Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed

Summary

Director David Gordon Green doesn’t want to feel comfortable in just one genre, embracing Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’s unpredictability.

Tatiana Maslany was dream-cast for the vulnerable, violent, funny, magnetic Paula.

The finale ends the custody fight, but tees up Season 2 with mysterious Portland footage.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed isn’t like any other show you’ve seen before. The comedic Apple TV thriller, which stars Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a single mom who ends up at the center of a deadly blackmail scheme with a sex worker, is packed with twists, but not in any way that feels forced. The inventive storytelling is naturally and effectively executed over the course of 10 episodes, and that’s thanks to creator David Rosen and director David Gordon Green. The Season 1 finale gives closure on Paula and Karl’s (Jake Johnson) custody battle, but also adds another layer of conspiracy and chaos, perfectly teeing up a Season 2. Just before the credits roll, Paula gets a phone call from an unknown number and receives footage of what really happened that fateful night in Portland. During this conversation with Collider, Green and Rosen talk about embracing obstacles that arose while filming, what it was like to make New York City a character in the show, and how the finale was planned from the start. COLLIDER: I’m so excited to talk to you both. Tale of Two Davids here. It’s so unpredictable in the best way. The cast is great. I want to start with a little bit of a fun question first. As we see, Paula has an outlet for pleasure. Is there a show, a movie, or an activity that either of you will jump to just to turn your mood around instantly? We can start with you, Mr. Rosen. DAVID ROSEN: This is going to be super boring. Not quite pleasure, but for relief, I like to walk my dog, take him up on the top of my street. There’s a hiking trail where we could make loud noises, and no one will look at us askance. But I know that’s not as filthy as you probably wanted. [Laughs] DAVID GORDON GREEN: I’ve got innocent answers, but I got two of them. One is tuning forks that I carry around to move it around and send off all the crazy energy. Then the other is a new one: The brilliant comedian, Ali Saddiq. I just turn him on, listen to him tell stories, and I’m in my happy place. So that’s where I go.
Casting Tatiana Maslany Was the Dream for ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’ Creator David Rosen

“Tatiana is incredible.”

This show is wild and fun, and the cast is fantastic, especially Tatiana. I feel like this role was really made for her. Was she always in the project from the beginning? Did you write the role with her in mind? ROSEN: Interestingly, I did not. I really, really, really wanted Tatiana Maslany, but she was spoken for, for another project. Only towards when we were getting really close to being like, “We have to pull the trigger,” did that project go away, and she became available, which was dreamy, to say the least. There was some jumping up and down in some places. Yeah, Tatiana is incredible. This role needed the kind of actor who could both be vulnerable and violent, who you want to follow anywhere, no matter what they’re going to do — even if you know you’re going to be scared or disappointed by their actions — and also who could be funny. And Tatiana just, I mean, she’s incredible. GREEN: It’s funny, when I first read the script, I had worked with Tatiana previously on this film, Stronger, with Jake Gyllenhaal, and knew her as an actress that is very prepared, but also ready to pivot, and that’s what I love. That kind of spontaneity, but you’re ready to go. When I read it, I wrote her name on the script as, like, “Hey, we should talk about her.” And then I bring her up, speaking to David and the team, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, that’s dream casting, good luck.” And then I was fortunate enough to be able to work with her again, and be able to really set what I think is just a great playground for her, to everything that she’s done so beautifully, from Orphan Black and beyond, of checking the box of a lot of genres. It’s fun to be able to — when you have an actress that’s that capable of expression in so many different forms — to be able to utilize those tools.
Director David Gordon Green Doesn’t Want To Get Comfortable in One Genre

“Give me interesting subject matter in something I haven’t done, and I’m just a kid in a candy store.”

