Leo Reich wants to be clear: his character Ethan in his new A24-produced TV show, It Gets Worse, is not based on himself. “He just has my face and my voice and does stuff that I might do,” the 28-year-old deadpans, cradling an iced coffee and wearing a pair of secondhand Dickies shorts and Birkenstocks. “It’s very different. There’s a full separation.”
The sitcom, which he has been developing for nearly four years, follows three best friends—Ethan, Sam (indie actor and musician Olive Gray), and Abi (Emily Fairn, last seen in House of Guinness)—who have been an unbreakable, albeit dysfunctional, trio since college. But they are now in their late 20s, kicked out by a crappy landlord, with boring boyfriends, jarring exes, and futile hook-ups, all while figuring out the life they want.
