Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key Dish On 'Schmigadoon!' Season 2 at Apple TV+ (Exclusive)

Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key Dish On 'Schmigadoon!' Season 2 at Apple TV+ (Exclusive),This week, Apple TV+ will debut Schmigadoon! Season 2, which takes place in 'Schmicago,' a Fosse-esque musical city with a seedy underbelly. Ahead of the premiere, PopCulture.com had a chance to speak with the show's cast, including the star characters: Melissa Gimble and Josh Skinner, played by [...]

Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key Dish On ‘Schmigadoon!’ Season 2 at Apple TV+ (Exclusive)

This week, Apple TV+ will debut Schmigadoon! Season 2, which takes place in “Schmicago,” a Fosse-esque musical city with a seedy underbelly. Ahead of the premiere, PopCulture.com had a chance to speak with the show’s cast, including the star characters: Melissa Gimble and Josh Skinner, played by Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key, respectively. Notably, Strong is also a producer of the series and, when asked about pulling double duty, she shared what she’s “proudest” about working both in front of and behind the camera.

“I think I like the show so much, so it really just means being part of more conversations that I would’ve wanted to be a part of anyway,” she quipped. “So now I officially get to be a part of those. But I think where I’m proudest and happiest, I love this cast we wound up getting together, and getting this group of people and I think that’s my favorite thing about the show.”

In addition to Strong and Key, the show brings back several actors from Schmigadoon! Season 1, including Dove Cameron, Jaime Camil, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Ann Harada, Jane Krakowski, Martin Short, and Aaron Tveit. There are also newcomers in Tituss Burgess and Patrick Page.

For Key, the new season expands on many of the emotional threads that were laid out in Season 1. His character Josh, especially, winds up being “all in” on the experience of learning “how to be part of a community,” even though he likes to say he’s not a “joiner.” Key explained, “[Josh’s] experience with the hippies helps him kind of move into this new universal way of thinking that, maybe if I give more of myself, if I share more of myself, something good will come of this and we’ll be able to go home.”

He continued, “It’s not like Schmigadoon where… ‘We’ve got to get out of here, we’ve got to get out of here, we’ve got to get out of here,’ is kind of this main thrust. The thrust here is what is it within me that I can share with others that will allow everyone to benefit? It’s kind of like everyone benefits by virtue of the story in Schmigadoon where people benefit by virtue of the people in Schmicago.”

Finally, when it comes to what she loved most about having a new era of musicals to play with in Schmicago, Strong revealed that “the nightclub” scenes were some of her favorite to film, mainly because of “old fashioned mic” she uses. “I would always just, when you walk by, you want to do that,” she said, mimicking what it was like to hold the classic microphone. “If it’s there, you want to do that.” She then added, “But I loved the hippies. I didn’t really get to play as much as Keegan did in that world, but I enjoyed that a lot.” The first two episodes of Schmigadoon Season 2 debut Wednesday, April 5, on Apple TV+.

0comments