Set in a world somewhat like our world, in a time quite similar to our time, “Maniac” tells the stories of Annie Landsberg (Emma Stone) and Owen Milgrim (Jonah Hill), two strangers drawn to the late stages of a mysterious pharmaceutical trial, each for their own reasons.
Annie’s disaffected and aimless, fixated on broken relationships with her mother and her sister; Owen, the fifth son of wealthy New York industrialists, has struggled his whole life with a disputed diagnosis of schizophrenia. Neither of their lives have turned out quite right, and the promise of a new, radical kind of pharmaceutical treatment—a sequence of pills its inventor, Dr. James K. Mantleray (Justin Theroux), claims can repair anything about the mind, be it mental illness or heartbreak—draws them and ten other strangers to the facilities of Neberdine Pharmaceutical and Biotech for a three-day drug trial that will, they’re assured, with no complications or side-effects whatsoever, solve all of their problems, permanently.
We sat down Maniac star Justin Theroux and writer Partick Somerville, to talk working with Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, the legend Sally Field and creating Maniac.
The Knockturnal: Congratulations on Maniac! What do you guys love about episodic storytelling?
Patrick Somerville: I think that Netflix in particular, gives you a chance to tell that kind of combination of a serialized drama with these stories that land along the way. And, in this show in particular, where we were going to different worlds, we had a chance to sort of do episodic stories, and then back at the lab with Dr. Mantleray, kind of this through line that was continuing; a long story that was happening there.
Justin Theroux: It’s also that thing where, as opposed to 22 episodes of television where you feel like the writers can really get backed into a corner as far as… I’ve done both, and in a network, where you’re really cranking ’em out, you can sort of feel that lag around episode 13, 14, where the writers are looking tired, and the storylines are reflecting that, you know…They’re just like, “let’s try this!” “Maybe that’ll work”. “Who cares, what’s the finale”.
The Knockturnal: Well, not with this this, thankfully. Did you have Justin in mind when you were writing this, having worked with him before?
Patrick Somerville: I was thinking about Justin, and because I knew that for someone to play Dr. Mantleray, they were gonna have to be able to kind of do these gigantic comic broad moments, but do it with a core of emotion, that’s a really hard range to find in people. And, he’s hilarious in Leftovers. So we knew that. I just didn’t know if he could do the emotional side.
Justin Theroux: Yeah. The emotional stuff was tough for me ’cause I don’t wanna access that. (laughs)
The Knockturnal: What about the part made you say yes?
Justin Theroux: Main thing was the team that was assembled. Patrick, who obviously I knew from Leftovers, and Cary, who I’d known just socially, who I liked very much and got along with, and Emma and Jonah, I really wanted to work with. So the team was the first thing, and then the second part was, the character wasn’t sort of set in stone. It was, all the lines were there, the plot was there, what happens to ’em was there. But, in conversations with them, they were very forthright saying like, “We can create a character”, so we had longer discussions about what would be the most fun way to play him. He is sort of this guy- because we spend so much time obviously, in these other realms or dream scapes that when you pop out, there’s this chance to have a little more fun with the character who lives in this laboratory.
The Knockturnal: The show shows complicated relationships. How did that impact your performance?
Patrick Somerville: Well, when Sally showed up —
Justin Theroux: When Sally showed up … definition of complicated, and she also immediately… the first moment I met her, she gave me this big hug and she’s like, “I have SO many ideas about how poorly I raised you, and you probably slept in bed with me for way too long” and she had all these great –
The Knockturnal: A lot of backstory ideas?
Justin Theroux: Yeah, backstory ideas that totally dovetail with mine that were similar ideas that I had as well. I just like him ’cause he’s this very vain man who’s constantly trying to present strength but it always comes across as the opposite, even when he’s being the most strong and whatever, it always reads as weakness. And I just really like that about him.
Patrick Somerville: He’s a mess from the second he’s on camera to the end of the shot.
Justin Theroux: He’s arguably the most damaged character, and the person, by the way, who should be least in charge of fixing people’s brains because if his brain is the model for normalcy that he’s trying to achieve, and then no one’s in good hands when they’re with him, or being administered by him.