“The Franchise” stars talk taking the piss out of superhero films

Himesh Patel, Aya Cash, and Billy Magnussen offer a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming comedy series.

When you're making a show about making a movie, there's bound to be some confusion. As Billy Magnussen puts it, "When they called 'cut' or 'action,' [it was like,] is the 'action' for the real shooting or fake shooting?"

Magnussen plays an actor at the center of the fake movie within the real show. Get it? HBO's upcoming comedy series The Franchise takes viewers behind the scenes of a superhero film, exploring what goes into making a blockbuster. Series executive producer and director Sam Mendes — the Skyfall and Spectre director — lends The Franchise authenticity, alongside creator Jon Brown and executive producer Armando Iannucci.

"As someone who grew up in England, they’ve defined my generation of comedy really," The Franchise star Himesh Patel says of the appeal of working with Iannucci, creator of The Thick of It and its U.S. iteration, Veep, and The Franchise showrunner Brown, writer on HBO’s Succession, Veep, and Avenue 5.

<p>HBO</p> 'The Franchise' stars Himesh Patel, Lolly Adefope, and Jessica Hynes

HBO

'The Franchise' stars Himesh Patel, Lolly Adefope, and Jessica Hynes

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Yesterday and Station Eleven star Patel leads the cast as first assistant director Daniel, who is tasked with herding the cast and crew on the latest installment of an unloved film franchise toward completion. In the process, Daniel is tested to the limits of sleep deprivation and sanity. 

"There's stuff in the show that we had to keep asking the writers," Patel says, "'Is this real? This can't be real.'" The manipulations and ego meltdowns portrayed on The Franchise are exaggerations for comedic effect, sure, but are based in truth, he says.

The Franchise also stars Lolly Adefope (Ghosts U.K.) as third assistant director Dag, new to the set and pursuing her own agenda; Magnussen as lead actor Adam, who is paralyzed by imposter syndrome and a brutal superhero dietary regime; and Aya Cash (The Boys) as executive producer Anita, whose personal and professional history with Daniel seems to stoke fires on set rather than resolve them. Marvel veterans Daniel Brühl (Zemo in film Captain America: Civil War and series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Richard E. Grant (Dr. Rice in Logan and Classic Loki in series Loki) — as European artiste director Eric and insecure, gaslighting actor Peter, respectively — round out the cast.

<p>HBO</p> 'The Franchise' stars Billy Magnussen, Daniel Brühl, and Richard E. Grant

HBO

'The Franchise' stars Billy Magnussen, Daniel Brühl, and Richard E. Grant

"I had never put on the cape," Magnussen says. "I'd never been a superhero. I remember I was like, 'Oh my god, so I gotta play this superhero on the show, I'm going to work out, put on weight, get muscles.' I go to my first fitting, and they're like, 'You're too big, you can't fit in your muscle suit. We made these muscles.'"  

Magnussen then worked almost the entire season in his too-tight superhero suit. 

"The superhero world has tailored the actors to be these physical bodies that are not sustainable," he says. "It's unhealthy, almost, to do it that way. And also, I love pizza."

While Mendes, Brühl, and Grant have firsthand experience with big-budget superhero franchises, Cash knows superhero satire. In Prime Video’s The Boys, she donned a supersuit as villainous Stormfront and is expected to take up the role again in prequel series Vought Rising.

Related: The Boys star Jensen Ackles announces spinoff, Vought Rising, at Comic-Con

"It all hits pretty close to home," Cash says, "not just because it's behind the scenes of a superhero movie, but just because it's behind the scenes of a set. I think people have no idea how insane the sets are and all the craziness that goes on behind the scenes, and then you see this, like, perfectly formed thing that shows up on your TV or on the big screen.”"

<p>Colin Hutton/HBO</p> 'The Franchise' stars Lolly Adefope, Daniel Brühl, Jessica Hynes, Himesh Patel, and Aya Cash

Colin Hutton/HBO

'The Franchise' stars Lolly Adefope, Daniel Brühl, Jessica Hynes, Himesh Patel, and Aya Cash

"The second part is the superhero-ness of it all," she continues, extolling the virtues of post-production special effects. "So you're hopping up-and-down on one foot, and they're gonna turn that into flying, but you feel like a total idiot, or putting your hands out, and they're gonna make some amazing things come out of your hands, but on the day, you just feel like a dumbass."

Patel calls Mendes a "raconteur" whose franchise experience and background as a theater director were particularly helpful to the cast. 

"That was great in the rehearsal process: He had so many wonderful stories to tell about his experiences of big-budget filmmaking and franchise filmmaking. But that also is great when you have someone leading who really does lead with confidence," Patel says. "He knows how to get the best out of people, and he knows how to get what he's looking for. And so it was great to work with someone like that who had such a great grasp of what was on the page, of how he was going to translate it to the screen."

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Magnussen is glad to have the opportunity to show how hard production crews work behind the scenes.

"We usually only give actors the accolades or the acknowledgment or whatever, or they're just in the spotlight, but to focus on the people that really make film happen, the people that are there before the actors — that show up, turn on the lights, clean the thing, set it all up — to finally show a little grace and acknowledgment to that in our industry is really, really a beautiful thing," he says.

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That is, when it isn't confusing. Cash recalls arriving to set early, wanting to get a peek at filming and being seated in the scene’s monitoring area rather than the real "video village" — "I would be in the shot, and I wasn't there yet as a [fictional] producer."

Patel was more than once asked for directions or "as if I would know something specifically technical about the production, which I kind of had to be like, 'I'm not — oh no, actually, I'm just an actor'."

The Franchise premieres on Sunday, Oct. 6, on HBO.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.