Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon on shooting Season 2 of 'The Morning Show' in the pandemic

Alex Levy, the popular lead anchor of The Morning Show, the critically-acclaimed series from Apple TV+, is complex, ambitious and tugged by her relationships while trying to live up to the image of the perfect host. Rip off the presenter’s mask, and Alex’s vulnerability coupled with her secrets are amply on display. It’s a tough act. But Jennifer Aniston, who plays Alex, breezed through Season 1 of the show coming out with an outstanding performance and bagging the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award in the process.

History tells us Aniston has a way of conquering television. She does it again, acing Season 1 of The Morning Show.

Paired with Reese Witherspoon (who plays Bradley Jackson, the local reporter who rises to an anchor at UBA network), the dynamics and fireworks the duo brings out are hard to ignore. What truly makes The Morning Show gripping is that it tries to incorporate contemporary events into the storyline making the series happen in real time -- well almost. To cut a long story short, UBA has enough to deal with -- MeToo accusations, power tussles, cancel culture and the paraphernalia.

Season 1 ended with Alex and Bradley exposing the Achilles’ Heel of UBA – that it’s a toxic workplace -- on air. The feed is cut and the viewers are left on the edge.

As Season 2 is all set to premiere on September 17, Aniston and Witherspoon talked in detail about the show, its relevance, their chemistry and the challenges that they had while filming Season 2 amidst the pandemic, at a global video press conference held recently.

To DH’s query on how the pandemic challenges impacted the characters of Alex and Bradley, and Jennifer and Witherspoon (who are also the executive producers of the show), Aniston said, “It really took me down, it was hard.”

“I think it took Reese down too, but she will speak about her experience. It was very challenging. We had already shot the first bit of the show before the pandemic and then we shut down. And then the show was rewritten in order to incorporate Covid, then to doing a show, creating a show whilst in a pandemic dealing with all of the protocols we had endless Zooms with our incredible epidemiology team, with each department because the main thing for everybody was everybody’s safety -- of the entire crew and then everybody’s family when they would go home. So it was a very very strict protocol,” Aniston recollected.

Elaborating further on the pandemic hurdles they overcame, Aniston said, “And then you know, it's difficult because I kept saying I wanted to see my crew’s faces. I love these people and we had such a Season one and it was so bizarre to be a creative group of people and we're also interactive. Even during rehearsals, your masks are on, your shields are on and then it's like rolling and all of a sudden, “oh, I guess the virus doesn't exist now for this five-minute scene that we're going to do so”,” Aniston smiles and goes on. “It took some adjusting, but then, like anything, it became very normal, oddly, which hopefully it won't be that normal for that much longer. It was definitely not without its challenges because we also were given a less amount of time to work during the day,” she said.

“There was a lot of rules around it, but we got through it and survived it and I think we made a really good show,” Aniston added.

Agreeing to what Aniston said Witherspoon added, “Yeah, I mean as far as what's going on inside the show too, we were kind of dealing with all those things that happened before the entire world shut down, so it's kind of this theme of the world happens when you're busy making other plans.”

“We’re all very invested in our own struggles and our own ideas and our own pursuits, and then something even bigger than all of us is happening in the world. So, it (the show) has great themes to it and I'm really proud of this show. I feel like we worked really hard,” Witherspoon said.

“You know and just to really be thoughtful about what people are dealing with during this pandemic that has been devastating for the world in so many different ways, so addressing it with thoughtfulness and a real focus on humanity, it was very important to us,” she added.

The Morning Show is developed by Kerry Ehrin, who serves as showrunner and is an executive producer.

Along with Aniston and Witherspoon, the star-studded returning cast includes Steve Carell, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman, Bel Powley, Desean Terry, Janina Gavankar, Tom Irwin and Marcia Gay Harden.

There are more characters in Season 2, Aniston informed. “You are tuning into Season 2 just moments after Bradley and Alex are on air and get shut down, we sort of have a very energetic, energised entrance into Season 2 and then you know, it takes a lot of twists and turns and we basically are dealing with the repercussions of what Season 1 handed us. And so you see the struggles, the outcasts, the cancel culture…” she elaborated.

Meanwhile, joining Season 2 of the series are Greta Lee, Ruairi O’Connor, Hasan Minhaj, Emmy-Award winner Holland Taylor, Tara Karsian, Valeria Golino and Emmy and SAG Award winner Julianna Margulies.

The second season with its 10 episodes will begin streaming weekly from September 17 on Apple TV+.