The Afterparty returns with a new murder that pulls Detective Danner, Zoë, and Aniq back together. After clearing Aniq’s name in the first crime, they now have to solve this new case and clear Zoë’s family of suspicion when her young sister’s new husband is killed during their wedding. The trio will question guests, including Zoë’s family, the groom’s family, a business partner, and star-crossed lovers, to figure out who the real killer is.
The Afterparty was created by Christopher Miller, who serves as an executive producer along with Phil Lord and Anthony King. Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao reprise their roles from the first season of The Afterparty. Season two features an impressive cast, including Elizabeth Perkins, Zach Woods, Paul Walter Hauser, Poppy Liu, Anna Konkle, Jack Whitehall, Vivian Wu, Ken Jeong, and John Cho.
Screen Rant spoke with Anna Konkle about starring in The Afterparty season 2 and their episode of Carpool Karaoke. She discusses the improvisation in both Carpool Karaoke and The Afterparty season 2, as well as Haddish’s comedic timing. Konkle also teases Hitchcock, film noir, and indie film inspired episodes in The Afterparty’s new season.
Anna Konkle On The Afterparty Season 2 & Carpool Karaoke
Screen Rant: I love season two of The Afterparty, and I love your guys’ episode of Carpool Karaoke. They’re both so much fun!
Anna Konkle: Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for watching.
So who out of the cast do you think is the best at karaoke?
Anna Konkle: Sam. Sam Richardson kills it. I just actually watched the episode today and he really brought it home. Kind of saved a lot of us.
You had a hard job as the driver.
Anna Konkle: Thank you! I was surprised that they wanted me to drive. I don’t know why, but I was surprised. So they didn’t show it. They showed like one reference to it, but Zoe kept getting carsick. I was forced to admit that they weren’t the first people. I think because I learned driving six shift. That’s my theory that because of that, I am sort of a stop and go kind of drivers. As though there’s a clutch there when there’s not and so I should have told production before we went that people complain that I make them car sick. So my friends were getting sick in the back.
Oh no! If you were to do another Carpool Karaoke episode, who would be your dream road partner, and would you want to drive again?
Anna Konkle: I, for their sake would not drive again, even though I like driving. I don’t want to make anyone sick. I feel like maybe I saw that she was on this season or a past season, but Alanis Morissette. I might be too nervous to speak, but she’s kind of an idol for me.
I love that! There is a ton of really fun improv between you guys on Carpool Karaoke and such a great chemistry. Were you able to do a lot of improv on The Afterparty set as well?
Anna Konkle: Yeah, Anthony and Chris were super welcoming to that. Once we got the lines they were very open for us to go off and from what I’ve seen, I don’t want to say they use a lot, but they’re inclusive of your ideas. So that doesn’t always happen and it’s a really, really comfortable set to feel like you can bring your own creative spirit into it.
One of my favorite things about Afterparty is how it allows you to explore different genres in every episode, which kind of shifts how you portray your characters. So how did you change your approach each episode while still staying true to who Hannah is at her core?
Anna Konkle: That confused me. I’m not gonna lie. I was nervous about that, but I think it’s a testament to the writers that the voice of the characters came through no matter what the genre was. I think that knowing what your genre was, was really helpful. For instance, in the very beginning of filming, for a lot of us the first days we were in Hitchcock.We hadn’t even played our real life everyday non genre characters yet. So that was definitely intimidating. In terms of was it going to translate and sort of doing the reverse order and things ideally. I’m thankful that it worked and from watching all of the other characters and all the other actors kind of traverse their way through their sort of grounded selves in their genre selves. I thought everyone’s character translated really well.
I love this season! And I think Hannah was my favorite just because she was so odd but so true to who she was?
Anna Konkle: Oh, thanks for saying that. Yeah, I really loved playing her and yeah, I miss her.
Which version of Hannah do you think is kind of like truest to who she feels she is her own version, one from another genre, or the one that’s the grounded reality?
