She is a cooped-up coroner in need of a lighter load. He is a disgraced detective with an unattached appendage. Together they are the makings of the newest television show Bad Monkey courtesy of Apple TV+.
“I wouldn’t say she’s bored, but I would say, [her job] is starting to weigh on her a little bit,” says Natalie Martinez who plays Rosa, the South Florida medical examiner close to a mental mess. “So many things come through those doors and that just begins to kind of weigh on her.”
Lucky for her, the Florida heat and humidity bring in a tall, cool cucumber type of guy in the form of Yancy (Vince Vaughn). Rather than another heavy case, Yancy offers Rosa a break in the form of a severed arm and a serious stumper of a case.
Who does the arm belong to? Are they alive? Did they lose the arm through foul play? Where are the popsicles?
These and other questions tug at the pair and before you know it, they are arm-and-arm in a real Miami-sized mystery. “I think she finds that case really intriguing,” says Martinez. “Them together doing this unofficial police work – because she’s a coroner and he’s suspended at the moment – so, they’re technically not supposed to be doing what they’re doing.”
Not sure about you, but that is one solid start to a show.
The series – like a South Florida summer thunderstorm – came out of the blue for Martinez. After finishing a previous project, the plan was for Martinez and her hubby to vacation for a month. But in no time at all, lightning struck. “Five days into my trip, Bill Lawrence gives me a call that he wants me for Bad Monkey. And when Bill Lawrence calls and tells you that he’s on a show with Vince Vaughn, