Billy Magnussen is used to playing a beefcake. His first big job was on the soap opera As the World Turns. In Into the Woods, his version of Rapunzel’s Prince wore leather pants even when riding a horse. He served as the resident hunk among the ensembles in Game Night and The Big Short. These castings, flattering as they might be, haven’t always reflected the man himself, a classically trained actor who has a Tony nomination (for 2013’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike).

But in his latest role, Magnussen, 39, finally has found something a little more relatable, one that simultaneously fuels his character’s ego and leaves him plagued by self-doubt.

The satirical series The Franchise centers around the ill-fated production of a fictional superhero film whose big-budget snafus (an emergency pro-feminism rewrite, disputes over which actors get the biggest superpowers) poke fun at Hollywood’s IP obsession.