibilities. Between peewee soccer games and assignments, she squeezes in an hour of intimacy with a cam boy named Trevor (Brendan Flynn), with whom she’s grown inordinately close. When one of their calls is interrupted by a break-in and abduction, she immediately phones the police, only to be told that what she saw was an elaborate hoax to extort her. But when she finds Trevor’s body at the end of the pilot episode, it becomes clear larger forces are at play.

Rosen tells Deadline that the concept of the twisty, often buoyant thriller came about during the pandemic, while meditating on his wife’s myriad responsibilities and the increasingly suffocating terms of our digital existence.

“I was thinking about this epidemic of loneliness that we’re in, how a lot of it’s caused by technology. Ironically, the same same tech that you can use to say hi to your grandma is also making us all alone at night,” he explains. “And I was starting to think about a character of a single mom, alone, and trying to reach out using technology to find just one little bit of happiness, and how that could actually spiral into her very own Rear Window as she stared into the window of her computer. And I specifically thought about it as a mom, because the experience of COVID and watching my own wife run around and juggle 800 million things while her phone never stopped buzzing, it really felt like a character who, when put in the position that Paula has been put in, in an unforgiving world which doesn’t give much grace to moms, especially around areas of sexuality, it could really lead to a lot of delicious conflict and excitement.”

Nola Wallace and Tatiana Maslany in *Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed* (Apple TV)

For David Gordon Green, who executive produces and directs the premiere episode, the goal was to set a specific tone early on to serve as a springboard for the rest of the season.

“It’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle in narrative form, and then on top of that, trying to find a propulsion, a pulse of the show that’s going to make it distinctive and make it fun for an audience to watch. It’s not just downward spiral of darkness. There’s levity, and there’s adrenaline within the anxiety that I think make it really appealing. It is a total balance,” he says.

Naturally, he adds, “the score, the music is a very important part of that atmosphere, of making sure there’s something that has enough drive, but also some ambience there to help us decide when we’re in Paula’s head and when we’re watching the [show] and getting excited about what’s next.”

There’s an “enjoyable anxiety” inherent to the show’s DNA, Green says, aided by the hard jump cuts Rosen employed to reflect Paula’s unraveling. The frenetic energy serves to propel the watcher to each new twist and reveal, eschewing a grimness that would otherwise bring down the mood.

In the same way that audiences are trying to unpack the central scheme — or interlocking set of schemes — at the center of Paula’s newfound predicament, so was the Emmy-winning Maslany drawn to the inscrutability of her character.

“I was intrigued by Paula in the sense that I couldn’t get a grasp on her,” the Orphan Black alumna says. “There were so many things she did that I couldn’t relate to, and that was exciting to me, that she was a little bit of a mystery.”

She continues, “She’s at this point in her life where she thought she knew what the rest of her life was going to be like, and she’s sort of coasting or sleepwalking, and then this thing happens — multiple things happen — to wake her up, and now she’s just trying to pick up the pieces and start again and figure out who she is.”

While watchers may have a knee-jerk reaction to side with Paula and her plight — as the narrative largely follows her perspective — Jake Johnson, who portrays her irascible ex-husband, prioritized his character’s concern for their daughter.

“I view Karl as the protagonist. So I understand that from the audience’s point of view, he might be unlikable and do some shady stuff, but I never play characters with that in mind,” he explains. “All Karl is trying to do in his heart of hearts is put his daughter in the best position possible.”

Murray Bartlett in *Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed* (Apple TV)

But if there’s a clear villain in the story, it’s Murray Bartlett’s Dennis, Trevor’s erstwhile boyfriend and an unnerving wild card who, it’s revealed in Episode 2, is behind Trevor’s killing.

“It’s such a great group, and the scripts were so great and so compelling, it just kind of propels along, and it’s surprising and funny, but really dark,” the Emmy-winning The White Lotus alum says. “And so there was a lot of things that really drew me to it. And likewise, with the character that I play, he’s a real chameleon. He just morphs into whatever he needs to morph into to get what he wants out of any situation that he’s in.”

“Turns out, he’s a bit of a sociopath. And that was really fascinating to me,” he adds, laughing at the understatement.

Bartlett admittedly loves to map out a backstory for his characters, and for the particularly meaty role of Dennis, he jumped at the chance to conduct research, reading Sociopath: A Memoir, which he describes as “fascinating,” “revealing” and “dispelling a lot of the myths” surrounding sociopathy. The book, which was like a “Bible” for him, helped demystify of a disorder often depicted but little understood.

“They’re incredible observers of human behavior, because a sociopath doesn’t feel the kind of spectrum of emotions that most of us feel,” Bartlett explains. “She talks about being at parties in college and just sitting there and observing people and learning the social cues and behaviors that would allow her to fit in.”

He adds, “What she talks about is that there’s this feeling of kind of apathy, and then, because you don’t have the release valves that we all have of expressing emotions, that apathy gives rise to this kind of volcano of buildup that has to be expressed somehow.”

In addition to being guided by Patric Gagne’s tome, Bartlett devised a backstory for his character in which he “is very rigid and has this idea about the way that he wants his world to work and his business to work, and doesn’t want anyone to mess with it.”

Episode 2 opens with Dennis and Trevor’s sweet sushi dinner date, seemingly portraying a couple in love, which sets up a “jarring in an amazing way” rug pull for the audience as the former’s true nature is revealed, Bartlett says. Though Dennis lacks empathy, Bartlett says he believes there’s “genuine affection and probably love” in the relationship as “that’s one of the reasons why if things were to go awry, then Dennis’ reaction would be quite intense, because he opened up to someone, and that’s a big deal for him.”

Episode 2 concludes with Dennis finding Paula’s daughter Hazel’s cleats, which had been accidentally tossed outside Trevor’s home. With yet another cliffhanger in tow, Paula inches closer and closer to the truth — and certain danger — setting off a cat-and-mouse game drawing the mom further into Dennis’ criminal orbit.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed airs weekly on Wednesdays. Its first two episodes are currently streaming on Apple TV.

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Obama Relives Tan Suit Debacle In ‘Life, Larry & Pursuit of Unhappiness’

Published

1 hour ago

August 9, 2026

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As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.

On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.

Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”

“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”

“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”

As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”

Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.

David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.

“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”

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Matthew McConaughey Performs “Quill” From ‘Rivals of Amziah King’ — Watch

Published

2 hours ago

August 9, 2026

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Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.

On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.

Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.

Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.

Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.

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Jane Schoenbrun On Tackling “Toxic Soup” Of Slasher Genre In ‘Camp Miasma’

Published

3 hours ago

August 9, 2026

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With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.

The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.

“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”

In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.

Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

Jane Schoenbrun at the — Jane Schoenbrun attends the ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ premiere on Aug. 5, 2026 in New York City.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.

“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”

Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.

DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.”

JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.

‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.

SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”

DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you?

SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be.

Gillian Anderson in ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie.

SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.