When Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan set out to make Pluribus, he wasn’t asking his collaborators to build another morally gray crime drama based in New Mexico. Instead, the Apple TV sci-fi drama imagines a world where a pseudo-alien invasion (it’s sort of akin to a virus) doesn’t leave cities in apocalyptic ruin, but leaves humanity eerily content.
As romance novelist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), one of only 13 people left unscathed by the hivemind collective, navigates an increasingly uniform world, every crafts department faced the same unusual assignment to create a place that looks inviting, remains peaceful, and somehow still feels unsettling.
That clash of different tonalities and the uncertainty of getting it right became the show’s greatest throughline creative asset.
“Nobody knew what the show was for the entire season,” casting director Russell Scott told Deadline with a laugh during an interview for Deadline’s The Backstory, which featured key Pluribus below-the-line talent discussing the series, which scored 18 Emmy nominations for its Season 1.
His longtime collaborator Sherry Thomas agreed, explaining that they were even discovering the series alongside Gilligan. “We didn’t even know what the show was,” she said. “Every time we would get feedback from him on auditions or every time we would talk more deeply and meaningfully about a role, he [would be] describing in real time how [the show was] coming together for him.”
Watch the interviews below and scroll down for exclusive behind-the-scenes images.
Getting the cast of characters that would push Carol to her breaking point took precision but also allowed for some fun, varied choices. Scott recalled the moment Jeff Hiller emerged as the right fit for Larry, a friendly neighbor who reveals that the hivemind cannot lie, after a long search through auditions.
“We were talking about the essence of a person and a character,” he said. “Because we had a read of a lot of wonderful actors and so many who were great and gave great reads, but Vince still wasn’t seeing what he was looking for. We were all sitting around thinking, ‘Who else?’ And then suddenly Jeff Hiller popped into my brain, and I immediately knew he was the person. It was so exciting for us when that happens.”
Hiller would go on to earn an Emmy nomination for his guest performance. John Cena’s casting came together just as organically, with Gilligan quickly welcoming the idea during a conversation before the production worked around the actor’s schedule to make it happen.
Over in the post-production room, one of the clearest examples of that evolving creative process came in during the edits and music supervision, where even individual sequences were still finding their identity as the show came together. A now-standout Sprouts montage in episode 3, for instance, didn’t begin with a locked musical direction or a fully defined tone. Instead, music supervisor Thomas Golubić assembled a range of possible tracks and let the sequence reveal itself in the edit.
“I had no idea what the parameters of what was right and what was wrong were,” Golubić recalled, crediting Gilligan for creating an environment where collaborators could pitch ideas without fear of failure. “He lets you have bad ideas.”
Editor Chris McCaleb said that openness shaped how the entire series was built in post. “I love how unique the tone of the show is,” McCaleb said. “It all starts with Vince. We can go from something so serious to something that’s just absolutely hilarious on a dime.”
McCaleb and co-editors Skip Macdonald and Joey Liew, along with Golubić, continued to build sequences from scratch, allowing silence, dialogue, sound design or music to occur naturally depending on the needs of each scene. In the case of the Sprouts sequence, McCaleb said he began cutting immediately to one of Golubić’s early suggestions, shaping the rhythm of the montage before the production ultimately secured the rights to the track. For Golubić, every episode began with what he described as “a clean canvas,” with each creative choice carefully weighed against the rhythm of the story rather than preconceived expectations.
Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn behind the scenes on 'Pluribus' Season 1
Behind the scenes with a goat on the Peru set in 'Pluribus'
Karolina Wydra as Zosia and Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Pluribus
Karolina Wydra as Zosia and Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Pluribus
Carlos-Manuel Vesga as Manousos Oviedo in 'Pluribus'
Carlos-Manuel Vesga as Manousos Oviedo in Paraguay in 'Pluribus' Season 1
Samba Schuttle as Diabaté in 'Pluribus' Season 1's Las Vegas set
Behind the scenes of the Sprouts Farmers Market location in 'Pluribus'
Miriam Shor as Helen and Rhea Seehorn as Carol atthe Ice Hotel in Apple TV's 'Pluribus'
Miriam Shor as Helen and Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Apple TV's 'Pluribus' Season 1
Because 13 other people across the show’s world are immune to the influence of homogeneity, production designers Denise Pizzini and Dins Danielsen had not only their international culture work cut out for them, but also the responsibility to stage New Mexico in a totally different light.
Though created by Gilligan, Pluribus couldn’t resemble the Albuquerque audiences already associated with Gilligan’s previous work. Instead, they built an entirely new neighborhood from the ground up, carefully positioning Carol’s home so viewers could witness the strange transformation unfolding outside her windows in real time. Inside, the house itself became an extension of Carol’s increasingly isolated state.
Pizzini explained that because Carol spends so much of the story barricaded inside, the home was designed with an interior atrium to preserve natural light after the windows were shuttered. Repeating arches and long sightlines reinforced the feeling that she was “a little caged animal,” constantly pacing through the same space while the outside world quietly changed around her.
The designers also expanded the show’s scope far beyond New Mexico, using the Canary Islands, Albuquerque backlots and elaborate builds to stand in for locations ranging from Peru to Morocco. One of their proudest achievements, however, was an elaborate ice hotel, also seen in episode 3, that was painstakingly assembled with translucent materials, sculpted Styrofoam, custom paint treatments and carefully planned lighting to convince audiences that frozen architecture rather than practical effects surrounded them.
Even the series’ soundscape reflects its unusual premise.
Because the hive-minded beings communicate telepathically, re-recording mixer Larry Benjamin explained that the world often becomes unnaturally quiet, forcing the sound team to rethink where tension and comedy originate. Rather than filling every scene with noise, Benjamin said the team embraced contrast, allowing silence to make larger sonic moments land with greater impact while occasionally leaning into the kind of heightened realism Gilligan has favored throughout his career.
“It really takes a village,” Benjamin said, comparing the post-production process to cooking, with editors, sound designers and mixers each contributing ingredients before the final mix comes together.
For a series built around the unsettling idea of collective perfection, Pluribus works because each department thrived in the chaos of creation. Whether it was about discovering the right person, balancing tone, building a narratively cohesive set or finding the silence, all worked harmoniously to create a world that appears nearly enticingly idyllic. That is, until audiences, like Carol, begin noticing all the fractures beneath the psyche of the shiny, happy people.
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