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'The Afterparty' on AppleTV+: Tiffany Haddish, Dave Franco, Ilana Glazer and more comedy geniuses solve a murder

A group of your favourite comedy geniuses, including Tiffany Haddish, Dave Franco, Ben Schwartz and Ilana Glazer, try to solve a murder in the new AppleTV+ series The Afterparty (the first three of eight episodes released Jan. 28).

“It was so delicious to come and play with everybody,” Glazer, know for her fantastically hysterical series Broad City, told Yahoo Canada. “Getting to play with these people off camera was as fun as playing with them on camera.”

“It was just such a creative vibe, so generative, where we were getting to know each other and…we really all were excited about each other's talents and creative endeavours in the past… I really did want to make everybody laugh, I really did want to get to know them, and let them know me. So it was hella earnest.”

Dave Franco in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+
Dave Franco in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+

What is 'The Afterparty' about?

The backdrop for this story is a 15 year high school reunion for the class of 2006. At an afterparty hosted by Xavier (Dave Franco), now a pop star who went platinum with the song “X Marks the G Spot” and got a People’s Choice Award nomination for playing Daryl Hall, alongside Channing Tatum as John Oates, in a biopic musical movie called “Private Eyes,” Xavier falls off the balcony of his house to his death.

John Early and Tiffany Haddish in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
John Early and Tiffany Haddish in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) and Detective Culp (John Early) investigate the possible homicide, which involves a tactic Detective Danner calls hearing each person’s “mind movies,” meaning each person’s interpretation of events of what happened that night at the high school reunion and the afterparty.

Aniq (Sam Richardson), is an early suspect who is particularly involved in Detective Danner’s interrogations, alongside his close friend Yasper (Ben Schwartz).

Ben Schwartz and Sam Richardson in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Ben Schwartz and Sam Richardson in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Each episode focuses on each character’s “mind movie” but famed Academy Award-winning duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller add another element, each episode is in a different genre. This includes a musical episode focused on Yasper, an animated episode for Zoe Chao’s character, Zoe, and a romantic comedy for Aniq.

“It was hard but so fun,” Glazer said about having to shift between different genres, often even on the same day.

“Hard in the way that - I'm not really like someone who works out, I love to take walks and swim and do activities, but for people who like to work out,...that's what it felt like. That is my type of working out, this kind of creative challenge.”

With such an impressive cast, there's almost an ease to the humour that makes The Afterparty attractive. It's truly every comedy geek's dream to see all these people, as Glazer describes, "play" together. You can tell that everyone is having a good time, and as a viewer, you want to have a good time with them.

Ilana Glazer in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Ilana Glazer in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Ilana Glazer getting to play a 'high-femme' version of her high school self

Glazer plays Chelsea, who is a particularly interesting character in The Afterparty. Initially, she comes across as the often drunk mess who really could get her life together after high school. But we end up learning that something particularly traumatic happened to her in high school that she came to face at the reunion, maybe wanting to settle the score.

“I really hand it to Chelsea for going, that is brave of her,” Glazer said. “Of course, we don't know exactly what her motives are but I think there's that like, will to live and that fire inside of her, that's coming through in the fact that she goes at all.”

While the actor really emphasized how much fun she had with the rest of the ensemble cast, she highlighted that the flashbacks later in the series, where we get to see these characters in high school in 2006, was particularly fun.

“It was so funny to see everyone portraying that age and in that fashion, was hysterical,” Glazer said. “I was so much more nerdy and like, Tomboy than that, so it was really fun to play like my high-femme high school self.”

Sam Richardson, Jamie Demetriou, Ben Schwartz, John Early, Tiffany Haddish, Tiya Sircar, Kelvin Yu, Genevieve Angelson, Illana Glazer, Zoë Chao and Ike Barinholtz in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Sam Richardson, Jamie Demetriou, Ben Schwartz, John Early, Tiffany Haddish, Tiya Sircar, Kelvin Yu, Genevieve Angelson, Illana Glazer, Zoë Chao and Ike Barinholtz in “The Afterparty,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

In terms of actually wanting to sign on to this project, Glazer is such a fan of Lord and Miller that she was “honoured” to be thought of to be part of The Afterparty cast.

“Chris [Miller] had come up with this years ago and it was so exciting for someone who's so prolific and accomplished, to get to be inside of the process of something that took such a long time to come to fruition,” Glazer said.

“Lord and Miller are just like the best of the best and I've loved their body of work since the early days of Clone High… It was in reading the scripts, it was palpable how important this has been to Chris, for so long, and the opportunity to exercise my performing skills in this way was just really inspiring.”