Who’s Really Who in Hollywood?

The core audience for screen depictions of Hollywood has always been Hollywood itself. Apple TV+‘s anxiety-inducing Tinseltown sendup The Studio — about a midlevel exec, played by co-creator Seth Rogen, who is promoted to studio chief and finds himself irreconcilably torn between making art and the bottom line — is the ultimate series à clef. Rest assured that industry types are parsing every frame, wondering who’s based on whom, and hoping they’re not the ones being lampooned. And if not, why the hell not?

Warner Bailey, creator of the popular insider Instagram account Assistants vs. Agents, attended the show’s star-studded L.A. premiere in March and recalls the nervous excitement in the room. “You’d look around and there was like a flash of pain on people’s faces. They were laughing but also gasping when the absurdity would unfold. It became very clear that people saw themselves on the screen.”

Most of the characters are surely composites. But drawing from clues dropped by the show’s creators — as well as pure speculation — THR set out to map the Hollywood genomes of The Studio‘s principal players.

MATT REMICK (SETH ROGEN)

It’s safe to assume that the head of Continental Films is an amalgam of every beleaguered exec Rogen has encountered since his breakout at 17 on Freaks and Geeks, when mentor Judd Apatow reportedly warned him that the studio suits were “operating out of a place of sheer panic.” Given how much Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg seem to have drawn from their Sony experience in the mid-2010s, it’s tempting to seek corollaries for Matt Remick in the similarly named Matt Tolmach and Doug Belgrad, who worked under Amy Pascal as co-presidents of production. Current Sony CEO Tom Rothman, for what it’s worth, introduced to himself at CinemaCon as “Seth Rogen.” The one person Rogen has cited is 20th Century’s Steve Asbell, who once joked to him, “I got into this because I love movies, and now it’s my job to ruin them.”

SAL SAPERSTEIN (IKE BARINHOLTZ)

“Everyone has a Sal in their office, someone high up who’s always taking a call in the hallway just loud enough for the whole floor to hear,” observes Bailey, of the Hollywood insider Instagram account Assistants vs. Agents. In other words, he has no idea who the real Sal Saperstein is, either. Barinholtz certainly isn’t giving away many clues. All he’s revealed is that the character is cobbled together from a variety of studio execs he’s dealt with over the years. “When they’re watching the show,” he recently shared, “they might be like, ‘I think I said that one time.’ ”

MAYA MASON (KATHRYN HAHN)

Hahn has been slippery about the inspirations for her overly caffeinated, expletive-spewing head of marketing, saying during a recent interview that Maya was based on “a tapestry of women.” That tapestry may well include strands of Blair Rich, marketing chief at Legendary, and Sue Kroll, Amazon MGM’s marketing boss, both of whom have Maya-like résumés (and temperaments). But there might be threads of Sue Mengers as well. Rogen could have encountered the late, famously outrageous agent back when he made 2012’s The Guilt Trip with Mengers’ client Barbra Streisand.

QUINN HACKETT (CHASE SUI WONDERS)

Though Wonders has not named a specific inspiration for Quinn, the assistant turned junior executive, she has provided a key observation: “[Quinn] is so a nepo baby,” Wonders tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Her apartment is insane. I walked into set and I was like, ‘Wow, Seth and Evan, her nepotism is really showing.’ ” One can only guess at commonalities with other executives with familiar last names, including Warner Bros.’ Courtenay Valenti, Marvel’s Brian Chapek and Amy Pascal protégé (and Anthony Minghella daughter) Hannah Minghella of Netflix.

GRIFFIN MILL (BRYAN CRANSTON)

Rogen has said the inspiration for the flinty but flamboyant billionaire is David Zaslav — it’s not hard to imagine the mogul who nearly shuttered TCM greenlighting a live-action Kool-Aid tentpole. But initially, Rogen had a more buttoned-up personality in mind (“More like a Michael Lynton-type … a boring, scary-suit kind of guy”), so some of that DNA might linger. Sartorially, the ascot-wearing dandy owes a debt to the late Bob Evans, whose Beverly Hills mansion, incidentally, is now owned by Warners chief Zas. Or take Griffin Mill’s name at face value: This is who Tim Robbins’ character in The Player has become 33 years later.

PATTY LEIGH (CATHERINE O’HARA)

No mystery here — just look at the hair. Plus, Rogen has been transparent about whom this character is based on. “Amy is someone who was a huge mentor,” he’s said of Pascal, who ran Sony when he had his overall deal with the studio. Really, about the only one who isn’t entirely sure who Patty is supposed to be is the actress who plays her. “I did not go into researching too much about her,” O’Hara has said. “I didn’t want to be accused of playing anyone in particular.” (We’re throwing in a pinch of Amazon’s recently booted chief Jen Salke because she’s made the character suddenly seem zeitgeisty.)

This story appeared in the April 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.