NEW YORK, APRIL 2 (UPI) — Amanda Peet says The New Yorker magazine essay she recently penned about undergoing breast cancer treatment, while raising her children and caring for two parents in hospice, is getting a “beautiful and surprising response” from readers.
“I’m just grateful that some people felt heard or less alone,” Peet, 54, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview about the feedback she has been receiving.
Despite juggling so much turmoil in her personal life, the actress still managed to film a second season of Apple TV’s celebrated crime dramedy, Your Friends & Neighbors, which premieres Friday.
The series follows Coop (Jon Hamm), a disgraced hedge-fund manager who turns to theft as a means to keep up his family’s posh lifestyle.
Peet plays his ex-wife Mel, a therapist who discovers his secret at the end of Season 1.
“They’re kind of on parallel tracks this season,” Peet said of Mel and Coop. “Maybe I should amend that. They’re ‘going off the rails’ on their parallel tracks.”
She was also thrilled to learn that show-runner Jonathan Tropper wrote a story about Mel dealing with menopause for Season 2.
“I feel like we don’t see that much of that and, when we do, it can tend toward the trope-y,” she explained.
“So, I thought it was exciting that he wanted to make it really funny and weird and I loved it. But I think that, in a weird way, it’s making Mel and Coop feel more like they’re going to deserve each other,” Peet added. “Whether they end up together, I don’t know, but they both have a dark side and they both have a lot of rage and simmering unease.”
The estranged couple, who still love each other even if they can’t live with each other, are also trying to be good parents to their teen offspring.
“She seems hell-bent on the status of having her daughter go to a fancy school. That’s the primary focus of hers and I couldn’t relate to that at all. What?” Peet laughed.
“My daughter’s a freshman in college. I hope I wasn’t that psychotic with her,” the actress quipped. “I loved that part of [the story], too, and I think it kind of dovetails with the menopause stuff, too. Some women find themselves, like Mel, without a job, children leaving the nest, and then it’s sort of like: ‘Who am I now? What is my purpose?’ And, also, ‘I’m invisible.’ And, so, that’s very powerful stuff for me.”
Mel also has a close relationship with Coop’s sister Ali (Lena Hall), a talented musician with an enormous heart, who struggles with mental illness.
“I love her. She’s such a genius,” Peet said of Hall, whom she shares a memorable story-line with in Season 2.
“She’s so talented and fun and she has such a wonderful sense of humor, and we get on like a house on fire,” Peet added. “So, we were so excited when we read that we were going to go on this kind of heist together.”
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