Too Much’s Leo Reich isn’t interested in likeable characters—and neither are you

When Leo Reich heard he’d got a part in Too Much, he was at the top of a skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur. “It was all so surreal. I was so jet-lagged and tired from doing a comedy festival and Adam Brace, the director of the show and one of my closest friends and creative collaborators had just died. And then I get a call from my agent saying Lena Dunham has watched the show and she’s written a part for you based on it. It’s the first and only time in my life where I’ve been like, ‘I’m living in a simulation,’ looking out at this skyline I don’t recognize, in this weird pod room.” 

I am speaking to Reich, 26, from the garden terrace of the Miiro Templeton Garden in Earls Court. Whilst we are not a simulation, we are outside of Reich’s normal waters. Raised in North London, now living East, he has come to West London “about 5 times in his life.” A stand-up comedian by trade, the aforementioned show, Literally, Who Cares?! had been released as a HBO special in 2023. In it, Reich parodies the archetype of the self-important, sardonic and delusional Gen-Zer, whilst wearing PVC like his sexuality: proudly.

Too Much follows Jessica (Megan Stalter), a young New Yorker who—enamoured with Jane Austen and Richard Curtis films—seeks a fresh start in London following a break-up. With a naked dog in tow and a private Instagram where she posts monologues that only she can see, think of Jessica as Emily in Paris’s abject cousin. In his first acting role, Reich sees his comedy alter-ego reincarnated as Boss, her new colleague. His hair pink, trousers silver and jumper Acne, in his first scene, Boss interjects in deadpan internet patois, whilst their actual boss (Richard E Grant) describes the Christmas advert they need to organise. “Rita Ora—my Albanian duchess!… Santa Bikini—I am screaming.” 

For Reich, who had a Girls poster in his University bedroom, being in a Dunham show was “literally my dream.” When the series first aired in America, Reich—aged 13—got a VPN so he could watch it. The depiction of millennial female friendship and drift in post-recession New York immediately struck a chord. “What I thought was God, everyone is really delusional and annoying and it’s something I’ve always felt about other people and myself. I still think it’s so weird when people talk about unlikeable characters. Like do you know what would happen if someone filmed you for a day being normal? You think you’re likeable? It’s always the least likeable people on earth that say that.” 

Reich, who describes himself as a Hannah and diagnoses me as a Marnie, is himself very likeable, but his perceived jarringness has long been a preoccupation. “I guess it was a kind of gay teenager experience, where in your head you are just being normal and everyone is going, why are you being like that? Don’t walk like that. There’s this realization that everything you think is kind of intuitive is actually really grating and unpleasant,” he explains. “I remember being a teenager like on the tube you must remember to manspread, you must perform masculinity correctly. I forgot this is going to be in plain text and there’s going to be no ironic intonation. “I knew I was unlikeable when I couldn’t PERFORM masculinity…” says Reich, rolling his eyes.

Since his HBO special, the label Gen Z has followed Reich around. “The stand-up show was like a parody satire show. It was about performing yourself as a brand, and like hanging onto labels to give yourself a brand identity. And Gen Z was meant to be one of those things. And then every interview I did afterwards was like ‘what’s Gen Z like?” says Reich. “Well hopefully the point was that’s not a real thing.” I am made to think of Dunham’s own ironic (although invariably perceived as sincere) proclamation in the pilot of Girls: “I don’t wanna freak you out, but I think I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice, of a generation.”

Working with Dunham on Too Much—whose outlook is undeniably more optimistic than in Girls—was “dreamy, heaven, so collaborative,” says Reich. “In our first meeting we just gossiped. It was really fun. We just had a big laugh and she was like, do whatever you want. Improv it. It was this trusting environment which is so hard to create on a set where there are a billion people and it’s a tight schedule and loads of money is being poured into it, but it just felt so fun.”

Alongside its starry cast (Will Sharpe, Emily Ratajkowski, Janicza Bravo, Dunham herself), Too Much is a chocolate box of celebrity cameos (Adele Exarchopoulos, Stephen Fry, Naomi Watts). “My first day of acting, ever, and it’s a two-seated shot of me and Andrew Scott. And I had to explain to Andrew Scott what gay hook-up apps are. I was so stressed because it was quite a long, wordy speech,” he recalls. “Between every take, hair and make-up I had to come over with a fan and dab the sweat off my face. And they’d offer the fan to Andrew Scott and he’d be like, no, I’m okay, I’m not drenched in sweat because this is a seated dialogue scene. And I’m next to him like I’ve just done a 400 metre sprint.”

Reich, who is set to write and star in a Channel 4 comedy It Gets Worse about friendship and renting in London this autumn, is still getting used to life as an actor. “The premiere’s next week and I’m a bit like, why the fuck am I in this?” Imposter syndrome? I conjecture. “I feel like imposter syndrome died when someone receiving the Best Picture Oscar said imposter syndrome. Like honey, you’ve got to get over that, you’ve literally got a Best Picture Oscar in your hand.”

Too Much is now streaming on Netflix.

Thanks to Miiro Templeton Garden