Billy Crudup Explains What’s Driving Cory Ellison in ‘The Morning Show’ Season 2

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The Morning Show

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The Morning Show is not a show about heroes. It’s a show about the chaos constantly unfolding behind-the-scenes at a morning news shows and the bloated egos battling for supremacy onscreen. Season 1 of the Apple TV+ show introduced Billy Crudup as the mercurial UBS News exec Cory Ellison. As the suit, Crudup was charismatic, enigmatic, funny, ruthless, and even terrifying. So much so, he won an Emmy for his supporting role in the series. The Morning Show Season 2, however, spends far more time with Cory Ellison as he fights to make deals, sooth talent, and keep the network alive.

Of all the Morning Show characters, Cory comes the closest to being a “hero” in Season 2. So how the hell did that happen? How did the “villain” of Season 1 turn into the most compelling protagonist in The Morning Show Season 2?

Part of it perhaps comes down to the show realizing that Crudup’s performance was the most celebrated part of The Morning Show Season 1. “You know, the Cory Ellison character played by Billy Crudup is interesting to speak as a moral figure,” Morning Show director and executive producer Mimi Leder said to Decider. “It’s kind of fascinating because Billy is such a phenomenal actor. He is an incredible actor and he really does give his character a big heart.”

Billy Crudup told Decider that was totally aware of the “enormous shift” for Cory Ellison from Season 1 to Season 2.

“What happens when all your dreams come true?” Crudup said thoughfully. “There is a part of Cory in the first season that is he’s like a sprite. You never know where he’s going to appear in the woods and if he does, maybe he’s going to lead you to the land of plenty, maybe he’s going to lead you down a rabbit hole. You don’t really understand his motivations.”

Greta Lee and Billy Crudup in The Morning Show Season 2
Photo: Apple TV+

“At the end of the season, it becomes clear that he is motivated to destabilize the power structure, and maybe afford people who had not been given opportunities opportunities,” Crudup said. “I think it’s selfishly, because he’s got such a big ego and he wants to play with everybody. He doesn’t want anybody disenfranchised because he thinks he can beat everybody and he doesn’t want to have a leg up because he has all of the inherited privilege.”

One person Cory Ellison has chosen to put in a position of power just to go toe-to-toe with is Greta Lee‘s Stella Bok. Stella is a 30-something Asian woman who is now operating in Cory’s old role as head of UBA news. The two butt heads, debate major moves, and even support each other through the hard times. Their complex relationship is one of the best parts of The Morning Show Season 2.

“Their dynamic, I just find so genuinely fascinating. And I could really appreciate that they were showing a multi-layered, complicated workplace relationship that isn’t just one thing,” Greta Lee told Decider. “It’s like on page, they could not be more different, and yet we talked at length about how in some ways they could be the same person in like an alternate universe. But they just present as a young, Asian millennial on the one hand, and Cory Ellison is from a different generation.”

Crudup explained Cory’s predicament in The Morning Show Season 2 further. “How easy is it for somebody in a position of power to change culture, to change entrenched pillars of power? To alter the ways in which they can be expressed?”

“So we get to see the dilemma that he’s under. It’s no longer the delight at upending the patriarchy, it’s the burden of reinventing a new system to govern our social norms,” Crudup said.

Will Cory Ellison be able to build something new at UBA? Or will the sins of the past prevent any positive change from going forward? You’ll have to keep watching The Morning Show Season 2 to find out.

New episodes of The Morning Show premiere on Apple TV+ on Fridays.

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