At the core of the Apple TV+ show Your Friends & Neighbors is the Cooper family. Andrew «Coop» Cooper butts heads with his beloved sister, Ali, as well as his teenage children Hunter and Tori. Ali isn’t afraid to tell Coop exactly like it is, particularly when it comes to his relationships (or lack thereof) with the women in his life. Meanwhile, Hunter and Tori have their own ambitions that family strife just make harder.
In an interview with CBR, stars Lena Hall (who plays Ali), Donovan Colan (who portrays Hunter) and Isabel Gravitt (who plays Tori) shared their take on the Cooper family. They discussed how Hunter and Tori are navigating being teenagers in a particularly thorny world. Plus, Lena talked about stepping into a much more grounded role after years on the dystopian drama Snowpiercer.
CBR: Lena, TV viewers will be pretty surprised to see you playing Ali after they got to know you as Miss Audrey in Snowpiercer. The two shows couldn’t be more different. What was it like for you to make the transition into this character?
Lena Hall: The difference is extreme. [Laughs.] Miss Audrey was a character — and then she was fabulous. The lipstick, the makeup, the hair, the dresses, the corsets, everything was way over the top. Now I’m just basically playing myself. I’m messy, and I don’t wear makeup, and I’m just sitting and playing guitar and singing. And so it’s an extraordinarily different vibe from Snowpiercer. Not only are the tones different, but my characters are vastly different. You couldn’t get more different.
It’s a nice switch. I loved Snowpiercer, and so it’s a really nice switch to be like, you’re not wearing any heels, you’re gonna be in sneakers. I’m like, thank you. 15 hours in sneakers I can do. [Laughs.] Here’s some cowboy boots and a slip dress. That’s your fit. You’re done. My costume fittings went from three hours long to 15 minutes. Really nice time-saver.
Donovan, there’s sort of two layers to Hunter and Tori’s arc in that their dad is doing all these things that they don’t know about. How do you approach him playing that part of his character, in addition to just being a typical TV teenager?
Donovan Colan: One of the ways I thought about it was, I’m kind of resentful towards Coop because I don’t know what he’s doing, and I don’t know why he’s doing all of the stuff. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I kind of wish that he was more a part of the family and more supportive, and he doesn’t really give any information about it.
One of the plot points that comes up is Tori has ambitions of pursuing some form of a tennis career. Isabel, how much does the fighting and the deception between her parents impact the goals that Tori has for herself?
Isabel Gravitt: Greatly. Being in a neighborhood and family like this, with such a high status and so much wealth, the thing that comes along with that are expectations. And I think that’s very scary when you’re thinking about your future, and both of your parents are very successful, but things start to happen.
What’s the most interesting thing any of you learned about your characters as you were making Your Friends & Neighbors? Did anything catch you by surprise?
Hall: Ali has much more insight into the world than I think anyone could give her credit for. She is seen as she can’t function in the real world, but I think she’s way more with it and knows really what’s going on more than anyone else does. She can seem like she doesn’t know what’s going on, or that she’s completely clueless in her own little world, but I think she’s keyed in the most to the family dynamic, and she’s not afraid to say what is on her mind. And what’s bizarre is that the one character who has the most mental health issues, I think, is the one who has the most sense.
Your Friends & Neighbors streams Fridays on Apple TV+.
