‘The Morning Show’ Star Mark Duplass Says Chip Has “Very Confusing Feelings” for Jennifer Aniston’s Alex

The Morning Show Season 2 reaches its midpoint this week on Apple TV+, with a wild episode following Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) as she journeys to Las Vegas to moderate the Democratic Presidential Primary debates. What Alex doesn’t know is that COVID-19 is on the horizon. What Alex does know, though, is that she’s not going to whether any storms coming her way without the friendship and help of long-time producer Chip Black (Mark Duplass).

Mark Duplass’s Chip Black is having something of an interesting Morning Show season. The start of Season 2 saw Chip happily acclimating to his new life as a small network station. He works regular hours, has a nice girlfriend (played by Duplass’s real life wife and long-time collaborator Katie Aselton), and far less stress than he had working for UBA. However when Alex is lured back to the network by Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup), she insists that Chip come back, too. Thus begins a rebirth of Alex and Chip’s toxic, co-dependent relationship.

Decider caught up with Mark Duplass before The Morning Show Season 2’s premiere to talk about the ups and downs of Chip and Alex’s friendship, working once more with Katie Aselton, and what it’s like for Chip to return to UBA with less power than he had before….

DECIDER: When we first meet Chip this season, he has a new love interest, who is being played by Katie Aselton. Was it different working with her in this, a very scripted, structured drama compared to the films you’ve done or The League? And how did that affect the way you guys approached the material?

MARK DUPLASS: You know, we were honestly lucky to get her on this show. The pandemic had just hit, and she was available, and I was super excited she could come and do this for us. And so I think the whole feeling was just like, “This is so great we get to do this.” I wasn’t thinking about, “Oh, the process will be different,” or any of that stuff, you know?

And one of the most fun things that ended up happening is that this is the middle of early pandemic shooting, where the safety protocols were really high, and we’re all thinking, “How do we make sure that no one gets Covid?” No one’s supposed to touch anybody in between scenes, but Katie and I are already podded up together and living together, so we were able to have one of the first and one of the only kissing scenes in a movie [or show] because we were living together and podded up. So we were like, “Oh, this is really cool and fun.” It was nice and, if I’m being honest, comforting to have her there and in an environment where we were nervous coming back shooting during Covid, and so it was really great.

Obviously Chip and Alex, their relationship goes through quite some peaks and valleys this season. I’m curious, what is it about Alex that keeps Chip coming to her rescue? Because it feels like she has a pull on him that he can’t quite pinpoint.

Yeah, I think it’s really complicated, what’s going on between Chip and Alex. I think that he certainly would like to live a much more simple life with a girlfriend that doesn’t emotionally abuse him and works at a television station that has quieter hours, but he’s drawn back to that world, and a big part of that world is Alex. And I do think that he has very confusing feelings for her. I think he doesn’t really know how he feels, but he is clearly codependent on her in a lot of ways and he needs her, and I think that she needs him.

I think in a lot of ways, Chip is sort of like a set of stilts upon which Alex stands in the world. It’s just really fun to play. I mean, it’s just…They have such a deep history. They clearly love each other, but it’s toxic and I really haven’t had a chance to play something long term like this, in a television environment, that’s that complex.

I just talked to Karen [Pittman], and I was so struck by how Chip and Mia’s relationship totally changes because this season the tables have been turned. Chip is now the underling, for lack of a better word, of Mia. What did you think of the change and the shift there in the dynamic between the two of them and what was it like working with her on that?

I thought it was such brilliant storytelling because the power dynamic shift between Chip and Mia is representative of a lot of what’s happening in the world right now. And as white men either lose their grip on their previous positions of power or become afraid that they’re going to lose their grip because of these social movements, these white men we have seen are starting to panic and flip out and they don’t know how to handle it.

While Chip is certainly more emotionally evolved than the average toxic white male in a position of power, he’s not all the way there. And that’s what’s really fun to play him. And I think that Chip loves Mia and Chip wants the best for her; it doesn’t mean he wants to have to work for her in a position that he used to once hold. And so I think it’s really good, smart writing on their part.

Speaking of the storytelling this season, I’m curious what everyone thinks about the choice to set the series in the months leading up to the pandemic, because some shows coming back, they’re ignoring it all together. What did you think of the decision to place it in those early 2020 months?

It made sense to me insofar as the way that the show has happened since Season 1, which is they had a full set of scripts for Season 1, the #MeToo movement happened right as we were about to start shooting, and they decided to rewrite the entire season to incorporate the immediacy of the moment and what was happening. They like to examine issues while they’re happening as opposed to after they’ve happened and get inside the grey area and just go with it real time, which I applaud them for. So it made sense that they would do the same thing for the Covid storyline.

I did really appreciate the cleverness of which they approached it in sort of having it be the months leading up to the lockdown because what’s interesting to me is that it almost feels like you’re watching a horror movie now where the audience knows the monster’s coming. It’s lurking around the corner. The characters don’t know it and so it’s a very fun dynamic to play with.

I know that you joked about on a late night show about how Chip gets yelled at a lot in the show. It’s probably hard as an actor to deal with. Did you find any additional coping mechanisms for this season or was it as tough as the first time around?

I mean, look. I was kind of joking about, when I talked about… As an actor, it really doesn’t bother me, and I love any chance to play heat and to play drama and to play interesting things, especially in those scenes with Alex, because they’re just so complex. I find it funny, honestly. Chip is such a desperate person in so many ways and these people on this show, they have such massive egos. And it’s just really fun, kind of in the way when I watch a show like Succession: These people that are just really struggling to understand who they are and they’re pretty un-evolved emotionally in a lot of ways, even though they’re quite intelligent. I’m all for it: As far as I’m concerned, bring it on and more.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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