Summary

Collider’s Joe Schmidt speaks with Mythic Quest’s Danny Pudi and Imani Hakim for Season 4.

The AppleTV+ series explores the office sitcom dynamics of the video game industry and also stars Rob McElhenney, Ashly Burch, and Charlotte Nicdao.

In this interview, Hakim and Pudi discuss the challenges of directing themselves on set, their characters’ growth this season, and how the two of them reflect one another in Season 4.

Known for her beloved role as Tonya Rock in Everybody Hates Chris as well as Adventure Time and Pokemon, Imani Hakim continues the trend of casting actors on AppleTV+’s Mythic Quest with a brilliant balance of on-screen and voiceover performance. Danny Pudi also fits the bill, as the iconic Abed in Community and his meme-worthy declaration of Duck Tales employment. Together, Hakim and Pudi make a perfect duo on the series, balancing each other out in emotion and humor.
Centering on the complex, hilarious team behind the video game Mythic Quest, the series dives into the heart of the industry with respect and biting wit. The show is built around the inviting-yet-dissonant relationship between game creator Ian Grimm (played by series co-creator Rob McElhenney) and his co-creative director Poppy (played by Charlotte Nicdao). Both starting at the ground floor together, Hakim’s Dana Bryant and Pudi’s Brad Bakshi left the previous season with Dana forming her own company and bringing Brad along for the ride. The series also stars Naomi Ekperigin (Broad City) and David Hornsby (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).
With Season 4 hitting the streamer, Pudi and Hakim spoke with Collider’s Joe Schmidt to discuss their evolving roles in Mythic Quest. They talk about Brad and Dana’s unique reflective relationship, the rewarding challenge of directing an episode, and why we all need a Brad in our life to teach us about financial responsibility. The duo also reveal their crossover ideas and who Brad may target next for his wily schemes.
Brad and Dana Are “Holding Up a Mirror” to Each Other in Season 4

“Brad’s drawn to this power that Dana has.”

Image via Apple TV+

COLLIDER: It feels like every season expands and gets more and more ambitious, especially your two characters in particular. Dana is a very, very ambitious character, this season especially, and Brad is just generally a terrible human being, but who pushes people in great directions. How does Brad’s moral code kind of shape what Dana goes through in this season?
IMANI HAKIM: I think there are some underlying similarities between Dana and Brad that are revealed this season. Dana is kind of floating in the gray area, and I feel like that’s sort of inspired by her connection to Brad. She also realizes that sometimes you have to get your hands a little dirty in order to succeed, so they’re holding up a mirror for each other this season. She’s chosen well, as far as her teammates are concerned. She’s chosen the right people to help her push the boundary and be able to really reach the next level.
Awesome. And Danny, what is it like to get into this aspect of Brad? Without spoiling things, he’s also challenged in other ways from new characters that we have yet to meet so far, so this season was kind of a different muscle for you to flex, it seems like.
DANNY PUDI: Yeah, it was really exciting. I like what you said about him helping people, despite being very villainous and having villainous tendencies. With Imani, I think we realized this year there was this nice mirror between us. She was bringing certain things out of Brad. Dana is always bringing her personal life into the office, bringing that whole thing, and Brad is not revealing any of his personal life in the office, so I think it was interesting to play with that dynamic, and what is it like if Brad starts revealing some of his personal life? I think some of Brad’s plans this year don’t go fully according to plan, which is not typical, and that was fun to play from a character perspective, to be like, “Okay, what if everything I’ve set in place, what if everything I’ve set in motion doesn’t pan out in the end?” That’s really exciting to play as a character. I think for both of us, anytime you have a new pairing, we know each other so well now—it’s Season 4—but when you have this new pairing, it’s fun to see what it brings up in you, and I think Brad’s drawn to this power that Dana has and kind of wants to help bring out that inner villain a little bit to see what else we could do with that power.
It’s so funny you say the villainous dip. Your two characters are also pivotal in teaching financial literacy to a whole new generation.
PUDI: [Laughs] You’re welcome! I think we all wish we had a character like Brad to do some checkbook exercise with you and look at your crumpled up receipts and see what mess you’ve gotten yourself into.
HAKIM: And how efficient he was at doing so with all that.
PUDI: I need a Brad. I need a Brad in my life.

Related

‘Mythic Quest’ Season 3 Recap: What You Need To Remember Before Season 4

It all comes down to Buffalo Chicken Pizza.

For sure. I think we all do. Imani, we see Dana and Rachel and how their journey has grown together and how it’s been parallel and interwoven, but also they go in different spaces. What is important about this next step in this new season that the two characters take?
HAKIM: So this season, I think a lot of the characters are figuring out that work/life balance, and on our show before with Rachel and Dana, they’ve kind of just been paired together. They started as testers. They worked hand in hand, but now they’re at the same company and different departments. They’re having to discover what that means for their relationship and also how to have strong boundaries and how to keep the personal life separate from the professional, but also be super supportive of each other at the same time. They don’t get it right all the time, but I feel that they do find their strides in it and they’re able to make it work.
Awesome.
Danny Pudi and Imani Hakim Share the Joys and Terrors of Directing

“The cast and the crew and the team are very collaborative.”

