[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Afterparty, Season 2 Episode 7, “Ulysses.”]
On Zoom, despite it being towards the end of a long day of interviews (pre-SAG strike), The Afterparty star John Cho seems chill, enjoying a glass of wine as we talk. However, he’s talking about his character’s breakout episode of the season, which was a pretty intense experience. “I actually was like, ‘How are we going to do this?’” he laughs. “This seemed like the most difficult one to recreate, on the quick.”
The Afterparty is an unconventional murder mystery on a number of levels, with this season revolving around the unexpected death of a bridegroom (Zach Woods), with both sides of the wedding party (and their families) included in the list of suspects. The anthology series (now on its second installment) spotlights individual characters as the investigation of that season’s mystery proceeds, with each episode leaning on a very specific — and unique — style of storytelling.
This season, that’s included everything from Wes Anderson pastiche to ’90s erotic thrillers — for the episode spotlighting the bride’s uncle Ulysses (Cho), the designated genre was “epic romance,” which director Peter Atencio (a natural mimic, thanks to his days directing for Key & Peele in particular) ably took on. “He just was a master of visual storytelling, to give all these clues and so much information in these short bursts of time,” Cho says.
Cho took on the role after getting an email from creator Christopher Miller, who he knew socially. “He laid out what the character was and how he fit into the season, and it was pretty irresistible. I was an admirer of Lord and Miller’s work, and of Season 1. So it just all seemed like a blast. I hadn’t done a comedy for a while, and so it was all just kind of coming together on a platter for me.”
For Cho, knowing the genre of his character’s spotlight episode gave him additional insight into “my character’s worldview of himself — it was a big clue to how he behaved throughout the whole series. He’s a guy who walks around like he is in an epic romance. He’s the hero of an epic romance. So that’s that right there — you’re like, okay, I think I know who this person is. He fancies himself quite the swashbuckler, you know, for sure.”