KP: Which was a super bummer for me, because I’m not good at any extreme sports, but I think I could do all of them.
BP: This is absolutely normal. For insurance reasons, when we are shooting on location particularly, there are restrictions around anything that could injure an actor because we can’t film without actors. Horse riding, skiing—things that can cause injury pretty easily.
What was your favorite shooting location?
AM: Mine was Hallstatt in Austria. We had such a special time there because Christine Baranski—who’s just one of the most perfect, shimmering women of all time—really took it upon herself to be the hostess with the most-est. She was so generous. One night, she invited us all to a Champagne sunset experience. The hotel that we were staying at was this beautiful old hotel that backed onto the alpine lake in the town. We arrived and she had beautiful tables and flowers set up, and there was Champagne, and she had curated a classical music playlist that was echoing over the lake. That was truly a “What is my life moment?” that she arranged for everybody.
KP: Mine was Alpendorf. The whole city was one road, so you would walk down and there was a valley, and in that valley was a hike that I would take my dog on. There was what I can only describe it as a babbling brook. And in that brook was this blue, silver mud. It was so soft. And I was like, “What is this mud?” It was glacial silt. Do you know what glacial silt is? It is one of the key ingredients in all the expensive beauty products. I put that head to toe. I was covered in mud.
AM: She started trying to sell it to us.
KP: I was like, “Try this mud. It’s amazing!”
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Udo Kramer
In one of the episodes, several characters go to the spa, where they take a wine bath. Was that a real spa?
BP: We built the bath on stage. The hallways and mud bath were a real spa hotel [Hotel Krallerhof].
KP: They rented out the whole spa. It was crazy. The wine bath was about 3,000 tablets of red dye. I was scrubbing it off for weeks. It stained.
BP: Watching the actors in the wine bath was pretty brilliant!
Did you explore Munich on your days off?
AM: We spent a lot of time in the English Garden at the beer garden, sitting by the river. King Princess brought her dog and we would like walk Raz around and ogle all the Germans. We spent a lot of time wandering around, especially when the spring came.
KP: You forget how how weird it is that in the States it’s very rare to have a potable and swimmable water source in your city park. In Munich, on a hot day, you can get a blanket and sit by the river bank and you can swim in it. I got to go swimming, and so did my dog, which was awesome. You can’t go swimming in Central Park. You’d die.
Did you discover any good restaurants or bars there?
KP: There was one just called Bar. We loved Bar. There was a hotel down the block from me that had a really cute pub attached and that was my spot. I’d take my dog out and then go sit and have like a beer by myself. I’d never experienced anything like it because when you’re on tour you’re on a stinky bus with a group of your friends. For this, everyone was in different parts of the city, so there was a lot of alone time. To be earnest, it was such a good group of people, and it was so familial that you could pretty much call anyone and be like, “What are you doing today?” We were each other’s community and we happened to really get along. It was fabulous to be able to call Annie or call Murray and be like, “Hey, let’s hang out.” No one let me forget that it’s not always like this on a TV show.
