Wild world of High Desert
High Desert Apple TV+
After playing an unsmiling villain in Apple's Severance, Patricia Arquette needed a change of pace.
“Harmony Cobel and Severance, it's such a confined world dominated by this (mysterious) corporation,” the 55-year-old Oscar and Emmy-winning actress says in a video interview from New York City.
So she gamely signed on for Apple TV+'S dark comedy High Desert, in which she plays Peggy, a former drug dealer who forges a new life for herself when she decides to become a private investigator.
“Severance is beautiful, but it's so structured. Then you go to the world of High Desert and it's wild. There's chaos going on and emotional highs and lows — it was really great for me.”
Matt Dillon, 59, co-stars as Peggy's convict husband, Denny, who re-enters her life after a prison stint preaching the merits of “soul retrieval.”
The ensemble cast is rounded out by Brad Garrett, Bernadette Peters, Christine Taylor, Rupert Friend and Weruche Opia, with Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) directing.
Arquette and Dillon spoke more about the show and reflected on the series of events that led them both to become actors.
Q Matt, how did you get involved in High Desert?
Dillon: When I first heard about it, I was in Italy. It was during the pandemic and it was a weird time. But when I got to the part in the script where Denny starts talking about “soul retrieval” ... and his “soul retrieval” involves breaking into a house. That really got me. That was a big green light.
Q Patricia, it seemed like you had such a good time making this. Where does this end up on the fun scale for you?
Arquette: It's off the charts ... This woman Peggy is a different kind of wild bird.
Q Matt, you've done TV before, you were on Wayward Pines. Was getting back into a series something you were looking to do?
Dillon: I think it's a really great time for television. It used to be that it felt a little like — not a death sentence — but it felt like in television you were going to have to do a lot of stuff that wasn't very good. But now it's definitely better. Television is more sophisticated, and the audiences are more sophisticated. From an acting standpoint, that's kind of fun.
Q Patricia, True Romance has got to be one of my favourite movies of all time. Matt, I've liked you since I was a kid. What made the two of you want to become actors?
Arquette: Well, my dad was an actor, my grandpa was an actor, my great-grandparents were actors in vaudeville, and one of my great-great-grandparents got into this whole legal thing where some people were saying that he fought the other side in the revolution. We were hustlers and jokesters for a very long time. I saw a lot of it in my life growing up. My parents did plays, we were doing skits, my mom was a therapist, but she talked about acting. The thing is, I just didn't know if I'd be any good ... So I gave myself a year to try and make it I ended up getting work.
Dillon: I was young when I started — I was 14. I did not come from a theatrical background, but I think the thing that got me interested in it wasn't the idea of performing, it was the idea of conveying. That power of being able to express something that people could identify with. Turning the mirror, you know? There was something about that ... So for me, it wasn't a “Mama, I gotta sing” type of thing. It was really about reading something and saying, “I know this person.” This show has that. Even though it's a comedy, and it's a little heightened in places, you'll say: “I know those people.” That's why I do it.