Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are back for the second season of their Apple TV+ comedy Platonic, following two best friends as they navigate mid-life hurdles.
The series was originally conceived as an anthology where the two stars would be replaced in future seasons, but after the success of the first they wanted to return; at the Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday, Rogen told The Hollywood Reporter, “As we were shooting the first season I was kind of pushing for [creators Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco] to brainstorm how it could continue and how to not replace us with other people, and thank god they listened.”
The series reunites Rogen and Byrne after they played a married couple in 2014’s Neighbors and its 2016 sequel, which were also both directed by Stoller. Asked if their other Neighbors co-star Zac Efron would ever pop up in the show, Byrne emphasized, “I don’t understand why that hasn’t come to fruition yet. Now I have it in my head that’s what we need to do.”
Rogen added, “We need to get Ike [Barinholtz, who also co-starred in the film] and Zac in Platonic. That’d be great,” and Delbanco mused, “It would be amazing stunt casting if we get [another] season and if he would do it. It would be so funny.”
And as for why Rogen and Byrne work so well together — both serving as executive producers on the series as well as starring — the actress explained, “Seth is funny on a molecular level, so you just sort of of go in the magnetism of that and we seem to have a really easy time together.”
“In film chemistry is a mysterious thing; you never know who you’re going to have good chemistry with,” Rogen replied. “There’s people who are great friends in real life that have terrible chemistry on screen. I’ve had great chemistry with people I don’t particularly like that much, and so I’m very lucky in this situation where I have chemistry with someone who I actually like. So I think that’s why we keep working together over and over again.”
The second season of Platonic starts streaming Aug. 6 on Apple TV+.