LESLIE MANN

The Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin star, 50, collaborates once again with her husband, writer-director Judd Apatow, in the comedy The Bubble (April 1 on Netflix). She plays a movie star, Lauren Van Chance, in the pandemic-based story about a group of actors and production crew stuck inside a hotel trying to complete a major studio film.

What was the origin of The Bubble? It was during lockdown. Judd and I were totally depressed, just miserable, and trying to come up with some way to make ourselves—and potentially other people—feel better. Hopefully to bring some laughter during a time that was very dark, we were like, “What can we do to do our part?”

Are the characters based on real actors you know? No, we sat around and did a lot of improvisation with all the actors, and we came up with things that we found funny, and that’s where everything came from.

Tell us about your role as Margot Cleary-Lopez in the upcoming Amazon

thriller series The Power. She is the mayor of Seattle and a mother of three. She’s married, trying to juggle having children and a marriage and a career. It’s something that almost every woman can relate to.

You’ve worked with your daughters, Maude, 24, and Iris, 19. What’s it like having them follow you into the business? Maude [Euphoria] seems to be having fun; she’s working really hard, enjoying herself and doing great. They both prepare, they show up on time. We’re very proud of what Iris did in The Bubble. She worked harder than anyone. All those dances [in The Bubble] were hard to learn. I was very proud to see how she handled herself in that situation. I felt like, “OK, we did something right.”