In Prime Video’s The Consultant, Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz leads an ensemble forged of younger actors in a twisted comedy-thriller. Opposite his coolly calculated character, rising stars Nat Wolff (The Stand), Brittany O’Grady (The White Lotus), and Aimee Carrero (The Menu) discover themselves in a sordid scenario within the office.
In The Consultant, when the CEO of one of many largest cellular recreation studios in Los Angles meets an premature finish, a marketing consultant, Regus Patoff (Waltz), is shipped in to watch the employees. Uptight and unforgiving, Regus is a fire-at-will “Suit” who hardly has to search for a cause to let go of the employees. When Patoff’s eccentric habits makes it troublesome to depart work on the workplace, co-workers Craig (Wolff) and Elaine (O’Grady), and Craig’s girlfriend Patti (Carrero), start digging into his previous. As the rabbit gap goes deeper, they start to assume there could also be one thing extra sinister at play with this weird new marketing consultant.
Before The Consultant premiered on Prime Video, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with Wolff, O’Grady, and Carrero in regards to the sequence. During their interview, the trio discusses how a lot they knew in regards to the present’s peculiar plot forward of time, tease the challenges their characters face, and discuss working with Christoph Waltz. They additionally reveal the violent dying one among them practically met and the way they deal with emotional scenes. You can watch the interview within the participant above, or learn the complete transcript beneath.
COLLIDER: I’ve 1,000,000 questions for you guys, however I like beginning off with a curve. For all three of you, if somebody has by no means seen something you have executed earlier than, what’s the very first thing you need them watching, and why?
AIMEE CARRERO: You know what? I want individuals may watch my performs, however that’s unattainable. Only as a result of you could have such a very long time to craft it, you get within the groove, after which when you’re in that groove the play closes. So I want that folks may see the play the day earlier than it closes. That’s on my want record, however alas, cannot. Live. Live theater.
BRITTANY O’GRADY: I really feel blessed [inaudible at :42] efficiency.
NAT WOLFF: You guys higher come to my play. You guys gonna come?
O’GRADY: Look, I’ll fly out for it.
CARRERO: Hell yeah.
WOLFF: It’s up till April, Steven.
I used to be going to say, the place was my invite?
WOLFF: Steven, I’ve a ticket on the will name each single day for you, and also you by no means come.
For positive, that is undoubtedly going to work.
O’GRADY: If I had a undertaking that I want individuals would watch that wasn’t this, I might say Little Voice. That’s my favourite one. It was music, it was coronary heart, it was canines, it was so beautiful. It’s just like the purest factor I ever did in my profession in movie and tv.
WOLFF: I might say the music I do with my brother. I feel that we simply put out a brand new track. I’d say a few of that, or I did this film known as Palo Alto once I was 17, and it modified my life in quite a lot of methods, and I’m actually happy with that film. It simply means so much to me.
Jumping into why I get to speak to you guys. [The Consultant] is a kind of sequence the place you are attempting to determine every part as every episode is happening. So I’m curious, how a lot had been you informed about Regus’ final arc and the way issues had been going to go while you first signed up, and the way a lot had been you discovering out script by script?
WOLFF: It was script by script, however we obtained this unimaginable pilot script the place you get your complete tone arrange, after which there’s this enormous twist on the finish. I bear in mind I screamed once I learn it, and so I used to be like, “I have to be a part of this.” I imply, I even chased it.
The remainder of the scripts had been like Christmas presents. You’d simply get it within the electronic mail and be like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I get to do this scene.”
CARRERO: Yeah, positive. I feel (author) Tony [Basgallop], his thoughts is amaze. I do not assume I’d need to go in, however I like the place it is going, you realize? [Laughs] Patti was type of mild within the first few episodes, so once I signed on I’d solely learn the pilot– or had solely auditioned with the fabric within the pilot – so I had an extended dialog with him. He did not actually know the place he was taking Patti, like how issues would basically play out, however he did know that he wished to take her from A to Z so far as like, she begins off as one factor and her life utterly unravels by the tip.
I bear in mind as soon as he floated the concept of decapitating me violently. That did not work, or did not come to move, however I used to be kinda wanting ahead to that. So I feel he actually did discover it because it went, and that is a part of why it feels so unusual.
WOLFF: And instant. It wasn’t primarily based on some general define, he was actually going together with his intestine.
