‘The Afterparty’ Star Ike Barinholtz Talks ‘Pathetic Side’ of His Character in Apple TV+ Series (Exclusive)

The first three episodes of The Afterparty were released on Apple TV+ today and the series tells the story of a murder mystery at a high school reunion. One of the characters considered a suspect is Brett who is played by actor, Ike Barinholtz. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Barinholtz and the cast, where the Suicide Squad and Mindy Project star explained why he enjoyed playing the role. 

“The really fun thing about it is like we’ve seen a character who is that kind of tough guy who can…. knows a little bit of mixed martial arts and going to beat someone up,” Barinholtz told PopCulture. “So I was excited to do that but just because I like that kind of stuff. But the really fun part was to play the pathetic side, the side who is really just like a middle-aged guy has made a lot of mistakes and is trying in vain to get his ex-wife to think he’s cool.”

In The Afterparty, Barinholtz’s Brett is a classmate who attended Hillmount High School and graduated in 2006. Married to Zoe (played by Zoe Chao), he attends the reunion to win her back. However, Brett gets jealous when his estranged wife is seen talking to Xavier (Dave Franco), the classmate who was killed at his afterparty. Viewers find out more about Brett in the second episode when he tells his story to Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish). 

The Afterparty is created by Christopher Miller who also directed all eight episodes and is an executive producer with Phil Lord. Miller and Lord and known for directing the films Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street and being writers and executive producers of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One and Part Two). 

“Chris Miller created this show like 10 years ago, it was going to be a movie originally,” Barinholtz said. “And I remember hearing about it being like oh, wow, high school reunion murder mystery. That is a very original idea, I’ve never heard of. I would like to be in that one day. And then years later he kind of redeveloped as a TV show and he reached out and said ‘Hey this is going to happen.’ And so it was very built up in my mind and when I read it and I saw how he executed it, it was the world’s easiest yes. I was just… oh this guy’s brilliant. This is staggeringly brilliant. And on top of it, you see who they’re bringing in. You see they’re bringing in, your friend Dave, and there’s Zoe and Sam [Richardson]. And it just was just… couldn’t have said, yes. I would’ve done it for free.”