The stress on display in The Studio isn’t always artifice. Just off camera from the chaos of cringe into which Seth Rogen’s beleaguered film executive is thrown, the creative team undertook some borderline masochistic shoots — while juggling a circus of A-list cameos.

“The most pressure I felt was that we’d convinced all of these people to come on our show,” says Rogen, the Apple TV+ comedy’s star and co-creator. “Some of them we know very, very well. Some of them we didn’t know at all. I just wanted them to be happy with this experience.”

Adding to that pressure, most of the guest stars showed up to the first season of the Hollywood satire to play themselves under heightened circumstances. Zoë Kravitz overdosed on psychedelic mushrooms. A weeping Martin Scorsese collapsed into Steve Buscemi’s arms. Ron Howard being a dick. Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos...