Who doesn’t like a cheeky romantic comedy from across the pond? From creator Sophie Goodhart comes Alice and Steve, a tale about two best friends—Alice (the legendary Nicola Walker) and Steve (Jemaine Clement)—who are at the mid-way point in their lives and not being very chill about it. While the bombastic Alice is married to the introverted Daniel (Joel Fry), celebrity hair stylist and divorcé Steve is alone. That changes one fateful night when Alice’s daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith) comes home from university and drunkenly hooks up with Steve one night.
“She notices that he’s weirdly hot in that one moment and goes from there,” said Topol Margalith, noting that Izzy never harbored a crush on her mother’s best friend. “She’s the best thing in his life for a long time,” said Clement. The two begin to date seriously, much to Alice’s dismay and anger. “She feels she needs to protect Izzy from people that have already lived their lives,” said Walker. “She’s very honest about the fact that Alice and Steve have had their time.”
The trio clearly had a wonderful time filming the series together. Walker and Clement had to make audiences believe in their characters’ 30-year friendship, which kicked off with a karaoke scene that eventually got cut from the first episode. “It cured us of having any embarrassment in front of each other,” remembered Walker. “Having to do karaoke at 10 in the morning. It’s too early,” said Clement. Though Walker and Topol Margalith do get to sing at other points in the series, Clement—who is part of New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-comedy duo Flight of the Conchords—did not. However, the trio would be down to remedy that if the series gets picked up for a Season 2.
Clement, Topol Margalith, and Walker stopped by the Decider studio to talk about the series, share insight into their characters, and more.
DECIDER: Alice and Steve is an “anti-romantic comedy series” created by Sophie Goodhart. Were you surprised by the amount of vengeance among the characters?
JEMAINE CLEMENT: I was. Usually in a rom com, you don’t have a lot of vengeance.
NICOLA WALKER: No, there’s not much revenge often in a Richard Curtis movie, for example.
JC: No, it doesn’t come up.
Jemaine and Nicola, you have such incredible friendship chemistry. How did you two build that chemistry? The series wouldn’t work without it.
NW: On day one of filming, they had us doing that little montage of our characters’ 30 odd year friendship including the karaoke sequence. First day! We had a bit of rehearsal, but it didn’t feel like enough. Though, it was fantastic. It cured us of having any embarrassment in front of each other.
JC: Yeah, and when it was embarrassing . . . .
NW: It was really embarrassing.
JC: Having to do karaoke at 10 in the morning. It’s too early.
NW: Too bad that got cut.
Yali, your career has just begun, but you’ve already been in major projects like House of David and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Izzy couldn’t be more different than other characters you’ve played. How did you approach the role?
YALI TOPOL MARGALITH: The same as the others. I try to give every character I play truth and humanity. I also listen to the people around me and try to learn from them, which was easy to do with these two.
Nicola, I love the fact that Alice is so self-aware about her faults, but doesn’t make any effort to change them. Is there something freeing about playing a character like that?
NW: It is, it is. She doesn’t even see those more abrasive qualities as faults. She’s one of those people that thinks she’s a truth teller.
JC: Yeah, she thinks she’s a truth teller [laughs], but there are a lot of people out there like that.
NW: [Laughs] It’s quite funny because she’s full of rage and love and that’s a really good combination. I don’t think I see many middle-aged women characters on television that are given that long a leash. She’s quite unappealing at times, but it all still comes from a place of love. I think she gets away with quite a lot, even though some of the things she does are outrageous.
Jemaine, I’m a little obsessed with the fact that Steve is a well-renowned hairstylist to the stars. What did you make of his profession?
JC: My mum always hoped I’d be a hairdresser so that I could give her a free haircut, but it hasn’t worked out that way. But she’ll be glad to see me with the pair of scissors. Actually, you never see me with scissors.
YTM: No, you never do [laughs].
NW: [To Jemaine] I think you’re quite well off because you have your own line of hair product as well.
YTM: Steve’s kind of a big deal.
JC: My mum’s gonna love that.
NW: The Nicole Richie bob; Steve created that.
I was waiting for her to pop up in a cameo appearance.
JC: Maybe in a second season.
Yali, do you think Izzy has been harboring a crush on Steve? If not, why do you think she sees him as he truly is on that fateful night?
YTM: Not before that night, no. She notices that he’s weirdly hot in that one moment and goes from there. I sort of get it. It’s like when you’re a kid and you meet someone who is somehow part of your family, but isn’t actually. And then you grow up, and you meet them again, and suddenly they’re a person to you with a personality.
Nicola, during their Episode 3 fight, Alice tells Steve “It’s my job to protect her from people like us” when she asks him to break up with Izzy. What does she mean by that?
NW: I think she feels she needs to protect Izzy from people that have already lived their lives. I don’t think that is a negative. I think she’s being very honest about the fact that Alice and Steve have had their time. Alice feels like it’s her job as a parent to protect Izzy from an older generation that is coming to an end. Again, none of that is negative for Alice, which I think it’s really interesting. She’s just really open to the fact that they are the past and Izzy is the future.
JC: I took it to mean that Alice knows how bad we are as people.
NW: No, I never I never took it as that.
JC: Look at us! We’re discovering things about the show ourselves.
Jemaine, both Nicola and Yali get to sing a little in this series, but you don’t! Were you a little jealous?
YTM: He sang so much off-screen.
JC: I did it off-screen in between takes [laughs].
YTM: He’d pick up the guitar and start singing and playing.
JC: I didn’t even think of that [laughs]. Why didn’t I get to sing? Because I am often flat?
NW: You might sing the title of “Blue Skies” at the bar.
JC: If so, it wasn’t enough.
Nicola, I do want to talk more about your performance of “She’s Got A Way.” It’s so hilarious and vulnerable. What do you remember about filming that scene with the amazing Joel Fry?
NW: Oh, the brilliant Joel Fry. He was very kind and didn’t just openly laugh in my face. What I remember about that scene is that there were lots of Billy Joel songs I knew, but I didn’t know that one enough to just sing off my heart. They only decided on “She’s Got A Way” quite late in filming. For about two weeks, I just sat on the stairs listening to the song all the time.
I really loved that sequence because it’s in the real vein of romantic comedy. Alice thinks she’s going to do something truly romantic for her husband, whom she loves, and that it will win him back because that’s what happens in romcoms she’s seen. She believes he will understand and remember how much they love each other. Of course, it backfires spectacularly in the way that things like that do in real life.
Yali and Jemaine, I love the proposal scene in the car. What do you think inspired Steve to propose at that moment?
JC: He feels like he might lose her. She’s the best thing in his life for a long time.
YTM: He watched something go down that made him believe he could lose her. Seeing that and feeling that, he freaked out.
JC: The relationship feels vulnerable to him and he wants to hold on to it.
Lastly, the final episode leaves the door open for a Season 2. What are your hopes for your characters in a potential next chapter?
JC: I guess a song?
NW: [Laughs} Something that all three of us sing together with the dance routine.
JC: Every actor wants that. It doesn’t fit in every show.
YTM: I’ve said this so many times, but I want a musical episode. I would kill for a musical episode.
JC: I’ve never been on any show where someone has not said, “we need a musical episode.” But it doesn’t fit in every show. Imagine Game of Thrones, the musical episode.
NW: I’d watch that.
Alice and Steve Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+/Hulu.