'Schmigadoon!' Season 2 Stars Jaime Camil and Ann Harada Talk New 'Schmicago' Characters (Exclusive)
The curtain will soon rise on Schmigadoon Season 2, finding our friends from Apple TV+'s musical satire series on a new adventure in "Schmicago." Recently, PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with the cast of Schmigadoon, including stars Ann Harada and Jaime Camil. During our conversation, the pair dished on their roles and shared some of the details and motivation behind their new characters.
In Schmigadoon Season 1, Harada played Florence Menlove — the loving yet sexually frustrated wife of closeted gay mayor Aloysius Menlove (Alan Cumming) — and Camil portrayed Doc Jorge Lopez, a handsome but stubborn widowed doctor who was set in his ways and inspired by Captain von Trapp from The Sound of Music. Now, in Season 2, both cast members return, with Harada starring as Madam Frau — a parody of Fräulein Schneider from Cabaret — and Camil bringing to life Schmicago police Sergeant Rivera. "I just like having a chance to be different," Harada told us when asked about playing two very different characters from Season 1 to Season 2.
"I'm a character actress anyway, so they're both wonderful," she continued. "I love both of them equally, but I of course love Madam Frau because it's always more fun to be a little bit bad, or a lot bad. I think there's something great about her in this season because she has an arc. She doesn't stay the same. You can see a little bit of Florence's good in her by the end, right?"
Without spoiling the story, we can agree with Harada's take on Madam Frau, as over the season's six episodes the character reveals an emotional depth that makes her quite relatable. "We've been talking about this a lot. It's like, it's still us," Harada said. "It's still us from season one, right? But even though we're playing different characters, but we still have that same kind of camaraderie. And you can tell that we are really having a great time together. So it just feels like it's sort of a connective tissue through both seasons, even though the characters couldn't be more different."
While every character in Schmigadoon Season 2 has layers to them that have to be peeled back, it would not be a stretch to say that Madam Frou and Sergeant Rivera are easily the two most embattled. Camil attributes this to the two characters "under psychological pressure" from the season's villain Octavius Kratt, played menacingly by Patrick Page. "That was super fun to explore for Ann and myself," Camil offered, "because at the very end, we finally... no spoilers... but we finally will let go of this pressure that we have from Patrick's character."
He later continued, "What makes the show funner, honestly, and specialist like Ann was saying, the love we have for all of us, as cast members. It's a love fest to be on the set of Schmigadoon, to be honest. So it's so fun. It's so rewarding. If you like musical theater and you are doing this television show, it doesn't feel like you're on a television set. It feels like you are doing a play in a way. Right? And it's brilliantly written."
Noting how the new season will strongly appeal to all TV watchers as well as musical theater fans, Camil said, "You get all the references and you get all the Easter eggs and whatnot. But also, it's a show that talks to all types of audiences. You don't need to love musicals. Actually, the first season, a guy was interviewing me saying, 'I hate musical theater. There is no money in the world you can pay me to sit down and watch a musical show. And I love the show. I really love the show.' And I think that speaks volumes on how appealing the show is to a broader audience." The first two episodes of Schmigadoon Season 2 debut Wednesday, April 5, on Apple TV+.