This article contains minor spoilers for “Tell Me Lies”, so don’t bother going to the bar with your classmates if you haven’t watched season 3 episode 2“We can’t help him if we’re a problem.”
In the second season of Meaghan Oppenheimer’s “Tell Me Lies,” we move away from the main toxic love story of Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco – played by Grace van Patten and Jackson White, respectively – to focus on one of Lucy’s best friends, Bree (Cat Missal), and her tumultuous if brief affair with Baird College Professor Oliver (Tom Ellis, star of “Lucifer”). By the time Season 3 kicks off, the situation between older, married Oliver and young, impressionable Bree is, thankfully, over… but in this season’s premiere, titled “You Screwed It, My Friend,” Bree spots a freshman leaving Oliver’s office who appears to have a knowing smile on her face. Bree, understandably, panics.
This is why, when Bree is at a bar with all her friends in the second season episode “We Can’t Help It If We’re a Trouble” (a bar that inexplicably serves all these underage students, but whatever), she spots the girl, Amanda, and sneakily corners her in the bathroom, pretending they were in the same “economics class” and complaining about her to the boys. So who plays Amanda?
That would be Iris Apatow, and if her last name sounds familiar, I’d be willing to bet you’ve seen Apatow’s youngest daughter in some of her writer-director father Judd’s projects. (Her sister, Maude, is also an actress and currently stars in “Euphoria.”) From her father’s quirky comedies to a project starring another Hollywood “nepo baby,” here’s where you saw Apatow before she landed the role of Amanda in Season 3 of “Tell Me Lies.”
Iris Apatow, alongside her sister Maude, grew up in front of audiences on the big screen
Have you ever seen a Judd Apatow movie? That’s probably the case, and that probably means you have some familiarity with Iris Apatow as a performer, but you might not immediately recognize her from “Tell Me Lies.” In 2007, when the youngest Apatow was just five years old, she appeared in “Knocked Up” as Charlotte alongside her real-life sister Maude (“Sadie” in the film), both playing their real mother’s daughters, comedy powerhouse Leslie Mann as their mother Debbie, and Judd Apatow’s replacement Paul Rudd as Pete. In “Knocked Up,” the use of the two Apatow daughters allowed their director father to put the film’s protagonists, Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) — who unexpectedly conceive a baby after a rushed one-night stand — grappling with the reality of their impending parenthood, as well as providing awkward, stuttering explanations for why Ben suddenly joins the family at the breakfast table. (In the film, Alison lives with Debbie and Pete in their pool house.)
Maude and Iris Apatow next appeared as fictional sisters Mable and Ingrid in their father’s 2009 film “Funny People,” where Mann, this time playing a woman named Laura, must battle with her former fiancé George Simmons (Adam Sandler) who reappears in her life after the famous comedian learns he may have a terminal illness. (It’s hilarious that their dad is played by Eric Bana in this go-around. Maybe Judd wanted an upgrade.) Then, in 2012’s “This is 40,” which takes place in the same makeshift cinematic universe as “Knocked Up” and focuses on Debbie and Pete, the two Apatow daughters reprise their roles as Sadie and Charlotte, but what about non-family projects?
On the small screen, Iris Apatow appeared in a few projects before Tell Me Lies
On the small screen, Iris Apatow has appeared in some Netflix projects; in “Love,” she returned as Arya Hopkins, an aspiring actress who is the daughter of Universe star Steven Hopkins (David Spade). Her stint on “Love” ran from 2016 to 2018, and after that, Apatow appeared in two films — her father’s COVID-centric comedy “The Bubble” and the Canadian romantic comedy “Young Werther” in 2022 and 2024, respectively — before turning to television again with “Unstable,” a series developed by popular father-son duo Rob Lowe and John Owen Lowe on (you’ll get it guessed) a father. and his son who work together at a cutting-edge technology company called Dragon.
So who plays Apatow? She arrives in the show’s second season as Georgia, the former daughter-in-law of Dragon’s COO Anna (‘Fleabag’ alum Sian Clifford), who evidently works closely with CEO Ellis Dragon (the eldest Lowes). Georgia is definitely destined to be a love interest for Lowe’s young flutist and reluctant Dragon employee Jackson, and as Apatow told Bustle in 2024, she was excited to work on the series, even if it meant dealing with some irritating accusations.
Between the Lowes and the Apatows, you’re probably thinking “nepo baby” over and over again, and Apatow hears you. Although she says it’s hard not to take criticism personally, she owns it:
“At the end of the day, I’m proud of both of those things. I’m proud of the work that will come from being alone, but obviously [family connections] helped me. So I always want to be very transparent, say that I’m aware of it and I understand it now. »
You can watch Apatow in “Tell Me Lies” on Hulu.
