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Spoilers forThe Morning Showseason finale below.
It was very timely and important, and such a relevant conversation to our culture.
It wasnt just your two-dimensional fiction predator and innocent victim.
In your initial conversation with Kerry and Mimi, did they tell you Hannah would die?Yep!
Were good secret keepers, arent we?
For me, it was important to know because it helped me arc some of her other choices.
Whats her motivation there?
Is that something to be able to vicariously feel, like shes getting back at Mitch in some way?
The audacity!You used me to leverage your career.
Everybody does it.What?It just shows you the magnitude of his myopic point of view.
Its really valuable to see these two points of view to see how people misinterpret this.
I heard that real people made the Vegas shoot tough.
For some scenes, he was wearing a baseball cap, but hes still Steve Carell.
Hes obviously so great at improv.
Hes one of the most talented actors Ive worked with.
Everybody knows him for his comedic talents, but hes got such depth and a huge dramatic range.
And hes so likable that its complicated to have him play a character like this.
In the finale, you have a great scene with Reese Witherspoon.
Tell me about filming that.
What were your challenges?It was intense.
It was an eight-page scene, which is rare in television but not so rare for our show.
Its virtually a monologue.
Bradley [Witherspoons character] asked a few questions, but its obviously Hannah retelling and reliving that experience.
It was really an intense day.
Its one thing experiencing it in the flashback.
There is a surreal out-of-body experience, sometimes, when those traumas that happen.
You go into fight or flight mode, or in Hannahs case, freeze mode, for survival.
Thats just so primal.
In the retelling of it, thats when it lands for her.
Shes not the kind of person thats been to therapy.
Shes not told a bunch of girlfriends.
Shes not really shared this experience with anybody.
And so, that revelation is really her telling it to herself.
She has to drop the denial, and thats when she really feels the pain.
How did you feel at the end of the day?Oh, exhausted.
Reese sent me a lovely text at the end of that day.
Shes so generous as an actor and producer.
She said, That was some great work.
I was very conflicted about what Hannah did to Claire.
I know she came from a good place, but was she out of line?
Shes projecting her own experience with Mitch onto that dynamic and thinking that Claires been taken advantage of.
As the big sister in the friendship, thats her responsibility to protect her friend.
How did you interpret the ending?
Did you see that as accidental?Its very opaque.
I would never tell the audience how to feel because I think Kerry wanted it to feel open.
I think she intended to numb that pain and that hole in her soul.
As a consequence of that, she died.
Like Claire said, there was no note.
In a way, its more tragic that its an accident.
Or maybe Hannah just comes back as a ghost and haunts the studio?
