Anna Konkle Is Figuring Out What a Post-Pen15 World Looks Like

This interview was conducted before SAG-AFTRA authorized a strike on July 13. 

"I love that I’m just turning this into therapy,” Anna Konkle says with a laugh. "I don’t know how to do an interview.” 

Contrary to what she may think, Konkle gives a great interview. It’s the kind of easy, free-flowing conversation that makes you feel like you’re casually talking with an old friend. The actor, writer, producer, and all-around lovely human who brought us the genius show that is Pen15 is wildly funny—as you’d expect—but also as introspective and "heady” (her words, not mine) as they come. It’s the mark of a true perfectionist. Debuting a freshly platinum bob, Konkle is up for talking about a myriad of things, from the soothing effects of Forensic Files ("We still look for it at night to go to sleep with”) to the uncertain future of AI and what lights her fire as an actor vs. a writer. It is pure fun.

You might say Konkle is at a crossroads in her career. She’s still coming down from the emotional high of Pen15. She and her best friend and co-collaborator Maya Erskine worked tirelessly as writers, producers, showrunners, and stars of the Emmy-nominated Hulu series for the better part of three years, all the while trying to focus on motherhood and figuring out a balance with work. That balance starts, for Konkle, with honing in on the avenues of the industry that bring her the most joy. "I still feel like I’m trying to figure it out every day,” she says of closing the Pen15 chapter. "I can’t imagine working where it’s not all of those things, but it also seems like a really cut-up kind of life. When I’m lucky enough to be working, it’s like, ‘This is Anna’s part of the brain that’s writing, and this is the one that’s acting, and this is the one shot-listing or something.’ I feel so lucky to be able to do that, and sometimes, I feel so scattered.” Konkle’s five-year plan includes figuring out which hats she can eventually kick to the door, but she assures me writing will always be a constant. "That’s not something that’s going to go away,” she adds.

Konkle briefly touches on a memoir in the works as well as a feature adaptation, but for the moment, I want to tap into the acting part of her brain. This month, the 36-year-old is starring in season two of The Afterparty, an Apple TV+ genre-hopping murder mystery series. Outside of Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao returning as their original characters, season two features a brand-new cast and fresh whodunnit story. This time, the events take place at a wedding where the groom is murdered, and the weekend’s guests—which range from oddball family members to business partners and past lovers—are all suspects. The comedy this season comes in spades thanks to its fantastic ensemble, which sees Konkle opposite the likes of Elizabeth Perkins, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ken Jeong, to name a few. 

The brilliance of a show like The Afterparty lies in its format. Each episode revisits the events leading up to the murder from the POV of a different suspect, all told through the lens of popular genres to match the character. In season two, we get regency romance, film noir, Hitchcock, heist, and even a YouTube vlog. There’s quite literally something for everyone. 

Konkle plays Hannah, the groom’s slightly quirky adopted sister—emphasis on the adopted part. "She has to say it a lot,” Konkle says. "I think she says it almost as a point of pride and is almost one of those people who overshares all the time but doesn’t think they’re oversharing, and that’s just normal.” Outfitted in preppy suiting in rust hues with her hair punctuated with a yellow barrette and her eyes rimmed with blue liner, Hannah is reminiscent of beloved Wes Anderson character Margot Tenenbaum. She spends a lot of time in a fashionable yurt on her family’s property filled with her many hobbies—among them typewriting, archery, taxidermy, carving wooden anchors, and macabre horticulture—and is clearly hiding a secret. Not surprisingly and to the delight of this writer, Hannah’s episode takes inspiration from Wes Anderson films. 

"I felt really lucky that I got to do the Amélie, Wes Anderson genre and that it was so emotion driven. That episode, that’s my favorite,” Konkle says. "I’ve always loved that indie space more so than the big mainstream [stuff], though a lot of them have become very mainstream. But the origin of those movies, they were sort of cultish for a bit.” Konkle loves playing in the minutiae of emotions, so the opportunity to step into that world and work for writer/director Christopher Miller felt like a no-brainer for one of her first acting projects post-Pen15. 

But getting the specific Wes Anderson aesthetic was a challenge in itself. Konkle doesn’t shy away from the fact that she was quite intimidated going in. "The tone is really specific and not something a lot of filmmakers do,” she tells me. Luckily, she had a great team at the helm. "Anu Valia was the director of this episode, and she had such vision—the editing, the music, where they ended up with all of that and the set design—and [let] moments be still purposely and the camera [move] but then really leaving room for my character to still have a lot of feeling and humanity, and she’s still withholding something. I think it worked for the genre,” she says.

When I ask about Hannah’s Margot Tenenbaum influences, Konkle confirms my suspicions: "I think ‘Gwyneth Paltrow meets an alien’ was definitely the character inspiration and then a little bit of [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller comedy.” 

Every detail, from the hair and makeup down to the costume design, was spot-on. The latter was the work of Meredith Markworth-Pollack and her team, who made the process of getting into character seamless for the actors. "When I walked into the situation, every character had their color palette that moved through the season and was a reflection of who they were as an individual in some capacity and also what their specific genre would be,” Konkle shares. "They were operating on so many different cylinders at once. If you can’t tell, I’m a bit heady. I get in my head a lot and can think about things for a really long time, so it was really nice to just see people who maybe do the same thing and just get to watch and learn from them.”

Outside of Hannah’s episode, Konkle loved working on the Travis film noir–inspired episode with Paul Walter Hauser. "He killed me,” she says. "I think our first scene was one that was in the driveway, and I’m like popping out from behind a tree. It was just so ridiculous. And we shared a lollipop. I should have asked for consent probably before I put it in his mouth, but we talked about it. We’re fine. I think the writing is brilliant, and he’s brilliant. We had a lot of fun doing those characters.”

At the time of our interview, Apple had shared all but the last episode with the press, leaving me in the dark about who was actually behind the murder. Konkle and I share theories, but she stops herself before sharing too much. I guess I’ll have to wait and see with the rest of the world. 

At this point, we shift gears back to the writing part of Konkle’s brain. When I ask if she and Erskine will collaborate again, she says she thinks it will happen at some point. But for now, the two are enjoying spending time together and having playdates with their babies, not talking about work. 

As for the ongoing WGA strike, which hit its eighth week during our chat, she’s feeling hopeful that they can make a deal quickly and "that they can do things like guarantee transparency with streaming and that they can guarantee that writers are humans and that any AI usage rests in the hands of the writers and that writers have writers rooms that are a reasonable amount of time and are given livable wages, which has been going away obviously.” 

With so much up in the air, Konkle is taking time to focus on personal passion projects. "It’s such a scary and exciting time for me in that way,” she says, looking ahead to the next few years. At the moment, she’s chugging away at that memoir and has some weird features in her head that she’d like to get out too. She pauses to reflect before comparing the moment to the early days of trying to get Pen15 off the ground. When people questioned whether the show would even work, Konkle and Erskine landed on a mantra for themselves: "If nobody likes it, we like it. We have to keep not making things for other people.” Of course, the show was a hit, messing with their mantra, and they had to find a way to keep themselves motivated while not trying to please everyone and just dig deep. Konkle continues, "I feel like it’s that feeling all over again of feeling quite precious after Pen because it was such a baby and then being fearless and wanting my daughter to see her mom being fearless, so I guess that’s the new mantra, and we’ll see what happens.”

This concludes my therapy session with Anna Konkle. 

Don't miss season two of The Afterparty, now streaming on Apple TV+!

Photographer: Sela Shiloni

Stylist: Kevin Ericson

Hairstylist: Eddie Cook

Makeup Artist: Loren Canby