The first time Chase Sui Wonders attempted comedy, she was still a shy teenager in suburban Detroit. Inspired by the freewheeling, raunchy humor of the Austin Powers movies, Wonders had just started coming out of her shell. “I was a bit of the clown of my household, and then slowly I became the clown of the playground,” she tells W. Wanting to encourage her daughter’s interests, Wonder’s mother took her to a local comedy club downtown. There were these seasoned comedians on stage, and there was no way in hell a 16-year-old girl could say anything that would be remotely okay up there, so I chickened out,” she recalls with a laugh. “But I have always loved and respected the game.”
Now, the 28-year-old’s natural comedic timing is on full display with her role as go-getter executive Quinn Hackett on The Studio. The Apple TV+ series, created by and starring Seth Rogen, is a cynical but loving send-up of the modern movie industry, dogged as it is by issues like AI, performative social justice, and the never-ending chase for big-ticket IP. As Quinn, Wonders is all bob and verve, backstabbing her colleague and rival Sal (Ike Barinholtz) with ease and desperately trying to prove her worth in the unpredictable man’s world of Hollywood.
Chase Sui Wonders, Seth Rogen, Kathryn Hahn and Ike Barinholtz in The Studio
Photo courtesy Apple TV+
Kathryn Hahn and Catherine O’Hara round out the ensemble cast, in addition to several dozen starry guest cameos, including Bryan Cranston, Zoë Kravitz, Martin Scorsese, Zac Efron, Charlize Theron, and Steve Buscemi, to name a few. The character of Quinn is a departure from Wonders’s past roles in peak Gen Z fare like HBO’s teen drama Genera+ion and the campy pandemic horror film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. “It’s crazy when you’re surrounded by so many comedy legends. It feels like a lot of pressure to be funny,” Wonders says of jumping headfirst into The Studio. Below, the actor shares what it was like working with Rogen, “going into the deep end” with her biggest scene on the first day of filming, and why Quinn dresses the way she does:
Were you a Seth Rogen fan growing up?
I’ve been a Seth Rogen fan for as long as I can remember. I can recall where I was when I first watched Superbad, Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, and This Is The End. All of his movies have made an impression on me. As soon as I got the audition in my inbox, I read it, and then I read it again like, ‘Really? This is insane.’ I did the callback with Seth, and he said, Let’s toss the script and just riff. Suddenly, I’m improv’ing with Seth Rogen after meeting him for the very first time on Zoom. I was really nervous, so thank god my character’s energy is nervous in the show.
Quinn dresses older than her age, with her bob and retro suits. Was that part of covering up her nervousness?
Quinn wants a seat at the boys’ table. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg is one of her favorite books. She has a bit of a power complex, and wants everything right now. Part of that comes with how she dresses, which is very serious and almost like a man. She’s got these big suits and ties and collars buttoned all the way up. She’s always wearing pants. Until the final episode, she’s never caught in a skirt. The bob, [which is a wig], was an intentional choice, for her to have a look that’s very severe, almost Edna Mode. She knows she’s young, but she wants to be taken seriously.
Episode five, The War, is basically one long fight between you and Ike Barinholtz. How did you choreograph that?
That was day one, scene one. I was meeting everyone for the first time, and Seth was like, “We’re going to start light and just do one scene.” And the scene was a six-minute-long take of Ike and me screaming at each other. We went right into the deep end. But it was helpful, because then you knew the heights of your character. It was a lot of choreography, and rehearsal was a playground. That was our time to be totally free, and you would gauge from the laughter of the crew what worked and what didn’t. Once it got down to actually filming, it became much more rigid—very much zero room for error.
Bodies had comedy in it, but this show is on a whole other level. What’s your relationship with the genre?
I have an informal but very deep relationship with comedy. Mike Myers, Jack Black, Rowan Atkinson—all these physical comedians and clowns made me want to become an actor. I was a shy kid. I remember being like, it’s so embarrassing that people talk. I didn’t talk outside of my home. But these movies made talking worthwhile because what they were doing and saying was so funny.
In college, you wrote for the Harvard Lampoon.
That was its own savage training ground, where if you tell a joke and it’s not funny, no one’s going to laugh. No one’s going to shepherd you through your bad jokery. I felt that I was funny in real life, but translating it on camera was a whole other thing. But Seth and [creator Evan Goldberg] were so generous. Contrary to the Lampoon, they are very generous laughers, which gives you sea legs to let your freak flag fly. They’re both snake charmers in coaxing out the weird in people, and they definitely did that with me.
How much of yourself did you put into Quinn, given that you’ve also experienced being a young woman coming up in Hollywood?
I have a Chinese father and a mom from the Midwest, and they’re both very nose-to-the-grindstone people. They were focused on me and all my siblings achieving success and surpassing what they did in their lifetime. It was a lot of pressure, but I’m also so grateful for it, because it helped bring me into this chapter of my life in Hollywood.
I had a real sense of, it’s the Wild West out here. People are going to appreciate gunslingers who are taking risks. That approach became second nature. When I was starting out, I would send emails to people I was not supposed to, or say something in the audition room that was probably untoward. Things that weren’t part of the rule book or the code of etiquette, but could set me apart. Quinn definitely has that attitude. She’s more conniving and ruthless than I am, but I appreciate her demeanor. She is so savage in her approach, and so blindly, delusionally ambitious.
There are so many guest stars on the show. Did you have a favorite?
Ron Howard was a joy. It was fun seeing him play an absolute ass, because he’s such a nice guy. He was on set for a couple of days, and between takes, I would just be asking questions about all his movies: Splash, Happy Days, American Beauty. I went over to Seth and was like, “I think I’m being really annoying to Ron Howard.” He’s like, “No, no, no. Do that. If I was your age, I would be so annoying to Ron Howard.” That just shows you what a real one Seth is.
You’ve got some interesting projects coming up, like I Know What You Did Last Summer, and I Want Your Sex, from Gregg Araki, which also features another Studio guest star, Olivia Wilde.
Olivia’s the coolest woman ever. She is a real aspirational legend, and we were just talking about the movie and how excited we are about it. If you’re a Gregg Araki fan, it’s going to deliver and then some. And if you’re an Olivia Wilde, Charli xcx, Cooper Hoffman fan—it’s all these actors at their most extreme, including myself. I Know What You Did Last Summer, I can’t say enough good things. It’s a fun romp, full of camp and horror and hot stuff.