Difficult People's Julie Klausner Dishes on 8 Guest Stars You'll See in Season 2

Tina Fey plays herself in the season premiere. “She’s directing an episode of The Black List and wants to use Marilyn’s brownstone as a location,” said Klausner. “Marilyn [played by Andrea Martin] is in the process of filming her video will with a fancy new camera called the Fonda 5000—which was the only camera they used to film Grace and Frankie—and it has, like, car headlights on it for Jane Fonda because she’s always lit like she’s a helicopter in that show. So Marilyn’s recording her video will, and Tina knocks on the door and says, ‘Can I use your brownstone?’ And she says, ‘Absolutely not, but do you know how to use this camera?’ And then before they know it, the two are hitting it off. Tina’s directing Marilyn, Marilyn’s getting along with Tina, and it’s just a very satisfying runner. And on a personal note, it’s just pretty great to watch Andrea Martin and Tina Fey act and be brilliant and funny together.”

Klausner’s favorite celebrity guest star moment from season two? “Watching Julianne Moore play a really bitchy and fake girly-girl,” said Klausner. “She just acts like she’s every girl’s BFF, but she’s actually like this horrible person. It was really pretty amazing to watch her take on that character and make her into this very specific monster.”

His Broadway reign as Alexander Hamilton may have just ended, but you can still catch Lin-Manuel Miranda on Difficult People. “There’s an episode where Julie gets scammed trying to buy off-Broadway Hamilton tickets from some guy,” said Klausner. “In real life, what happened was I tried to buy Hamilton tickets off Craigslist and they turned out to be fake. I just used that experience that I had with the scammer, because then I started sending him really abusive text messages and he wouldn’t respond. So it was really just me getting all my stuff out.”

Nathan Lane appears as himself, and Julie and Billy convince him to take part in their new concept for a viral charity phenomenon based on the “Ice Bucket Challenge.” The role was created specifically with Lane in mind, according to Klausner. “When you’re asking a celebrity to play themselves, it’s like, ‘Okay, but why—and what’s the fun that they’re going to have as an actor?’” she said. “The only way to justify it is to have them in a situation that would be really funny. So we start out writing with Nathan Lane in mind, and then once we get him, we make sure that this is really what we want to see him do, in particular.”

In Klausner’s favorite episode of the season, Odd Mom Out star Abby Elliott plays a pivotal role. “I really like the ‘Patches’ episode,” said Klausner. “It’s about a show that’s basically a spinoff of The Affair, and Abby Elliott guest stars as a woman who runs a Buzzfeed-like website.”

“Mark Consuelos is extremely funny on the show,” said Klausner. “He plays a gay Italian guy who’s very attracted to Billy, because Billy gives him the impression that he just came out of the closet. That’s sort of a commodity in certain worlds. You can expect him to be super funny—and you do see his bare chest at one point in the episode.”

“We filmed the episode with Nyle before he was on Dancing with the Stars, but he was on America's Next Top Model, and we knew him from that,” said Klausner. “One of our writers had pitched a story in which Billy dates a deaf guy, and then his interpreter is c**k-blocking him and not telling him everything Billy’s saying. We loved that idea, so we just had to find a super hot deaf actor. Everyone was like, ‘Oh, how about the guy from Top Model?’ It was kind of a no-brainer.”

Broadway star and Smash alum Megan Hilty stars as Marilyn's patient who suffers from severe OCD. “Megan was in Noises Off with Andrea Martin at the time, and she’s so funny in that,” said Klausner. “We’re also huge fans Smash, and we just really wanted her to be a part of the show. We figured it would be funny to have a scene between her and Andrea, and we had this role in mind. So it just worked out really well.”