Michaela Watkins on audition rituals, her worst college party, and playing a “coastal elite”

What Michaela Watkins does in Casual, Hulu's dramedy about self-involved Los Angelenos, is low-key remarkable. Her character, Valerie, is outwardly pulled together and the smartest woman in the room. But inwardly, she's falling apart, constantly dragged down in spirals of her own narcissism and self doubt. Watkins's trick is that she makes this both relatable and weirdly sympathetic. You can hate Valerie -- and many devoted Casual viewers do -- but you can never quite escape all the ways she's just like you. That means Michaela and Todd had a lot to talk about when it comes to her acting technique, but also what it means to make a show about such rich, privileged people in a world where those monikers increasingly sound like epithets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices