Why the 'weird puzzle' of Apple's new anthology took up to 40 rewrites to get right
A medical school student in an abusive relationship with a duck. A trophy wife who spends her days sitting on a shelf for her husband to admire. A daughter caring for her ailing mother who begins to eat family photographs to relive happier times.
These are some of the protagonists of "Roar," an anthology series from "GLOW" showrunners Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive now streaming on Apple TV+.
The star-studded cast is stacked with talent including Issa Rae, Cynthia Erivo, Merritt Wever, Alison Brie and Nicole Kidman, who also serves as executive producer. Having the Oscar winner sign on made it easy to attract talent, Mensch says.
"And I think the anthology format lends itself to that because you can hand somebody what feels like a minimovie," she said. "Every one of those actors is in every single scene of their story, which I think is exciting and rare."
Mensch and Flahive were still working on the third — and as it turned out, final — season of "GLOW" when they were sent a copy of the Cecelia Ahern book the show is adapted from. "We're usually very monogamous when we're making things," said Flahive. "But it felt like a weird puzzle that we wanted to solve, which was exciting. ... The idea of making