Jake Johnson and Tatiana Maslany standing at a front door in Maximum Pleasure GuaranteedImage via Apple TV

It’s funny you mentioned genres, because I feel like, Mr. Green, you’ve directed in every genre. One of my favorite things that you’ve directed is the pilot episode of Dickinson. That’s such an underrated show, in my opinion. Do you have a favorite genre to direct in? It feels like comedy, thriller is kind of your wheelhouse. GREEN: You know what? I want no wheelhouse. I want to always be learning and growing and expanding. So my favorite genre is whatever I’ve never done. I love Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed because it’s kind of a tapestry of a lot of things I had done, and I could put them together in unique ways, and I get really excited. Dickinson was one of the very first shows on Apple, and it was fun to be able to work with a new platform and see what they were interested in doing, and how you could work with Hailee Steinfeld and this amazing cast that we’d put together, in a way that was both modern and historical, and that preserved the integrity of this classical character. But, at the same time, put a spin that was uniquely Hailee. Give me interesting subject matter in something I haven’t done, and I’m just a kid in a candy store.

Related

Jake Johnson Doesn’t Think Karl Is a Villain in Apple TV’s ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’

‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’s latest episode also features a big Mallory twist.

One of the most complicated characters in this show is New York City. What was it like developing that as a character? ROSEN: It was super fun because one of the things we wanted to do with Paula, differentiating her from Karl and Mallory, is that they live in the heart of it. They live in Brooklyn, but they live in Brooklyn where you can get peptides in the bodegas, not like other parts. And Paula lives in Queens, and kind of deep. We just really enjoyed being like, “Let’s lean into the New York of the outer boroughs, where a lot of people do have cars. Where it’s not subway and taxis, Ubers, everywhere.” I lived in New York. I live in LA now, but I lived in New York when I had kids, and you were fighting for parking spots because there was no way to get your children to soccer practices and things. Just feeling like that part of New York — a little less sexy, we’re not in the clubs — for me, personally, I was like, “Ooh, I’m home, this is great.” A throughline I love this season was how mysterious Dennis is as a character and who he works for. I love that we really fully don’t know, even in the finale. How much talk was there to keep his job and the company he works for under wraps? ROSEN: It was a lot of talk about how to tell that story and to lay out the pieces. We ultimately decided to do it in the way that I think we all felt was most enjoyable for our own viewing, which is to sort of be able to have theories about what exactly is happening and why, and hold that reveal for as long as possible. That was kind of the plan because I think this type of show works best when we’re with all of our people and learning about them and what they’re doing, and the audience is trying to understand rather than sort of a huge snap back to any kind of global conspiracy.
Rosen and Green Found Creative Ways To Make Paula’s Life Chaotic in ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’

“You add to a bit of the calamity in Paula’s day.”

Tatiana Maslany holds a phone to her ear and looks horrified in ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’Image via Apple TV

The finale has such an amazing moment of whiplash, especially the last scene, because everything feels like it’s going right for Paula, and then she gets that call with no caller ID. Was that always the planned ending, or did you have different versions that you messed around with? ROSEN: That was always the plan. Before the show was greenlit, that was the last moment in the [show] Bible.

Wow. Mr. Green, I was talking to Charlie and Kiarra, and they were saying that you allowed so much freedom on set and had a lot of fun. Were there any moments that were pretty unplanned that ended up being pulled off on the day, and you kept it in? GREEN: There’s so much about it. I love walking into something that has a masterful plan, like David’s plan with this series, and then I’m there to help sculpt a first episode, putting the cast together and art direction, and finding what the opportunities of this universe are going to be. There’s one moment in particular — I was rewatching the pilot the other day — that I love. Paula’s vehicle had parked accidentally or been placed by the transport department, where her car door was interrupted by a tree, and you couldn’t really fully open the door. I love the idea of, like, “Hey, let’s just use that. Let’s not move the car to a more convenient place, but let’s put that as part of Paula’s obstacle.” This is a show that embraces those obstacles. It would take two minutes for the transport department to move the vehicle three feet forward, but why do it when we can embrace the tree? She can open it up. She can try to go around the tree to figure out a different way in the car. You add to a bit of the calamity in Paula’s day, just trying to drop her daughter off at school and get out of there. Just put little tasks and tediousness in something that could be perfectly mundane in a normal everyday slice-of-life scenario. But for Paula, she has to park in front of the fucking tree. Hopefully we get a Season 2. Is there anything you can tease about it? Paula is really screwed. Would Season 2 be darker? ROSEN: Shrug emoji. I don’t want to give anything away. We have a lot of thoughts. We had thoughts going into Season 1 about Season 2, but we are trying not to put the cart before the horse. All episodes of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed are available on Apple TV.