In an exclusive interview with People magazine, Jake Lacy (The White Lotus, The Office, Significant Other) has shared what’s next for his character, Troy, in Peacock‘s Apples Never Fall. In addition, he also shared his thoughts about the finale, which aired last week, what it is like to film a show with this cast, the training regime, and more.
According to People, the show’s plotline is that Joy Delaney, Troy’s sister, played by Annette Bening (Jerry & Marge Go Large, Captain Marvel, Hostage), has vanished out of the blue. The Delaney family and its four siblings begin a search for the questionable disappearance of their sister, accusing their dad Stan, played by Sam Neill (Invasion, Jurassic Park, Thor: Ragnarok), to be the main suspect.
Spoilers for the finale are ahead. At the end of the season, the family is reunited now, and it took a journey of lies, secrets and mistakes to be able to face the truth and learn to grow as a renewed family.
In an exclusive interview, People first asked Lacy about the title of the series and what that title represents. Lacy responded, “I think there’s the unresolved pain that we carry with us and gets handed off to people, and at least the relationship between Troy and Stan is an example of that. Stan’s pushing down of fear and resentment and emotions has handed itself off to Troy, and now he is more like his father. We learned that Joy had stepped out of their marriage and they found a way back together. But Troy also has been, there’s some infidelity in his marriage that leads to this divorce. So I think that it’s hard to escape the pattern, and that’s what the title is getting at.”
Lacy was then asked by People about why he thinks it took so long for two of the characters, Brooke and Logan, to accept that their dad was the killer. Lacy explained, “There’s an eight-year difference between the younger siblings and the older siblings. We grew up with two very different versions of the same man. Neither is emotionally accessible, but one is one you could believe would snap and do something this aggressive, and the other just seems like a guy who had a bad day at the office.”
He continued, “So I think that’s why Amy and Troy are more willing to see the circumstantial evidence as adding up to Stan’s guilt and that Brooke and Logan are slower to arrive there, but eventually with no one else to point to, they come on board as well.”
Afterwards, Lacy was asked by People about how was the experience of working with co-stars Bening, Neill and Alison Brie (Freelance, Community, Mad Men). Lacy stated, “Well, Sam and Annette were signed on when the project was sent to me, and that’s already 85% of the way to saying yes. Whoever’s leading that show really sets the tone, and I don’t have enough good things to say about Sam and Annette — both onset [with] their work to build these relationships, but then also, we’re shooting in Australia.”
He continued, “None of us have friends or family on the Gold Coast, and so we ended up spending a lot of time together and Sam would spearhead, we had a little Annette Benning film society. Stuff like that, that outside of work, they also fostered this really welcoming, warm environment that you felt like a peer and not a weird fan.”
Furthermore, People asked Lacy how he was able to train for the tennis scenes with his character’s family, The Delaneys. Lacy explained, “They provided us with some wonderful coaches and pros for about three or four weeks leading up to the start of production so that we could just look as plausible as possible in the filming of it. And then we also had tennis doubles and fancy camera work and editing, and I think Sam described it as “Jurassic Park level CGI” to make us look like a family that’s played tennis competitively for 25, 30 years.”
There’s kind of a faux glamor to the Delaneys. They live in a very nice, well-appointed suburban home, but they’re not billionaires. For Troy, at least, it feels like you’re on the outside looking in at what else is out there. He has done his best to break free of that as if it were a prison and go across the bridge and make a lot of money, but it’s like he sort of has this ungrateful perspective of what his life has been and doing everything to overcome that and finds out that the outside is not going to fix the inside.”
The next question that People asked Lacy was how he sees the future for his character Troy, after in the finale was almost fired by his boss because he had an affair with his wife. Lacy explained, “Hopefully therapy. In the end, it just feels like maybe he’s taken his foot off the gas a little bit in terms of thinking, ‘I need a relationship to make me feel better. I need this job. I need the chaos that comes with dating a person who’s married.’ And so my hope would be that he goes to therapy, but I also think that he likes nice things. I think he’s going to open a new business or get involved with somebody else and continue to make as much money as he can and have this well-appointed life, but maybe starting to break free of the notion that it’s somehow going to be a replacement for a relationship to himself and to others.”
Lacy was then asked by People if he ever sees himself playing a good guy-type of character. Lacy explained, “When I first started, my first decade of jobs was like, ‘he’s very sweet.’ A lot of jobs that I’ve loved doing and was very lucky to be a part of, there were more layers, and yes, after this, I’m like, “It’d be nice to do something that’s like, he’s the stable, kind boyfriend or husband,’ but it’s fully job-to-job. It kind of just builds as it builds.”
People asked Lacy if he could describe the season finale surprise in episode six. Lacy stated that, “I guess the thing that interests me is sort of this wild juxtaposition of how bad things have gotten at home. Stan’s in jail, the kids are mourning their mother, the loss of their mother trying to come to grips with what self-involved brats they’ve been, and then this cuts to Joy who kind of is living her best life in a lot of ways.”
Furthermore, Luke was asked by People if his relationship with his brother is as close as the one he has with his fictional one in the show’s family. Lacy explained, “I have a younger brother. We’re like, six years apart and our parents are lovely, so no. I have two sons, 4 and 6, and they’re just shy of two years apart, and I see how they will be best friends and enemies maybe for the rest of their days, or some ever-changing version of that because they’re so close in age to one another.”
The last question that People asked Lacy was if, according to him, who was the member of the Delaney family that had the most growth throughout the first season. Lacy stated that, “I’m inclined to say Troy, and I also believe that if you asked each of the actors that play the kids, they would probably say their own character. But I do think that a lot of Troy’s pain and how he’s chosen to move through the world is built out of the pain of his relationship with his father.”
He continued, “And then he comes to understand that those circumstances were created by Joy, a woman that he thought was his emotional pillar. And then that’s fully unresolved when she disappears and he tries to reckon with all of that alone. And then in the final episode, we see the smallest steps toward reconciliation and growth in his relationship with his father, his mother, his siblings and himself. So that would be my argument in the court of emotions for why Troy has the most to lose and the most to gain emotionally from Joy’s disappearance and reemergence.”
Apples Never Fall’s first season is available for streaming on Peacock now.