Not Suitable For Work Cast Says Their Friendship Was Instant: “It Just Clicked”

Mindy Kaling is back with the brand new young adult series Not Suitable For Work. It follows five twentysomethings as they balance their personal lives and career success. Speaking with Pop Culture Planet, the cast of Not Suitable For Work talks about the instant bond they formed off-screen and the workplace chaos their characters would definitely get reported to HR for.

Watching Not Suitable For Work is like hanging out with old friends. The cast has such an easy chemistry that you feel immediately. “We fell into step. It was so immediate,” said Avantika, who plays aspiring celebrity stylist Abby. “It's very rare that you — this is not incriminating every other ensemble I've been on — but, even when we walked into the hair and makeup trailer, everyone was like we were really nervous that you guys were going to play friends. Everyone always says that and we were so immediate in terms of being buddies. We went out to pho and we went out to an art gallery the first time we hung out.”

“It was very Abby-AJ coded. I'd invited Avantika to this thing that a friend of mine was hosting, but I didn't know very many people there. I thought we'll just pop in, see the art, go have pho. And Avantika arrives and she knows like literally 75% of the room,” laughed Ella Hunt, who plays her best friend and roommate AJ Pascarelli, a first year analyst at Fisher Stassen. “Even our first day of shooting together, we shot every single one of Abby and AJ's scenes in the first episode that take place in our apartment in one day. It was a very, very long day. I remember being so nervous beforehand because, even though we'd hung out and enjoyed our chemistry read together, it was like a different thing turning up on set. It just clicked. It really did. We were like cry laughing by three quarters of the way through the day.”

“We were very lucky in that it was really easy. I've known Will for years and we've been good friends. Me and Nicholas, we actually met the day before he booked it and it was like love at first sight. We were instant friends. I think that's where it comes from is like we actually each other,” said Jack Martin, who plays nepo baby Josh Teitelbaum. Then Will Angus, who plays AJ’s co-worker and neighbor Davis Beau Bradley Barrett III, continued: “I remember Jack texting me being like, ‘Oh, Nicholas is auditioning. You're going to love this guy.’ So I was already set up to be friends with you.”

For Avantika, hearing that audiences can feel that connection is one of the most rewarding parts of the show’s reception. “What a joy! I really hope we get to do this for many seasons,” she said. “It makes me really happy that you were watching and felt like you were watching a group of friends because that's what we wanted when we made the show.”

Abby is working to make it in fashion and realizing how difficult it is to build something on your own, which is something Avantika connected to in her own career. “I've always wondered that when I work with stylists. I see how much work their assistants put in. The big dream for most of these stylist assistants is to go off and do their own thing one day. I wonder sort of what their kind of journey is in terms of branching out and whatnot and a lot of actors feel that way too, right? Like when you move agents or you move managers or change your team,” Avantika explained. “I grew up as a child actor in the industry so navigating that relationship with the film industry with my parents like by my side 10 hours a day versus like now working as an adult. So much of being an artist and being a creative is flying from one nest to another. That's, to me, one of the biggest things I related to about her journey in the first season.”

“I also just have to say, loving you as a person and loving Abby as a character, part of what I love watching the show is how much of your sense of humor I feel shines through,” added Hunt, hyping up her on-screen bestie. “Like Avantika has such a quick wit and quite a dry wit. I think that that really translates into Abby.”

Meanwhile, AJ is navigating a very male-dominated career path in finance. “Mindy and Charlie [Grandy] had a really fantastic mission statement with AJ, which was that they wanted her to be this very driven, intense, laser focused, very talented woman. They also were like, but she can be desirable too. Those things can exist at the same time,” said Hunt. “She is at the center of this love triangle, but that never dictated how quirky I was allowed to be with her. I think she is a real dork. She doesn't have a lot of friends. The two sides of the coin are quite intense with AJ that she is so centered and confident in the workplace and then so not centered or confident in herself outside of it. I was just delicious for me to play.”

The cast spent a lot of time laughing on set. “The most fun scene for me personally was the third episode when they had the dinner party. Davis is very allergic to shellfish as am I in real life. He has this horrible allergic reaction. It was so fun. That was one of the hardest scenes to shoot because […] you would start laughing and I would start laughing and then no one would laugh and then Tom the camera guy would laugh,” said Angus, with Nicholas Duvernay, who plays aspiring actor Kel and the third musketeer to the best friend group, adding: “We would all be good and then someone else would laugh. It was rough.”

The job market is notoriously rough right now, so the actors shared LinkedIn taglines to describe their characters. “AJ's that poster that they sent around of women during World War II with the guns up saying, ‘You can do it,’” said Hunt. “AJ just believes that she's got this and she does. She's got this.”

“Maybe my tagline would be: ‘Never thought I need to be good at Excel to be a stylist, but here we are,’” laughed Avantika.

“I would say Davis's would be ‘Looking for love’ and then in parenthesis ‘Need love,’” shared Angus. “And that would be on his LinkedIn. That would be above any career.”

“Josh would take his job title, which is clearly assistant, and he would call it like ‘Television producer at the Wes Dryden Show,’” said Martin. “He would have his top skills as humility, leadership, and management, and he would have his bio be, ‘Changing the world, one show at a time.’”

“Kel's would be something along the line of, ‘I'm willing to do anything.’ He was a med student. He's a substitute teacher. He's an aspiring actor. He sells his likeness,” laughed Duvernay. “I mean, I think it'll be, ‘Do something strange for some change.’”

The cast revealed the biggest “this would absolutely get me flagged by HR moment” that their character causes this season. “Mine would be a 50-way tie with everything Davis does. Every single thing he does, fireable offense,” laughed Angus.

“For Kel, it would be hooking up with his old fling that is now his new boss,” said Duvernay, with Martin adding: “For Josh, it'd probably be named dropping his dad to get hired.”

After breakout roles in Mean Girls and Anna and the Apocalypse, we’re crossing our fingers over at Pop Culture Planet for a second season with a karaoke episode that lets Abby and AJ kill it in front of the guys. “Oh my God,” gushed Avantika. “Put us in a karaoke bar in like Chinatown for season two!”

The first three episodes of Not Suitable For Work is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+, with two new episodes dropping every Tuesday.