After another agonizing two-year hiatus, The Morning Show retuned for it’s highly-anticipated Season 4, and with a new season comes a new collection of cast members and compelling characters.
Since the Apple TV+ drama picks up two years after Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) orchestrated a UBA-NBN merger and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) left the network, things already look a lot different than they did in Season 3. In the Season 4 premiere alone we meet UBA’s new boss Celine Dumont (Marion Cotillard) and her husband, Miles (Aaron Pierre); the new Head of Sports (William Jackson Harper), Ben; Alex’s dad, Martin Levy (Jeremy Irons); and the polarizing Brodie “Bro” Hartman, a conservative NBN-acquired podcaster played by Boyd Holbrook.
So who is Bro Hartman? Why did The Morning Show‘s showrunner/EP Charlotte Stoudt feel the character and a contrarian point of view at the network was so crucial to introduce? And what do we know about Boyd Holbrook, the actor who plays Bro Hartman? We’ve got answers!
Bro Hartman and The Talk Back podcast he hosts are first introduced in The Morning Show Season 4, Episode 1, “My Roman Empire.” He quickly launches into a rant about the modern-day Olympics, and how six-month chariot races and naked death duels were replaced by “artistic swimming, freaking horse dancing, ping-pong, that thing with the ribbons,” void of danger and high-stakes. “I’m trying to decenter my masculinity, checking my heteronormative bias. Will you consent to a kiss?” he smugly says, before plugging Bro Greens, his personal testosterone enhancers on-air and claiming “the American sperm count’s dropping faster than Biden’s poll numbers.”
As Julia (Shari Belafonte) bemoans his comments, saying, “Please, god, do not let this man spread his seed. Do you believe this guy?” Mia (Karen Pittman) replies, “50 million other people do, get used to it. He’s here to stay.” And that realistic portrayal of a rise in disruptive, wide-reaching voices via podcast is one of the reasons Stoudt wanted to include the character.
“We start Season 4 with this premise of a feminist utopia; that the women have chased the men out of the C-suite, right? They’re finally in charge. They finally run the table. And I felt like they needed a little fly in the ointment, and to have this really obnoxious guy walking around, bothering them, saying incredibly irritating things, and going after their own anchors,” Stoudt told Decider over Zoom. “I think it was useful. It’s like, you never get what you wish for in a clean way. It’s always a little more complicated than you think. So I wanted him to be that complication and also push back and give these feminists a hard time. And [see], how can they defend themselves? And does that force them to really examine themselves even a little bit more?”
While Bro initially comes across as an incredibly conservative voice clashing with UBA’s typical reporting, Holbrook teases there’s more to his character than meets the eye. “There’s no one like Bro on the show because everyone else has to work within the guidelines of the network, so I get to articulate his point of view with humor, smarts and honesty. You may disagree with his character, but he always makes you think,” Holbrook said in Season 4’s production notes. “But Bro should not be underestimated because of his on-air persona. He completely understands the effect he has and knows how to use his platform. He also believes in fairness, and while he is a feminist at heart, he believes things should be fair for all.”
Though a number of UBA staffers are anti-Bro, it’s quickly clear he and Alex Levy have both a particularly contentious relationship and unexpected chemistry. So buckle up as The Morning Show inevitably explores that dynamic in what we assume will be the most Morning Show way possible. Until then, let’s learn more about Boyd Holbrook, the actor that plays him, shall we?
As noted, The Morning Show‘s Bro Hartman is played by Boyd Holbrook, a 44-year-old actor, producer, and filmmaker who’s appeared in dozens of TV series and films throughout his career. Recently, Holbrook memorably starred as Johnny Cash in A Complete Unknown, but credits also include The Bikeriders, Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny, Justified: City Primeval, Vengeance, The Sandman, The Cursed, Predator, Logan, Narcos, In the Shadow of the Moon, and more. Want to stay up-to-date with Holbrook outside of The Morning Show? You can follow him on Instagram at @boydholbrook.
New episodes of The Morning Show Season 4 premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.