Chris O’Dowd and The Big Door Prize creator and cast talk new Apple TV+ series

Apple TV+ continues to pump out quality original TV content making them the best streaming platform. Their latest series is coming out this week, The Big Door Prize. I had the pleasure of sitting down with creator David West Read and stars of the show, Chris O’Dowd and Gabrielle Dennis, to discuss the series.

The Big Door Prize takes place in Deerfield, a small town where a magical, destiny-predicting machine is discovered in the grocery store. The ten-episode series debuts on the streamer on March 29 with three episodes and follows a weekly format after.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this series, and even after a couple of episodes, I was curious as to where it would go. The show explores what it would be like if this machine could dictate your life and how people would react to that kind of phenomenon which settles into you in a way that made it somewhat personal. It’s genuinely a beautiful balance of comedy and drama.

I sat down with The Big Door Prize creator David West Read and cast members Chris O’Dowd and Gabrielle Dennis to discuss the upcoming Apple TV+ series.

Check out the video version of the interview here.

Chris O’Dowd, David West Read, and Gabrielle Dennis discuss the Apple TV+ series.

Hidden Remote: How did you stumble across M.O Walsh’s novel, and what made you want to turn it into a series?

David West Read: I actually had a friend bring it to me and thought it would be up my alley. And she was right. I love things that blend comedy and pathos, and I love books that have a light sci-fi element. That allows you to talk about the human condition from a slightly left-of-center perspective. So it felt like a great book to adapt because of the theme of what is potential and what if you could be told your life potential, what would you do as a result? Felt so rich for a series and such an interesting concept to explore from different perspectives through different characters. So it was really fun taking that core idea and the spirit of the book and then spinning it off in all sorts of new directions with new characters.

Hidden Remote: How did you discover the project, and what were your initial thoughts upon reading the script?

Chris O’Dowd: The project was sent to me. I’ve been told that it was an adaptation of the book, and so I read the book 1st. And really enjoyed it and the concept. And then thought the jokes in the script were really strong and knew that David had come from that background, so felt like he would have a great hold on material like this.

Hidden Remote: Gabrielle, when you read the script and saw that Cass got ‘Royalty,” how did you perceive what that meant?

Gabrielle Dennis: That’s funny. I got it. On its surface, it seems like this great, amazing word, right? Then it’s time to figure out what that means. So for me, I feel like Cass struggled, at least I know Gabrielle Shirley struggled because I was like, David, how do we figure this out, you know, because if you get gardener, or if you get dancer or something along those lines, it almost seems clear, even though everyone, I think, interprets things differently. But royalty is like, well, what do I do with that? What does that mean? Does that mean where I came from? I’m going to be like there’s something in my future that’s happening. Is there something on Earth? So I had a lot of questions about her family origin, and we haven’t met her father. And what does all of that mean? So I had a lot of question marks.

The Big Door Prize‘s first three episodes are available to stream on Apple TV+ on March 29.