Anna Konkle: I think the genres are more her honest self. I think she’s someone that lives in her head a lot and people don’t necessarily understand what she’s saying or what she means. Her episode, the sort of twee indie movie episode and I know that was the writer’s attention that that’s kind of for essence, but in practice that thought felt. Where there’s sort of a stiltedness to her.She’s her own unique sort of alien little person in a storybook. It sort of reminded me of that, but then she’s also very emotive and passionate about her feelings when she connects to them. The tension between those two parts of her I think really played in that episode. And then the film noir episode also was exciting because she just got to be kind of domineering when she wanted to be and meek and sort of play with all the different femme fatale weird parts of herself. I love getting to see that side of her too. And getting to play that side.
I love both those episodes. Those and the Hitchcock, I was just like, “What is going on? This is the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
Anna Konkle: [Laughs] I know they did an amazing job! The directors, the showrunners, the creators, and all the actors, but I was really blown away at the level of filmmaking. Seeing the season back and what they were able to accomplish. Just really happy I got to be part of it.
And then one of the things that stands out to me is Tiffany Haddish as the detective because realistically, her scenes are very expositional. But her comedic timing and understanding of comedy just elevates those. So how did she elevate those scenes for you when you were doing your exposition aspect of it?
Anna Konkle: I can say that she’s absolutely effortless in her comedy. In a way that I haven’t experienced super often on set and with actors. She has a real presence and charisma, and we all know that, but acting wise to be able to just drop in and be both really grounded easily and really, really funny. And exactly in the most difficult moments of having to exposition or more leading us through really important parts of this story. I was thankful that she could do that in a brand-new way, and it helped me try to stay grounded too. Those are always like hard, hard times and acting.
Yeah, I could imagine. You can just feel kind of that DNA of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in this especially after things like Spider-Verse that also kind of play into that origin of each character. Can you talk to me about collaborating with them?
Anna Konkle: I’m not the first to say that they’re absolutely brilliant. Anthony King and Chris Miller were sort of on set every day and you can still feel Phil’s presence in everything too. They just knew the ins and outs of every character, every plot line, and every lie in every story, every diversion, every authentic, emotional point. I don’t think there was one person that didn’t get confused somewhere within the script in some moment.We’re block shooting a bunch of episodes at the same time, the different genres, who did what, and moments of being like, “Well, I think I’m lying here, but maybe hold on. Let me go back to script to figure it out.” They just knew every aspect a million times over. So that was pretty amazing. They have such an unusual ability to be authentic to the core of somebody’s humanity while letting that move plot along, story along, and drive compelling storylines. I think that really comes through in this season.
I love it and then following kind of in the vein of team ups like carpool karaoke. Is there a famous detective you’d like to see Tiffany Haddish’s character Detective Danner team up with to solve another case? If there’s an Afterparty season three?
Anna Konkle: I’m trying to remember…was it Murder She Wrote? What was that old school?
Yeah!
Anna Konkle: That was such an iconic show. Well, if Angela Lansbury came back. That would be something that I would love to watch.
We’re really seeing the rise of this whodunit genre again, with Glass Onion, Poker Face, Only Murders In The Building, Knives Out, and Afterparty. Why do you think audiences are connecting with this genre?
Anna Konkle: That’s a good question. It’s probably not a coincidence that, I guess it was maybe Serial on NPR, that sort of obsession with real life crime series. The genre kind of takes something that is perversely satisfying to humans about watching that content and then brings a sort of stylized larger than life element to it. Maybe it’s in sort of a morbid way it’s escapist while still tapping into something really primal. Which sounds really messed up, but that’s my best guess today.
Well, I love it! One of my favorite genres.
Anna Konkle: Well, what do you think?
I just think mysteries are fun, and it’s fun to watch silly characters figure them out.
Anna Konkle: Okay, well, how about that’s what I said?
About The Afterparty Season 2
Aniq and Zoë call Detective Danner for help when they are once again swept into a murder investigation when the groom of the wedding they are attending is killed. The trio must search for clues and question suspects to clear Zoë’s family from suspicion. The suspects include Zoë’s family members, star-crossed lovers, and the groom’s business partner, who each tell their own version of the events leading up to the groom’s murder.
The first two episodes of The Afterparty debut on Apple TV+ July 12.
