Rhea Seehorn Talks Wardrobe Malfunction and Finding Out Vince Gilligan Wrote Pluribus Just for Her

Ray Seher, welcome to The Tonight Show. I'm very excited to get to talk to you. I'm so excited to be here. I'm a huge fan. Oh, really? Right back at you. Yes. Me, too. And Questlove and the band, Massive Face. Oh, come on. Look at everybody. Yeah. Very talented. Congratulations on your Emmy nomination for Pluribus. This is a big deal. You knocked it out of the park. Season one, I was going to ask you, like, how did even a show like this take off? Because it's very tricky to even describe. Or even sell. But not only did you do that perfectly, it's so well written and so well done and so well acted. It's just every episode gets better and better. Oh, thanks. How did you, by the way, how did you find out that you were nominated? I try to, like, not care, but I do. And so, I was- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I try to, like, forget that they're going to come out. But then, but then I remember because my phone was blowing up the night before. And so, I got on the couch and I was sitting with my partner, Graham, in my pajamas. But I was also, like, I was nervous for me, but I was also, just the blood, sweat and tears that went into it. Took a very long time to film. And it was a great, a blissful challenge, but a challenge. And so, I just wanted, I mean, when they started, when I started finding out that it was so many people behind the camera, as well as all of my supporting castmates and stuff, I was just, I was just overjoyed. Mocked up, I mean, 18 Emmy nominations for the show. That's, congratulations to everybody. At one recent awards show, by the way, I saw you, you had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. Yes. A little bit. It was the Gotham Award for Pluribus. Yeah. Let's take a look. Oh, no. We all got so excited. They spilled their wine on me. I'm so sorry. A giant wine stain. But, but I like that you laughed. I liked it. I wanted to show, because I wanted to show how you laughed about it. And I thought that was very funny. What are you going to do? I mean. I don't know. But when did it happen? And I didn't name who did it either. But Jeff Hiller, apparently, who's also nominated, brilliant Jeff Hiller, he outed himself and wrote an essay. Oh, okay, good. Wow. Oh, he's like, I did it. He's like, it's me. We were sitting at one of those big round tables where there's like, there's food and drinks. And they had these really elaborate, very beautiful centerpieces, but they weren't bottom heavy. It was like tall, very wobbly cylinders and glass. And we were, I think it was the category for all the shows coming up and we were clapping. Jeff said he was motioning or something, I'm not sure. But he sort of, it was totally like in slow motion. He hit like a wobbly vase that hit like a wobbly pitcher that hit like a wobbly flower thing, not kidding. And we're all like, people are trying to figure out what thing we're catching. And then the last thing it hits is, he thinks it's a wine, I think it was two, like Game of Thrones goblets of wine. Cause we're all nervous and it shoots out like a rocket at me and pulls in the bottom of the dress. And then they were like, and the winner is, and they announced our show. And I was like. Here we go, what's the options here? Well, Carolina, my brilliant co-star, Carolina Woodruff, she, God bless her, but I'm like, how is that better? She goes, we could change dresses really fast. And I was like, that's more noticeable. Yeah, we can change, that's why we actually can't do that. But yeah, I just went up and I just owned it. What are you gonna do? I loved it. Vince Gilligan created Pluribus. He also created the show's Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Yeah. I love Vince Gilligan. Same. And is it true Vince Gilligan wrote this for you? Yeah. With you in mind? Yeah, it's hard to say that without crying, but yeah. That's gotta feel good, right? It's pretty huge, yeah, yeah. I was just, we had wrapped the final season of Better Call Saul, but it hadn't aired. And I was fortunate enough to be going on meetings about doing other shows. And I thought, gosh, I hope it goes without saying that I would work with these guys anywhere they wanted to go, all of those writers. And then I thought, well, it doesn't have to go without saying, let's just say it. So I'm calling the writers. And at first I thought, ooh, I misgaged our relationship because some of the people that I was calling were like, sure, yeah, I'd love to work with you again. Yeah, let's, sure. And I was like, oop, oop. Okay, all right, well, I guess I didn't really. Next one. That's not gonna happen, yeah, okay. But what had happened is apparently Vince told them all hands off because he had been, unbeknownst to me, he had been writing this for me for, I think he said since season one or season two. And so when I finally got to him, it was he and Peter both on the phone. And Peter Gould said, Vince, I really think you need to tell her something. And that's when he said, I wrote something for you if you're interested. I was interested. And you're like, yeah, you're like, I'm interested. Yeah, yeah, he had been toying around with the ideas and the questions and the sort of massive things that go on in the show, but couldn't quite, hadn't written a script or had a gel into a story. And then he said, I don't know, somewhere along the way of watching me work and getting to know me, he decided to write it for me. That's very hard to say that with straight face, but. No, see, this is one of the things, one of the things that I like about you is I've seen you on doing awards things and red carpets and interviews, and you're very kind of humble about this and enjoying everything. And I saw this video that you posted. You're driving down probably Sunset Boulevard in LA and you are on the billboard. Oh yeah. Yeah, I had come back from shooting a movie and I did not know that that was the Apple campaign. I just love that you didn't just keep your cool. You kind of. I have no chill. But it made me laugh. Let's take a look at this. Oh my God. This doesn't get old. That's crazy. Yeah, that's right. It doesn't get old. Go with the joy. I love it so much. I don't want to give away any spoilers for people who haven't seen Pluribus, but if you are ready for this, it's such a great ride. Why haven't you seen it? No, yeah, exactly. That's the problem. That's the problem here. How do we set up the show and who you play? So hard. That's your job. It's very purposely hard to define. I could not believe that they came up with a logline at all when Vince was trying to figure out how to do it for the billboards and other things. What is the logline? He ended up saying, what if the most miserable person on earth tried to save the world from happiness? Which is true, but also, but by the way, she's only the most miserable now because of what they've done. Yes, there's not many people left. Yeah, his other one was, what if somebody wanted to try to save the world and the world was like, meh. Meh is pretty good too, yeah. But yeah, I would describe it as this woman that is very much a misanthrope and thinks she likes alone time and has a wonderful partner, the brilliant Miriam Shore, a national treasure here in New York, I know. Also nominated, but she's sort of my buffer to the world and then this world event happens that makes the majority of the world, except for 13 people, have a hive mind that's perfectly pleasant. And my character is fighting for the right to individuality and also the right to be miserable. Yeah, come on, but it's so tricky, it's so well done. Thanks. Congrats on the show, I wanna show a clip. Here's Ray Sehorne in Pluribus. Take a look at this. Sorry, but I'm not getting into some creepy ambulance with a... Hey, what are you doing? Give me that. Are you crazy? They are listening. They will find out about our plan. I'm not an idiot. It's in airplane mode. Airplane mode, no signal. Give it to me. Give it. Damn it. It's so good. Ray Sehorne, everybody.