The Morning Show star teases surprising new partnership for Chip Black when he returns

As she embarks on an investigative pursuit to uncover the truth, she is joined by producer Chip Black, which was a welcome surprise for actor Mark Duplass.

“We have been close friends, but our characters have only tangentially interacted," he told RadioTimes.com.

"A lot of the big meaty scenes have been with Billy [Crudup] and Jen [Aniston] with the Chip and Alex stuff, so to be able to embark upon this almost Woodward and Bernstein investigative journalistic journey with Reese that was heavily plotted and intricately drawn was different and really fun.”

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Following the UBA-NBN merger, which took place in season 3, many of the characters are faced with an uncertain future – none more so than Cory Ellison, the former President of the News Division at UBA, who was fired and is looking for a way back into the industry by any means necessary.

“Every script was a major discovery for me, which was out of the comfort zone of any way that I had managed Cory before and the circumstances they had put him in before. They threw him into the wilderness and I never knew what was going to come in the next episode,” said Crudup.

“It was exciting and daunting, I didn’t want to let go… I mean, I haven’t been in that many successful things and this one was getting successful, so I was like, 'Please don’t give up the golden goose!' They threw it under the bus but it ended up being wonderful, creative work.”

Navigating the evolving character arcs in the upcoming series is a challenge in itself. However, Mark Duplass remarks that The Morning Show was also a unique experience because he usually works on "very personal, micro-budget films,” where they have long scenes to "really explore thoughts and dynamics between people".

Comparing this, Duplass added: "These scenes are incredibly short and propel very quickly so trying to find a way to make it feel human and organic while you’re in service of something that’s thumps at that kind of pace is a real challenge for me and something that I still struggle how to do well and it’s nice, it keeps me on my toes."

The upcoming season also tested Crudup as he had become accustomed to his character being “very emotionally composed whilst demanding a lot from the people around him” over the five years on the show. However, this year, the showrunners asked him to "completely unravel".

“That was a different type of challenge and I didn’t know how it would manifest, so it took a lot of trust in the rest of the cast and crew,” said Crudup.

"I remember doing one scene in episode 7 or 8, they asked me to do something pretty strange and I just turned to the crew and said, 'This is going to be embarrassing, so apologies. If you guys can tolerate it, I don’t know which way this is going to come out.'"

Ahead of the premiere of the upcoming season, it was announced that The Morning Show was renewed for a fifth season. Over the years, it has become one of the most popular shows on Apple TV+ and showrunner Charlotte Stoudt believes that its enduring popularity comes from its reliability as the audience loves to see "real messy characters" who "make a ton of mistakes".

Mimi Leder added: "Why people relate to these characters is because they’re utterly flawed. They are utterly messy. They do everything wrong in their personal lives.

"They are unbalanced. They reflect who we are, not perfect. We are human and their humanity really speaks to the audience.”

The Morning Show season 4 premiered on Wednesday 17th September on Apple TV+ with the first episode, followed by one episode weekly every Wednesday through to 19th November.

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