‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’ Cast and Creator Talk Complex Characters

Don’t be fooled by the title, the characters in Apple TV’s new series Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed are not always faced with the most pleasure-inducing situations.

During Apple TV’s press day in Santa Monica in February, actor Charlie Hall, who moderated a discussion featuring the show’s key talents, laid it out simply by detailing the questions raised by the David Rosen-created series: “What would you do if you got blackmailed? Would you be embarrassed? Who would you tell? Would you tell anyone? Would you immediately give in and pay the people? Would you call the police? Or would you get even?” More like intense turmoil guaranteed, right?

“I, very luckily, did not have to answer those questions for me or my character,” Hall noted while seated next to Rosen and co-stars Tatiana Maslany, Jake Johnson, Brandon Flynn and Jessy Hodges. “But these are the questions that our main character, Paula, has to navigate in this series. When she starts chatting online with a cam boy, she finally feels seen, and they have a connection. And then things suddenly and quickly get out of hand when she is blackmailed.”

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed follows newly-divorced mother Paula, played by Maslany, as she falls down a rabbit hole of blackmail, murder and youth soccer after getting involved with a young cam boy, played by Flynn. Amid a custody battle and identity crisis, Paula begins her own investigation, one that could unravel a greater conspiracy while also holding the keys to rebuilding her family and sense of self. Murray Bartlett, Jon Michael Hill, Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg, Nola Wallace and Dolly De Leon round out the cast.

The 10-episode series, from Apple Studios and Counterpart Studios, is written, showrun and executive produced by Rosen (Sugar), and directed and executive produced by David Gordon Green. Other executive producers include Simon Kinberg and Audrey Chon for their Genre Films under a first-look deal with Apple TV, and Bard Dorros for Anonymous Content.

“Basically, I wanted to write a show about someone who’s going through the seconds in life. Not the firsts. There’s a lot of shows about firsts — first job, first love. But what happens when those things don’t work out, and the existential angst you feel inside? And then try to, you know, dramatize that through a real thriller on the outside,” Rosen explained in how he came up with the concept. “That just was really sort of channeling, like, Hitchcock where a normal person gets pulled in some crazy, abnormal world.”

Rosen also made it clear that despite many of the characters acting in selfish or questionable ways, “there are no villains. Everyone wants their own things, you know?”

As for why Maslany wanted in, the actress said playing Paula “felt very different” from the other acclaimed projects she’s been involved in. “I always just follow an instinct that I have, and this had so many questions in it. I felt like I wanted to know more about Paula,” she said. “I didn’t understand her right away, and that made me love her. And I felt like that sort of ended up being what Paula’s journey is [of] who am I? Am I reinventing myself? And how do build my life up now after everything has been shattered?”

While she may be shattered by divorce, Paula’s life gets turned even more upside down when she gets involved with Flynn’s cam boy. Asked about his preparation, Flynn, who joked that as an actor he is already a cam boy “in some ways,” revealed that he’s been working on another project with similar themes. “Oddly enough, I’ve been developing this adaptation of a book called Rent Boy by Gary Indiana. It takes place in the ’90s, and it’s all about a hustler. So, I’ve been delving into the world of hustlers and all the different avenues that that has taken from the ’90s on, cam boys being a part of that.”

Staying true to what Rosen said about the show’s absence of clear villains, Flynn agreed that his cam boy may not be a typical bad guy. “There was a world in which when we started, I didn’t know all the answers to Trevor and how that would unfold. My job was really just to show up and play the scene earnestly, which, for the most part, was that he’s a good guy. He’s just listening.”

Find out what he means when Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed debuts with the first two episodes on Apple TV on May 20. New episodes will then drop Wednesday through July 15.