The first three episodes of Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, based on the book by Rufi Thorpe, are here, and they give viewers a good glimpse into the complex relationship between Elle Fanning’s titular heroine and her mother Shyanne (portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer), who used to wait tables at Hooter’s and is now dating a very religious man named Kenny (Greg Kinnear).
As teased in the opening of the first episode, Margo’s one-of-a-kind perspective comes from both of her parents’ performer personas. Her father was a professional wrestler known as Jinx. He wasn’t around much for Margo’s childhood, though. Shyanne raised her as a single mom, so when Margo gets pregnant by her college professor Mark (Michael Angarano), it hits some old wounds of Shyanne’s since she went through a similar process.
“It’s so well written and so juicy, their bond, and so universal. I understand that relationship. If you have a mom, everyone knows that relationship,” Fanning told Deadline. “Shyanne and Margo’s is particular because I think that they’re cut from the same cloth. Margo is who she is because of the way that Shyanne is. I think Margo gets her resilience from, from Shyanne.”
At times, Margo takes on the mothering responsibilities with Shyanne, especially after she’s become a mother herself. One scene in particular where the dynamic shifts can be seen in the second episode when Shyanne brings baby Bodhi (Graham Hendrix) to Margo’s work, a restaurant that resembles Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, when she was supposed to babysit him for Margo. Margo calms her mother down with assurance that Shyanne has
“The cycle, and at times how it flip flops, of who’s the child, who’s the parent — and at times also they’re even just best friends, and they feel like girlfriends and peers, there’s a lot, even in the course of one scene, those dynamics are shifting,” she added “And honestly, it wasn’t really something that Michelle and I had to work on too much because we came in with this chemistry. We had worked together before, and I have known her, and she’s always been so kind to me, and she’s known me at different phases in my life, but then through doing this show, our bond deepened so much. I felt like all we had to do was show up and be present for each other and open, and we would surprise each other and be spontaneous. Then we’d follow each other down that emotion, and then try something else new, but you can’t do that with another actor if you don’t trust them fully.”
Michelle Pfeiffer (standing) and Elle Fanning (lying down) in ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’
Apple TV
Pfeiffer worked with both Fanning sisters on I Am Sam (2001) in which Elle portrayed a younger version of her older sister Dakota’s character. Pfeiffer and Elle then reunited for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), in which Pfeiffer portrays Queen Ingrith, a main rival to Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent.
“I’m not someone that thinks, ‘Oh, you have to have off-the-charts chemistry for something to work, but in this case, I do think that the chemistry really translates that’s Michelle and Elle, and it translates to Shyanne and Margo.”
The first three episodes of Margo’s Got Money Troubles are now streaming on Apple TV. New episodes arrive weekly on Wednesdays.
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