The Big Picture The co-stars were fans of the first season when they joined Season 2 and loved the classic genres that were explored. They knew who the killer was from the beginning and were given scripts for their specific episodes to learn more about their characters. Anna Konkle’s character, Hannah, has a museum of bizarre objects in her yurt, and Elizabeth Perkins’ character, Isabel, struggles with hiding her pain. They both enjoyed their roles and the unique aspects of the show.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Afterparty.]In Season 2 of the Apple TV+ comedy series The Afterparty, naturally another murder has occurred, reeling Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) back into the mix, due to her desire to team back up with Aniq (Sam Richardson) and solve the crime. As the pair make their way through questioning all the family members and guests at the wedding of Grace (Poppy Liu) and the now super dead Edgar (Zach Woods), they take what they learn about the fateful event, with each recounting being told in a different film genre to match the individual’s perspective, to figure out who’s responsible for this whodunnit.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Anna Konkle (who plays Hannah Minnows, Edgar’s adopted sister, whose story recalls the visual style of Wes Anderson) and Elizabeth Perkins (who plays Isabel Minnows, Edgar’s cold and abrupt mother, whose story is told in the form of a Hitchcockian suspense thriller) talked about having been fans of the first season when they joined Season 2, that they were filled in on who the killer was from the beginning, learning about their characters by being given the script for the episode specifically focused on them, the museum of the bizarre inside of Hannah’s yurt, how hard things are for Isabel, Hannah’s unexpected romance, and getting to jump on a trampoline in a gown.

Collider: I enjoyed this season, and I loved both of your characters. They were so delightful and fun to watch. Did you join this series as a fan of the first season? Did you know the fun you would be getting up to with this?

ANNA KONKLE: I was a fan, absolutely. When the offer came in, I was so excited. Also, to see the genres this season, I loved the classic genres.

ELIZABETH PERKINS: Yeah, I loved the first season. It was unlike anything I’d seen. After COVID and everything, I was so excited to watch a comedy, and yet it was a comedy that you could tune into every week and get a whole different idea about who did it. It was actually a show I could follow along with and be like, “It’s on tonight. Yay!” You can get involved in the characters, and I looked forward to every new episode. So, when they asked me to do Season 2, I was like, “Oh, this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be great.” And it turned out great.

Image via Apple TV+

At the start of the season, how much did you know about the overall mystery? Did you have all the secrets? Did you know who the killer was? Did they tell you everything?

PERKINS: We knew who the killer was, from the beginning. When I first got the offer, they just sent me my episode, so I based my decision to do it on episode nine, which was the Hitchcock episode. I was like, “Oh, this is fantastic. I love that we’re diving this deep into genres.” They didn’t do as much of that in Season 1, although they did have an animated episode and a musical. Okay, I take that back. And then, getting to see the whole season, I was just like, “This is fun.”

KONKLE: Like Elizabeth said, the first script I read was my episode, the Wes Anderson episode, and then I worked backwards. It’s quite a humanizing episode for her, obviously. She holds a lot of secrets and she’s the odd duck alien in the room. So, I started with really knowing the inner life of her, and then did the puzzle backwards and started to put the pieces together of, what does she look like to everybody else? What is her day-to-day? If you didn’t know her secret, she’s just the weirdo in the corner of the room, which I love to do. So, for me, selfishly, as an actor, it checked every box. I got to be weird, hard comedy funny, and then I got to do some really loving, more tender, emotional things.

Anna, what was it like to see Hannah’s hobby hut? She has all these things going on in her tent, so what can’t we see, just as the audience watching it on screen?

KONKLE: There was so much in there. There was tons of taxidermy. I would always play with the taxidermy rat. There were lots of typewriters.

PERKINS: It was like a museum of the bizarre.

KONKLE: It was strange. There were lots of carved wood pieces that Hannah did. There were lots of weapons. The bed was always made.

