Ophelia Lovibond & Jake Johnson on Pushing Boundaries
Jul 23, 2023
The Big Picture Season 2 of ‘Minx’ faced cancellation but was picked up by another network, indicating its popularity and fan support. Doug is struggling to save his company while Joyce is realizing the value of their partnership, leading to a reevaluation of their relationship. The actors enjoyed exploring the evolution of their characters in Season 2, including pushing boundaries, introducing historical events, and experimenting with wardrobe choices.
In Season 2 of the ‘70s-set series Minx (which has moved to Starz), the magazine is a commercial success, but that’s not without its own set of complications. Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson) is struggling to hang onto his company, Bottom Dollar, while Joyce Prigger (Ophelia Lovibond) is trying to push herself beyond her usual straight-laced ways, which forces the two to reevaluate just what their partnership means to each other.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Lovibond and Johnson talked about how quickly the unexpectedly cancelled series was picked up by another network, why Doug is getting a bit of a raw deal, coming to the realization that maybe Joyce was better off in partnership with Doug, the blast they had creating the premiere of Deep Throat for an episode, leaning into Joyce’s sexuality, the bold choices that were made at the end of the season, and their hope to return for Season 3.
This interview was conducted prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Collider: For a minute there, it seemed like we might not get to see Season 2. Did you guys have a moment where you thought that, even though you had the season pretty much ready to go, we might never actually get to see it?
JAKE JOHNSON: We had heard from Lionsgate pretty quickly, that other streamers were making offers. There was a moment of shock, but we had also heard that HBO Max was making a lot of cuts for money reasons and it was likely that we would be one of those cuts. So, once we heard that there were three other streamers bidding on it, we figured that most likely it was gonna be fine. But it was about a two-month period where we weren’t allowed to announce that.
Image via Starz
There are situations where shows were stuck in limbo long enough that the sets were taken down, so when they got picked up by another network or streamer, they had to rebuild everything. At least this wasn’t like that.
JOHNSON: I can’t even imagine. What was really nice for us was hearing the fan reaction, and hearing people get really mad and saying they really wanted this show back. That felt really great. We appreciate that response.
Jake, when we spoke about that first season, you told me that you loved Doug from the start. What did you most enjoy about his evolution in Season 2?
JOHNSON: I might be the only person on planet Earth, and I’m realizing it even during this press tour and I’ll realize it more when the show comes out, who feels bad for Doug. I think he’s getting a bit of a raw deal. He is working really hard to try to make something work, and the way he sees the world is not the way anybody else sees the world, apparently. I felt bad for him, that now he has two bosses. I liked that he kept pushing. In every angle, he would try his hardest, in everything he did. Even though there was success, it was viewed as a failure and it was viewed as a miss, and not what the goal of the new magazine was trying to do. If you’re not appreciated where you’re at, you can keep sitting there and taking it, or pack your bags and move on. I think Doug made a very bold move, at the end [of Season 2], and I would love to see what would happen in Season 3. How do you bring the team back together, or can you even do that?
Ophelia, there are some definite shifts between Doug and Joyce this season. They don’t seem to be on the same page, quite as often as they were. How much did that relationship change and evolve for you? What did you most enjoy about exploring that tension between them?
OPHELIA LOVIBOND: They’re not really around each other as much. He comments on how she’s barely in the office. Even when she goes off to Vassar, she’s claiming it’s this big honor, but she’s only invited because she’s given them loads of money. She’s not really seeing what’s right in front of him. It was a chance to explore how Joyce was out of that environment again, with all of this success behind her. She does realize, begrudgingly because Doug is not her favorite person, that this was better when it was just the two of them doing it, they were the ones controlling it, and they were calling the shots. She was the creative and he was the business, and they needed each other just as much. It’s taken her this time away from that dynamic to realize that, even though it had its problems and he’s unconventional, she preferred it to the moral discrepancy between Joyce and Constance.
Image via Starz
There’s something really fun about the episode with Bottom Dollar hosting the West Coast premiere of Deep Throat. There’s something so fun about weaving, like actual history into fictional characters. What was it like to find out about that, to read that, and to shoot that episode?
JOHNSON: I thought it was a blast. Whenever they do big stories like that, it’s really fun. It was fun to shoot.
LOVIBOND: It was. We were in the theater for four days, and then for the reshoot. We were there for a long time. You become a bit delirious when you hit two in the morning, you’re still there, and you’re talking about Deep Throat.
JOHNSON: What was really weird is that we spent so much time doing the Deep Throat premiere there, and everything was seventies, and all the extras were in seventies, and then the Spider-Verse premiere was there. That was really trippy, being on the stairs and in the bathroom and being like, “Where’s Deep Throat?”
LOVIBOND: “Where are the penises?”
Jake, I love Doug’s entrance into the party that he’s not even invited to, where he walks in with what’s probably the prissiest dog I’ve ever seen. What was it like to have that dog with you?
JOHNSON: That dog was actually really well-behaved. That was fun. Max Winkler directed that episode, so whenever Max is on set, there are a lot of great jokes, and it’s really loose and really fun. All of that was a really fun way back into the season. And then, having Elizabeth Perkins there, that was the first time we got do scenes with her, so that whole experience felt really fun and new. Season 2 felt very different for me. It didn’t feel like just Season 1B. It felt like a whole new thing, and that was the beginning of being like, “Oh, we’re in a new show right now, and we’ve gotta catch up and figure out what it is now.”
Image via Starz
Ophelia, Joyce seems to be leaning a bit more into her own sexuality this season. After getting accustomed to the very snazzy pantsuits, she’s definitely evolving her style. Did you get a say in any of what her look and her wardrobe was, for Season 2?
LOVIBOND: Yeah, I was very much a part of the costume side of it. It was a real shift away. As the beginning of Season 2, you see just small indications that she’s loosening up. The buttoned up tops are gone and it’s a little bit more open. And then, she has that discussion with Constance, who says, “You don’t need to dress like a man to earn the respect of one.” It takes Joyce a minute to evolve into that. The costumes are a big character in the show. When you see her turning up in different shots and she’s wearing white silk, that immediately telegraphs for the audience that there’s a shift taking place and she’s stepping into something different. I feel like, in Season 3, it will be a calibration of the two. She’s gone way out of her comfort zone to find out who she is. And in terms of her sexuality, she’s gaining in confidence and letting go of this self-inflicted shame that she’s obviously picked up from somewhere, despite herself. You see her just letting loose and letting go of those self-imposed restrictions.
You guys have both mentioned things that could possibly happen in another season. Have you had conversations about what would be next for these characters?
LOVIBOND: No, we just both love doing it, so we can’t help but imagine where they might go.
Image via Starz
Every time we get to the end of the season, the characters are left in this place where you’re not sure what would be next for them. That happened in the first season, and it feels very much that way again in this second season.
JOHNSON: Yeah. The writers are bold, and Ellen [Rapoport] is a bold showrunner. When you get to the final episode of Season 2, with everything that happens, you go, “Well, what’s Season 3? How do you guys do this?” For us, as the actors, when we get the scripts, it’s like when the audience first watches it. We’re not part of the discussion of what happens next. We just see it, and then we can get our hands in the process and try to make ourselves feel comfortable with what the characters are doing. But the end of this season is wild, and it begs the question of, “What now?” There are a lot of seasons on television where the end could possibly be the series ending, and the showrunners do that just in case they don’t get picked up. That is not what Ellen did. If this is the end of the show, it’s a book that was never finished. We need to see what they do.
And it really feels that way for all the characters this season.
JOHNSON: One hundred percent.
Minx airs on Friday nights on Starz.
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