O’GRADY: When I used to be introduced with the fabric to audition with it, Tony would inform me that Elaine must actually wrestle together with her ethical compass and be fairly influenced by Patoff, nevertheless it was fairly elusive. I did not actually know which course she was going to take and what decisions she would make, and the way she would do it. It was on the fly, and I really feel like that is what it might have really been like for Elaine, so it was actually enjoyable and an excellent problem.
I usually do not ask this query, however I’ve not watched Christoph work on set, however I’ve interviewed him a number of instances, and he’s an fascinating individual. What is it like on set?
WOLFF: He is so distinctive. He’s so uniquely himself, and I’ve gotten so fortunate attending to work with quite a lot of nice older actors and he is, I feel, the perfect expertise I’ve had. I feel he actually is. One of the explanations that he makes such an excellent villain is that he really has, in his personal unusual distinctive manner, an actual heat and a magnetism that you just’re simply drawn to. It’s like a dream. I might pinch myself after doing that scene within the Hummer with him all day, and I can’t imagine that I get to be on this doing these scenes with him.
O’GRADY: I feel he is completely good. It’s so nice to work with an actor, they typically say “don’t meet your heroes, or don’t meet people that you look up to,” and that is only a actual deal with to have the ability to work with anyone who’s so authentically themselves, and thru that authenticity, there’s kindness and creativity and honesty and brilliance, and a real generosity to open his coronary heart to us as actors. I felt it on a regular basis once we labored collectively, and it was such a present.
CARRERO: He’s like an onion. You’re simply consistently peeling on the layers. Because while you first meet him, you assume, “Oh what an unusual person,” as a result of he’s very nonetheless, however he is additionally very curious, and he desires to know in regards to the minutia of your life, the shit that you just assume is the least fascinating about you, he desires to know. I feel that is in all probability what makes him such an excellent actor is that he actually desires to get in and see how individuals work and what they will carry to the desk.
As far as a scene companion, like all people was saying, it is similar to enjoying on a championship workforce with a star participant. He simply gonna serve you the ball each time, and it will be good, and all it’s important to do is simply preserve your eye on it and that is it.
WOLFF: Would you say he’s like, possibly, I do not know, Lebron James?
CARRERO: I might by no means say that as a result of that is what you stated about him.
WOLFF: Aimee is coming, she’s just like the interview thief. You say one thing that is good, and she or he saps it up after which says it in a extra eloquent manner. I’m like, “Damn it.”
I’m very interested by how actors put together for giant moments. So for all three of you, hypothetically you could have an enormous scene on a Tuesday, one thing that is going to be emotional or actually dramatic, you realize it will require so much out of you. How early on are you getting ready for that second? Is it like while you first prepare to start out taking pictures, are you actually going into hardcore mode the weekend earlier than? Can you are taking me by means of how you want to arrange for an enormous second?
CARRERO: I all the time assume that it is both such as you do it on the day, otherwise you spend an excellent period of time. Having executed performs, you do not take pleasure in the freshness that comes with saying one thing for the primary time. You have to essentially discover it, and it additionally turns into sort of like a muscle. I discover, for me, if I haven’t got the time – like I’m doing an audition or one thing – I will not rehearse it an excessive amount of. But if I’ve a while with it, that is extra enjoyable for me in any case to dig in and discover, by means of my creativeness, discover what it should really feel like for this character.
Something that I discovered from Nat, too – I used to be doing a play on the identical time I used to be doing The Consultant, and he despatched me this playlist, or a number of songs, and I used that, nonetheless, like to essentially get my head in, and I hadn’t, as much as that time, used music as a manner in.
WOLFF: For this, or to your play?
CARRERO: Both.
O’GRADY: I feel that the preparation course of is fairly completely different for every character. I might say, for this at present, having these six areas behind your thoughts after which to have a stability of being ready, but additionally, as Aimee stated, having that sense of freshness. Also, being open and capable of be versatile and collaborative with the individuals round you, I feel that is tremendous essential, and simply current. I feel that was an enormous a part of the method, a minimum of for me, on this specific job.
WOLFF: Through music or by means of rest, I wish to preserve some semblance of the temper of the scene in me and in my physique, after which on the finish of the day, I like to simply let it go. Sometimes when you let it go at lunch or one thing, then there is a larger hill to climb to get again up, you realize? So generally I’ll attempt to keep in that zone in the interim. It really finally ends up being much less vitality for me than the up and down.
The Consultant premieres on Prime Video on February 24. For extra from the sequence, take a look at our interview with the present’s director and producer, Matt Shakman, beneath.