Melanie Marnich is finally a Hollywood boss.
It's not that the Duluth native hasn't wielded power in the past. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2007, she has written and produced for gold-standard dramas like "Big Love" "The Big C" and "The Affair," which earned her a Golden Globe.
But "Apples Never Fall," which starts streaming Thursday on Peacock, is the first time she's serving as the sole showrunner, the most influential job on a TV set.
"When you're the showrunner, you don't have to check with anybody else for the answers," she said earlier this month during a Zoom call from the California home that she shares with her husband, playwright Lee Blessing. "The buck stops with you. I happen to enjoy that."
"Apples," based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, centers on Joy and Stan Delaney (Annette Bening and Sam Neill), a married couple who have just given up their tennis academy and hope to spend more time with their four adult children. The problem is that the kids are too busy to do much more with them than speed through family lunches and help clean the gutters. Long-buried grudges and secrets emerge after a stranger winds up at their door with a suspicious sob story and weasels her way into their lives. Then Joy disappears.
There's plenty of mystery, just like in Moriarty's "Big Little Lies," but what attracted Marnich to the material was the idea that you may never really know someone, even after you've spent decades living under the same roof with them.
"It looks at love in a very complicated and grown-up way," said the 61-year-old Marnich, sporting a denim jacket and a white streak across her black hair. "I'm always pulled into things that have a moral complexity."
The most fascinating character in the seven-part series is Joy, a former professional athlete who has made endless sacrifices for others and is thrown off her game when she realizes just how much she's been underappreciated. Immediately after reading the galleys, Marnich thought of Bening for the role.
"She has the ability to ground her characters in reality. They feel truly lived in," she said. "If you didn't have an actor like that, the story could feel overly heightened."
During an appearance on "Late Night With Seth Meyers" last week, the five-time Oscar nominee sang Marnich's praises.
"She had this whole vision in her head," said Bening, referring to the initial conversations she had with Marnich about taking on the role. "She's an incredibly articulate woman. I thought this would be so much fun and juicy."
Neill was equally effusive about Marnich.
"Melanie's personality is warm and enthusiastic and everything you want from a showrunner," he said an email. "She's always pleased to receive your input, and above all is collaborative. But the key word in all of this is warmth."
Fans and friends aren't surprised that Marnich is getting such rave reviews from her cast, which also includes Alison Brie and Jake Lacy.
"To see her hit this moment of leadership in the TV field feels really important," said Playwrights' Center producing artistic director Jeremy Cohen, who has known Marnich for more than 25 years. "Running a show is not for the faint of heart. But she has grace and fierce intelligence. She knows how to lead."
Marnich has been striving toward this goal for more than 15 years. At least two projects that she sold ended up not getting developed. But she's used to biding her time.
The University of Minnesota graduate left a successful career in advertising in her 30s to dedicate herself full time to the theater. By 2001, she has won two Jerome Foundation fellowships, a McKnight Advancement Grant and the Francesca Primus Prize. She went on to establish herself as one of the Twin Cities most acclaimed playwrights. Her work, which includes "Blur" and "These Shining Lives," has been staged at New York's Public Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre and Guthrie Theater.
She also earned a reputation for being someone who gets the best out of those around her without coming across like a bully.
"People think you either have to be fierce or kind, but she's good at both," said Cohen, who is thrilled that Marnich recently joined the board of the Minneapolis-based Playwrights' Center. "She's just a good human being."
From a dream to reality
Marnich applied her people's skills before production even started in January 2023 on the east coast of Australia, which doubles for south Florida. She and director Chris Sweeney encouraged the actors playing the Delaney children to start a text chain, strengthening their bond. During the shoot the cast and crew took over two hotels, regularly getting out for pizza parties or drinks. Marnich got a kick out of seeing Bening in the hotel restaurant making notes in her script.
Essie Randles, who plays one of the daughters, said Marnich always made time for input from actors, which was especially helpful for someone like her whose relatively new to screen acting.
"Melanie welcomed me into this incredible group of creatives and made me feel like I deserved to be amongst them," she wrote in an email. "Towards the end of the shoot, there was a relationship in the show I wanted to chat about and she was so receptive to my thoughts and feelings on it. A moment was added to that scene that I felt was vital for the relationship arc, and I was immensely grateful for that."
The biggest challenge for Marnich was the breakneck speed in which "Apples" went from dream to reality.
"You go from being a writer hoping to have a show to suddenly being someone in charge of a large start-up with tens of millions of dollars," she said. "It can be overwhelming, but I love that. It's like getting on a great ride, but it goes fast right away."
If anyone would be privy to Marnich losing her cool, it would be Blessing. The two, who have been married since 2006, make it a habit to talk every day, even when they are working 7,000 miles apart from each other. He said their chats during her time in Australia never became vent sessions.
"It doesn't turn into an emotional dump onto me," said Blessing, a fellow Minnesotan best known for the play, "A Walk in the Woods." "I'm a sounding board mostly."
Blessing said it's clear that his wife is delighted to finally reach a level she's been crawling toward ever since she switched her main emphasis from theater to TV.
"It takes every TV writer a good deal of time to graduate up. You have to learn the business and deal with a lot of strange things. But she's really held it together. It's been extremely impressive to watch."
Marnich hasn't ruled out returning to the writers' room and serving someone else's vision. But she prefers to stay in control.
"I'd like to stay in the showrunner's chair. It sort of ticks all the boxes," said Marnich, who is in discussion with two different studios on new projects. "I like this side of the bridge a lot."