One of the coolest things about this season is a lot of you have stepped behind the scenes and taken on different roles as the show has gone on. Imani, you get to direct, Danny, you get to direct. Imani, can you tell me a little bit about your episode, which kind of feels like a C-SPAN episode to it. How challenging was that, and how fun was that for you to tackle this season?
HAKIM: Oh, man, it was so much fun, but also very challenging. The number one challenge is acting and directing at the same time. I do not recommend. But I’m glad I got to do both because it’s always a good thing to be able to to stretch yourself. For the Congress stuff, I really wanted to have that nod to C-SPAN, and we had Chiron implemented in that. It was such a long day doing all of that stuff, but it was so much fun because Ashly [Burch] and David [Hornsby], their chemistry is off the chain. They were just bantering and working off of each other, and we get to just explore this conspiracy theorist within Rachel. It was just so much fun.
Being able to have my directorial debut on a show like Mythic Quest, it felt very supported. It’s a show that I’m familiar with because we’ve gotten to know these characters so well over the last few seasons. Also, all the other actors who’ve directed before and the producers were just very hands-on and accessible to me if I had any questions. Also, shoutout to our crew because our crew is also amazing. It was just such a collaborative experience. It was just so ideal that I got to work on this episode that is very full of heart and warmth and drama and comedy. It just ticked all of those boxes, so it was just like a challenge that I met head on, and I enjoyed it, and I can’t wait to do it again.
That’s so cool. I love the moon landing stuff.
HAKIM: It’s so good.
PUDI: It’s so funny.
And Danny, you directed the penultimate episode, which really kind of lights the match that is this powder keg that has been there all season bubbling. What was the challenge of that one?
PUDI: So many. One, I was very grateful that I wasn’t in it, like Imani was saying, because having directed before, being in it is a unique challenge. But truly, the cast and the crew and the team are very collaborative, and there are many people who are used to having actors step behind the camera. Even when we’re working on a scene together, many of the cast—Ashly, David, our writers, too—it’s kind of this playpen where everyone’s voice chimes in. It’s like a collage. Everyone’s collaborating, and it makes it easy when you’re stepping behind the camera to kind of be like, “What should we do here?” If you have questions, someone’s there to help you with that, which is really great.
For me, in that ninth episode, I was very nervous because there’s a lot of pace to it, and it features a lot of phones and there’s a lot of technical challenges that I had never experienced or worked with before. So, for me, I was learning a lot about how to make this feel visually dynamic, while also maintaining the storyline that leads to our finale. Thankfully, I have David at the center of it all who’s so funny in the episode. With his knowledge from a writing perspective, too, it helped me figure out what’s the most important thing that I want to capture regarding the story. So visually it was challenging but really exciting, also, to be like, “Okay, we’re given these constraints here with these phones; how do we actually use that to make something fun and also do something that we are not used to?” We’re moving constantly in that episode, which is a little different from some of our episodes, which are a little bit more static, and I think that’s the joy of this show, is that we’re kind of always changing things a little bit here and there, which is terrifying when it’s the first time you’re doing it, but also really thrilling when you figure out something that’s fun on the day.
I think this is the episode where you also are in a spa getting a massage, so of course you’re going to direct that one.
PUDI: [Laughs] It was really hard for me when I had to pick out a massage table. That was a real challenge for me. I had to try the massage tables. It was really exciting.
Could Brad Be Targeting Cold Alliance Next?

“Brad has a code.”

Image via Apple TV+

That’s funny. So, Brad is a moralist, but also always a character who is trying to find the next challenge, the next Everest to climb, but in a way that is super depraved. He’s been arrested before, we’ve seen, but what is a criminal act that Brad needs to tackle in the future? Just as a whole?
PUDI: Oh, this is good. Well, I think Brad has a code. He does have a code. That’s been fun to play with this idea that he is drawn to the nefarious ways of life and coloring outside the lines, but there’s always a reason for it. He’s always trying to figure out the right way to do something. He’s a little bit of a Robin Hood— a little bit. So, I think if there was going to be something, I feel like it would have to be something that takes down some kind of entity that he also finds as evil, you know what I mean? So it’d have to be somebody on his level that he would have to take down in some kind of other scheme. Maybe we have to go after the other video game studio. Maybe we have to go after Cold Alliance and see if there’s some kind of monetization situation that they’re implementing that Brad either tries to challenge or undo.
I hear that.
‘Mythic Quest’ Is Due for a “Group Sesh”

The gang may be making a visit to the Shrinking office.

Image via Apple TV+

So we saw an Abbott Elementary crossover with Always Sunny [in Philadelphia], and given the Always Sunny DNA in all this, what is a Mythic Quest crossover you guys would like to see with another show?
HAKIM: Oh my gosh.
PUDI: The first thing I think of is Shrinking because I think we all need therapy.
HAKIM: Oh, that’s a good one!
PUDI: AppleTV, same family. That’d be interesting.
HAKIM: Leave it there. Not to hijack that, but the entire MQ…
PUDI: We could have a group therapy sesh.
HAKIM: I think so. It’s necessary.
PUDI: I know Brad’s got more demons to explore.
Mythic Quest Season 4 is available to stream on AppleTV+.

Mythic Quest

Release Date

February 7, 2020

Network

Apple TV+

Directors

Todd Biermann, Pete Chatmon, Megan Ganz, Angela Barnes, Steve Welch, Catriona McKenzie, LP, Danny Pudi, Heath Cullens

Writers

Katie McElhenney, Ashly Burch, John Howell Harris, Aparna Nancherla, Naomi Ekperigin, Kyle Mack, Keyonna Taylor, Randall Valdez-Castillo, Emma dePaulo Reid