There’s a whole long and complicated conversation to be had about tricking actors into getting particular reactions out of them, much of it rooted in the sense that, if you’ve hired a bunch of professionals to pretend to say and feel things, surprising them to get more “genuine” responses is kind of questionable. That being said, sometimes it’s done simply for the fun of the prank, which was apparently the case with a recent joke pulled on star Rhea Seehorn on the set of her new Apple TV+ show Pluribus.
Specifically, Seehorn was not informed that, when she picked up an on-set phone to hear an answering machine message left for her by the rest of the world—with the show’s psychically Joined populace explaining they need some “space” from Carol Sturka’s general hostility—that it’d be the voice of one of her old Better Call Saul castmates on the other end of the line. “They surprised me. I did not know about this,” Seehorn told TV Guide when she realized that Patrick “Howard Hamlin” Fabian had been tapped to play the voice on the other end of the line.
“They were hoping to get some kind of blooper take from me, but I was so terrified to mess up a take,” Seehorn said. “Not terrified, but I just didn’t want to—because I knew it was a long take, too, the first time she hears it.” Seehorn says she didn’t know which take of the scene made it into the episode’s cut, but “I think if you got one of those psychologists or psychiatrists that study micro facial muscle changes, I’m pretty sure you could see me go, “What? Patrick?“ But then I tried to cover and play the scene.” Once the work was done, Seehorn allowed herself a reaction: “They called cut, and I started laughing and ran out and said, ‘That’s Patrick! You got Patrick!’ And they said they’d been sitting on it for a long time, just to screw with me.” (Seehorn also noted that, besides the Vince Gilligan connection, “Patrick Fabian does have one of the all-time great voices that I would imagine that the Others would have voted as one of the most soothing voices to be on the outgoing message. So I understand the decision.”)