PERKINS: I don’t think she ever got under the covers. And the spaces between everything were even.

KONKLE: It was a very cool yurt. There was a shower inside, and the garden was amazing.

PERKINS: The garden was incredible. I spent a lot of time sitting out there.

KONKLE: All of Hannah’s stuff was so nice.

PERKINS: Her inner world was so interesting.

Image via Apple TV+

Everything in her environment really says so much about her.

KONKLE: Totally, which is such a Wes Anderson thing. It really informed the character.

PERKINS: The production design was very, very specific and very in that genre.

And then, way to surprise everyone with the relationship between Grace and Hannah. What was that like to explore? How did you see that relationship, especially in comparison to Grace and Edgar?

KONKLE: I was breaking that down for a while, figuring out the progression of, when did Hannah really fall in love? I think there was a little hole that started with Dear Mother and her family and not feeling super included, and always looking for a home or a friend or someone to fill the hole. I don’t think Hannah has had a lot of best friends. I think Grace really started as a best friend, and then it turned into her discovering even more about herself and that she was in love, which was problematic.

PERKINS: It was so beautiful. Those moments were so good.

KONKLE: That was really fun. I loved doing that with Poppy [Liu]. She’s incredible.

PERKINS: She’s the best.

Image via Apple TV+

Elizabeth, what would you say is the hardest part for Isabel to be Isabel?

PERKINS: The pain that she’s in. She’s trying desperately to hide it, but not really doing a very good job, at all. Having just lost her husband, and then to have her son die on his wedding day, and to not have anyone to turn to that she trusts, the obvious choice would be to turn to her daughter, but they’ve had such a fractured relationship. I don’t think they’ve ever been given the opportunity to become close. Edgar had just sucked all the oxygen out of the family room. But when he’s gone, they’re just left with each other and have no mutual conversation available to them.

Your character is so interesting because it really does take until episode nine for her to become sympathetic. We don’t know what’s going on, other than she’s just mean to people.

PERKINS: Definitely, but I loved that about her. I love that it takes that long until you discover what she’s got going on. That was a real challenge, as an actress, to play.

KONKLE: And she’s really a victim.

Image via Apple TV+

Have you ever gotten that from a character before, diving into her the way that you did?

PERKINS: In my head, there was always this feeling that I was not really of this earth, and that I was just floating around in this house, almost like Scooby-Doo.

KONKLE: I love that!

PERKINS: Because she’s in shock over the fact that her son died, the things that come out of her mouth are almost just thoughts in her head, without actually putting a truth to it. I don’t think she’s coping well, at all, and she hasn’t slept in days.

Is it fun to jump on a giant trampoline in a gown?

PERKINS: Yes, it is. And I’ve done it several times in my career. I had a ball with the trampoline. The scene that I did with Zach [Woods] on the trampoline was just so much fun. That was on day two, jumping on the trampoline, and it was a ball. That whole shoot was just great.

KONKLE: I could watch you play Isabel forever.

PERKINS: I could play Isabel forever. We should get a spinoff. We’re not done with these characters.

Image via Apple TV+

Elizabeth, I also have to commend you for your very serious rendition of the lyrics for Hanson’s “MMMBop.”

PERKINS: Thank you. I had that song in my head, the whole shoot. But something like that is why she’s being slowly driven insane. I forgive her for what comes out of her mouth because I don’t think she’s actually put any thought behind it. It’s just something that’s playing in her head.

Anna, what was it like to see the stop-motion version of yourself?

KONKLE: I loved that. I’m a stop-motion fan. It takes so long and no one wants to make that stuff anymore because it’s so expensive. I would love to make something stop-motion, but then you hear, all the time, “No, one’s gonna make it.” So, it was very cool. That’s also a testament to the whole show, in general. It’s a real exercise in art making that you just don’t get a lot of opportunity to do, but they found a way to make it highbrow and digestible, at the same time.

The Afterparty is available to stream at Apple TV+.