[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for The Franchise.]

The Big Picture

The HBO comedy series ‘The Franchise’ showcases the chaos of creating a superhero movie, highlighting the unsung heroes of a film set.
Co-stars Daniel Brühl and Jessica Hynes discuss their characters and the fun of working with a talented ensemble cast.
Brühl expresses his comedic side and the joy of working with British and American comedians on the show.

From Veep creator Armando Iannucci, Skyfall director Sam Mendes and Succession writer Jon Brown, the HBO comedy series The Franchise follows the unsung heroes of a movie set, who have to keep things running, put out the fires and survive the chaos, often while getting little to no credit. In this particular case, they’re just trying to finish the latest in a superhero franchise, a film called Tecto that’s starring the insecure Adam (Billy Magnussen) and being directed by the award-winning Eric Bouchard (Daniel Brühl). But with never-ending notes and obstacles, and an unfortunate cameo they have to make sense of, it feels like they’ll need a miracle if they’re ever going to have a finished movie to release in theaters.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Brühl and Jessica Hynes, who plays script supervisor Steph, talked about how they’d go see a Tecto movie in real life, that there was an actual script written for them to refer to, the fun of working with incredibly funny people, how Steph loves her job so much that it’s probably unhealthy, and what it was like for Brühl to deliver that China speech while new lines kept being given to him.

‘The Franchise’ Writers Actually Wrote a Script for ‘Tecto’
Image via HBO

Collider: After watching this series, I want to see the Tecto movie. Would either of you actually want to see the movie, if it were real?

JESSICA HYNES: I was privy to the script on my iPad. There has been a script written for Tecto that I can refer to in real life. I’m reading the Tecto script and making pretend marks on it. It’s actually really quite good. Marina Hyde, one of the writers, said, “Yeah, we just knocked it out.” And I said, “It’s really good, guys. Let’s make this.”

Does it make you guys more curious, in general, about the final outcome of a project when you know some of the behind the scenes drama that happened, or would you prefer to know as little as possible about something that you might be going to see?

HYNES: Personally, I love to know. There’s no limit to my interest and curiosity, so it doesn’t put me off. Knowing how something works actually makes me more interested in it than not knowing. I can suspend my disbelief in theater, in any situation, so I don’t need to be protected from the machinations and workings of something in order to enjoy it.

DANIEL BRÜHL: I agree.

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Daniel, you’re not exactly known for comedy. Had you been actively pursuing the opportunity to do something funny? You’re so funny in this, but you’re funny because you’re so serious.

BRÜHL: Yeah. Yes, for 26 years, I’ve been waiting for this moment. I come from a comedy desert, called Germany. They make many, many comedies, some of them being very successful, but I never got it. It was never my cup of tea. So, I was always hoping that I could work with the English and with Americans. And then, I was offered this, the best of two worlds. It’s a marriage between the finest of British comedians and American comedians. There was Jessica Hynes, but then there were these three masterminds, Sam Mendes, Armando Iannucci and Jon Brown. It was just a dream for me to finally be able to spar and dance with these incredibly funny people. So, I enjoyed every single second, doing this. The comedy that I like the most is when you feel that you take these humans seriously. This is not just the jokes, but you feel for them. Even my character, who can be so incredibly narcissistic and sulky and pretentious and such a pain in the ass, I always felt for him. I’ve been in similar situations, so the material resonated with me. I didn’t want to betray this guy, but to feel for him, in all that seriousness and cerebral gravitas.

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Every time he got a little caught up in himself, I kept thinking, “But he’s not that bad. There’s way worse than this guy.” We all know somebody worse than this guy.

HYNES: Yes!

It somehow makes him likeable still.

BRÜHL: Thank you. That’s very kind.

‘The Franchise’s Daniel Brühl and Jessica Hynes Found Their Comedy Groove With This Talented Ensemble

With this kind of ensemble comedy, you’re not just trying to figure out where you fit into things, but it has to fit in with everybody else. Everybody has their own approach and all these characters have such different backgrounds. What’s the fun in figuring out how you fit in with each of the characters within the larger ensemble?

BRÜHL: Sometimes there’s not enough credit given to the people who put this together, the ones that are responsible for the casting. In that case, it’s Nina Gold, who is a golden casting director. It was such an incredible feeling when we started working with each other and every single one seemed so right for the part and so different. It was such an eclectic, great, diverse group of people and it just felt right, from the first moment on. On a on a show like this, you have to be quick. It cannot take days. You’ve shot the pilot, and then the second episode, and then it’s over, so you have to find that groove quickly, and we did.

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Jessica, do you think Steph is ambitious? Is she happy in the position that she’s in?

HYNES: Oh, she’s so happy. Oh, my God, she loves her job. She’s perfect. It’s her life. She loves it. She loves being a script supervisor. She is this. It’s the thing that defines her. She is so good at what she does. Script supervising is a really, really complex, very specific, very skilled job. You need a really specific set of skills to do it. You have to be fast. You have to be technically really smart. You have to be able to track what’s going on constantly and be really, really plugged into what’s going on all the time, and she’s really good at that. She’s very, very well organized in that way. She is her job. She loves her job. She couldn’t be doing anything more. She’s working with Eric Bouchard, who made The Unlikening that won the Golden Leopard. She saw it and loved it. She thinks he’s a genius. She thinks this is as good as it gets. She’s not cynical, I don’t think, about franchise worlds, apart from when the going gets tough and when Eric’s affected. She loves the world and she loves the job, so she’s really, really happy in her job, itself. Her work/life balance might be out. She’s really not quite getting home, perhaps as much as she might. But she loves her job and she just wants to be as supportive as she can be for Eric.

What Prompted ‘The Franchise’ Crew To Give Daniel Brühl a Round of Applause?
Image via HBO

Daniel, did you enjoy delivering your China speech as much as I enjoyed listening to it?

BRÜHL: I had a lot of fun doing it, I can tell you. What was great is that Jon kept on giving me new lines.

HYNES: It was so good. That was amazing to watch. Daniel had learned this whole speech, and then Jon kept throwing in new versions. We’re talking the third take, fourth take, and fifth take, and he was just nailing it with new versions, every time, which is so hard to do when you’re hammering a speech of that intensity, that speed, and that energy. We gave him a round of applause at the end of that. He was the only one to get a round of applause on set. Once he finished and it was cut, and he’d taken on all these different changes and just instantly assimilated them, we all [applauded]. It was incredible.

BRÜHL: What is happening here?!

A team trapped inside the dysfunctional hell of creating franchise superhero movies, at the end of the day the question they face is: is this Hollywood’s new dawn or cinema’s last stand? Is this a dream factory or a chemical plant?Release Date October 6, 2024 Seasons 1 Streaming Service(s) Max Showrunner Jon Brown Expand

The Franchise airs on HBO and is available to stream on Max. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Max