Olivia Munn On Her Creative Journey With ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’

On the new Apple TV+ drama series Your Friends & Neighbors, actress Olivia Munn plays Sam Levitt, a woman from humble beginnings who marries well and then rules over a group of high society ladies in the New York suburbs. Her comfortable lifestyle slowly begins to crumble when her husband leaves her for a younger woman and she is forced to find a way to stay financially afloat, largely for the sake of her young children.

In real life, Munn, 44, is the mother of two kids alongside her husband and fellow industry creative, John Mulaney. She is also no stranger to taking on complex and strong female characters. Previously, Munn played tenacious news journalist Sloan Sabbith on Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom series, as well as known for playing superhuman mutant Betsy Braddock in X-Men: Apocalypse.

With her portrayal as Sam on the first season of Your Friends & Neighbors, which co-stars Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet, Munn was able to tap into a clever mix of confidence and insecurity with this multi-layered character performance.

Sitting down with the actress, I wondered what it was about this script from creator Jonathan Tropper and uncovering what Sam goes through over these nine episodes, that intrigued Munn most to want to take on this role next within her career.

Munn said, “First, I would say that I was really fascinated with the underlying themes of human nature and what people will do when they’re stripped of everything they value, and this idea of what happens when blind ambition upends like the constructs of wealth & privilege. I’m really fascinated in how our show delves into the fragility of appearances and the extreme measures people take to ‘Keep up with the Joneses,’ and really examining ambition & identity and what it costs to maintain a certain lifestyle on really shaky foundations. With Sam, I love that she has these blue collar roots and she’s climbed the social mountain to establish herself as a prestigious figure in her group and this particular part of her high society. She’s created this life that she’s deeply craved and fears losing – and unlike everyone else in the show, she was not born into this lifestyle, but she married into it. Now, she’s on the precipice of losing everything she built. And so, now she’s facing this question, personally, of what length she will go to, to maintain her social status of wealth & privilege.”

With Your Friends & Neighbors being a show that revolves around the flawed dynamic between couples, friends, lovers and a quiet unhappiness within suburbia, what does Munn believe has made so many viewers gravitate towards this Apple TV+ series?

“You know, I think these characters are never satisfied, no matter how much they achieve. They’re either chasing more or worried they’re going to lose it all. This world is about the one percent; however, the stories are deeply human and things that we have as a society seen people grapple with for god knows how many years. This idea of – Does money make you happy? and How do certain people maintain their wealth & privilege and what lengths people will go to, to keep their hold in that world? That’s really a fascinating world for people to watch.”

Being a working actor for several years before signing onto this series, I was curious if Munn has noticed her priorities and her interests in characters & stories evolving as time goes on.

Munn said, “Yeah, I think as time has gone on in my life, I have felt a pull to different characters. Over these last five years, starting with Covid until the release of Your Friends & Neighbors, I’ve had so many personal things happening to me. In 2021, I was pregnant and then 2022, I had extreme postpartum anxiety that lasted almost a whole year. Right when I was getting out of that and the clouds were lifting from postpartum, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Those three years have really defined me as a woman, as a mother and as just a person in the world. The things that I see and the characters I want to play, and also how much I’m infusing into each character now – I understand like with Sam, that being a mother is so important to her existence in this world and protecting her children at all costs is the number one priority.”

She added about Sam: “For her, the decision she’s making in this show, although wildly out-of-character for most people in the world, is based on her need to protect her children and what she thinks that they need to be protected. I feel that after being diagnosed with breast cancer – diagnosed with any cancer – it stops you in your tracks. Think about a lot of dialogue that happens in the world or things that garner attention, and things that you put so much weight into and things that bother you and things that hold your heart there. It’s when you get that diagnosis, everything narrows in – there’s nothing else to think about besides that fight. When you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, getting the diagnosis made me think about how I want to spend my time. So, picking the roles and picking the work that I want to do is all based on how much time I want to spend away from my family and how much energy I have now to put towards anything outside of my personal family time.”

After seeing Sam’s story play out in season one of Your Friends & Neighbors, I wondered if Munn believes that she would ultimately be friends with her character Sam or not.

“I would love to hang out with Sam. First of all, she tells it like it is. I like a straightforward dynamic with friends. I sometimes have an inability to small talk. I like to get right in there and and no holds barred with my conversations with my friends. I grew up in a military family, so I understand her upbringing and her dynamic and her view on the world. She is someone who, I think, understands the world that she’s in and is trying everything she can do to stay in it. A hundred percent, I would be friends with Sam. I find her fascinating and straightforward and honest and complicated and nuanced, and being friends with someone like that would just be fun, I think.”

As for her working relationship with Hamm as an on-screen love interest on Your Friends & Neighbors, Munn has nothing but good things to say about her consistent scene partner.

Munn said of Hamm, “I understand why he has been so iconic since the first moment we all saw him on Mad Men. He has a gravitas to how he comes off on-screen. He really is powerful and engaging, and you really just can’t take your eyes off of him. At the same time, Jon Hamm in real life, who he really is, is he’s funny and easygoing and doesn’t take himself seriously and doesn’t care about the superficial things in life. He doesn’t care about the name on the inside of his suit. He doesn’t care about the watch he’s wearing. He’s not what you’d expect ‘Don Draper’ to be. He’s very opposite of the [Mad Men] ‘Don Draper’ role in a lot of ways from what I’ve seen.”

She added: “Working with him really was intimidating, at first. I hadn’t worked since 2019. So, I was like – Can I still do this? I just was really nervous. Then, at our first table read, I had just recently come out with my breast cancer diagnosis and I didn’t know his own personal history and the people in his life that he’s lost from cancer. We’re sitting next to each other during the table read and he just turned to me before we started and said, ‘I had no idea’ – about my diagnosis. Then, he started opening up to me about his personal experiences with it. It just bonded me to him in a very personal way.”

With season two of Your Friends & Neighbors currently in production, I was curious – even with the events that occur with Sam at the end of season one – whether Munn hopes or plans to return for more stories ahead on the Apple TV+ series, knowing that with good behavior, Sam could be out ruling over suburbia again in no time.

“I am really interested to see how season two is unfolding. Jonathan Tropper and [writer] Jamie Rosengard have been working on season two since we ended season one. I signed on for one season and Jonathan Tropper said like, ‘From the beginning, if you decide you want to stay on after season two, please let us know.’ I wasn’t sure because I had a baby girl coming and I had more treatment and a lot of stuff, but I just love the character in the world so much. I loved working on this show so much with everyone involved, that when we were wrapping up season one, he asked me to have lunch and gave me the outline for what’s happening in season two. It was a very quick and easy yes.”

As I concluded my conversation with Munn, I asked the celebrated actress my original and signature interview question, wondering what she would say to her Your Friends & Neighbors character Sam, if only she could, after understanding her objective and her wants out of life. What does Munn feel that Sam needs to hear?

“That’s a great question. No one has ever asked me that. I would tell her to believe in herself much more than she is right now. I would tell her that everything that she thinks is important isn’t important – that she can rebuild, that her children are okay, that she has her mother & father who love her, that she shouldn’t put so much importance on things that she has now found out are things that can slip away. I would tell her that she’s much stronger than she realizes and that she’s about to go down a path that she will deeply regret, and to stop and assess the situation and pull back. I would definitely tell her to stop and think about what she’s about to do, because what she’s about to do has so much more risk than it does reward, and she doesn’t need it. She doesn’t need to go down that path, but everything that she wants and needs is already right there in front of her, and that she has the ability to pull her and her family out of any financial strains that she has, and to walk away from this plan. I would tell her to just walk away. This is an insane plan and it is not going to end up well.”