Since Seth Rogen’s Matt Remick is the newly-minted head of Continental Studios on The Studio, that obviously means he meets with creative talent in Hollywood on a regular basis, including the blunt Charlize Theron and various directors. In the latter category, Ron Howard, Sarah Polley and Olivia Wilde are among the ones who’ve appeared on this 2025 TV schedule offering, and Alex Gregory, who co-created the Apple TV+ subscription-exclusive series, shared with CinemaBlend the story behind how Rogen recruited these three. I especially got a kick out of Gregory sharing what Howard thought about his “asshole” appearance.
Ron Howard In The Studio
Let’s start with that one first. Howard stopped by during “The Note,” which saw Matt Remick struggling to give the director a note about his movie Alphabet City because of a traumatic experience more than two decades earlier when Howard mocked Matt over a suggestion he made for A Beautiful Mind. While it looked at first like The Studio’s Howard was a nice enough guy, his mean side eventually came out, and Gregory informed me that the filmmaker actually welcomed the opportunity to play himself in this way. In his words:
I think Ron Howard really appreciated that Seth and Evan wanted to make him an asshole. I’m sure he's probably heard when he's being introduced on talk shows, ‘The nicest guy in Hollywood!’ I'm sure in his mind he's like, ‘I’m not always that nice.’ So I think it was probably a lot of fun for him to just vent the 0.0001% of him that feels that way. He was just down for it.
The Studio’s Ron Howard showed his true colors when he was informed in a meeting by Kathryn Hahn’s Maya Mason that Matt Remick had feedback for Alphabet City. Howard proceeded to embarrass Matt to everyone in the room by telling them how Matt had suggested back in the day that viewers of A Beautiful Mind know from the start that Paul Bettany’s Charles Herman was a figment of Russell Crowe’s John Nash’s imagination from the start. An angry Matt proceeded to tell Howard about how boring the motel sequence in Alphabet City was, and an an altercation ensued.
Ron Howard ultimately agreed to cut the motel sequence, but informed Matt that he’d destroy the film executive if he ever crossed him again. So the Howard in The Studio’s world is definitely not a nice guy, but the real deal relished the opportunity to play an “asshole.” Like Alex Gregory mentioned, he may not be that way in real life, but that doesn’t mean he feels like a nice guy all the time.
Sarah Polley In The Studio
The week prior to Ron Howard’s appearance, Sarah Polley of Ramona fame appeared in the critically-acclaimed The Studio as herself in “The Oner,” a.k.a. the episode that was entirely one take. She and Seth Rogen had worked together 2011’s Take This Waltz, which Polley directed, and the Apple TV+ show actually marked her first time acting in a decade and a half. But Alex Gregory recalled that Rogen knew she was the right person for this episode:
Well, Sarah Polley had worked with Seth, and so Seth knew her and just said, ‘Sarah is such a funny person. I just know she would be good at this.’ She retired from acting, but he just asked her, I think as a friend, and she was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that could be fun.’ My God, did she kill it. So it was just a gut sense that she would be right for the part, and she was just so great.
You could feel Polley’s frustration as Matt Remick kept ruining the oner she was trying right at sunset, as that’s the only time of the day the shot would work. But it was just one thing after another, and by the end of the episode, they weren’t able to get the shot. What was a series of unfortunate events for this Continental Studios production made for hilarious hijinks for the viewer, and both Rogen and Gregory were pleased with how Polley played this fictional version of herself.
Olivia Wilde In The Studio
And then there’s Olivia Wilde, who appeared in the noir-inspired “The Missing Reel.” As the title indicates, the episode revolved around a reel from Wilde’s movie being stolen… only for it to be revealed that Wilde herself was the culprit. It provided the opportunity for Wilde, known from House, Tron: Legacy and Drinking Buddies, among other projects, to play an unhinged version of herself, which she was all too welcome to do. As Alex Gregory told me:
A lot of it is that you have to know that the director can also act, and so actors who direct are natural fits for this, and there are a lot of them out there. Olivia Wilde was perfect for that. I thought it was really cool that she he was doing this noir thing just was all in on it. Again she got the joke. She knew that she was going to be cast as a pain in the ass, auteur director making everyone miserable, and she was down for it. I thought that was really, really cool.
The Studio’s Olivia Wilde stole that reel because she was unhappy with the scene on it and intended to force reshoots. By the end of the episode, she destroyed the reel, and Matt Remick was forced to pay for the reshoots by selling his $2 million car to Zac Efron, one of the movie’s stars. However she may be as a director in real life on set, at least those who are working with her can take comfort knowing she won’t fly off the handle like she did on this series… probably.
We’re now at the halfway mark with The Studio's debut season, so check out the latter five episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+. Should it return for Season 2, I look forward to seeing what other directors will poke fun at themselves, like perhaps Greta Gerwig considering how Barbie influenced the series, and I’d also welcome seeing Ron Howard exacting revenge on Seth Rogen’s character.
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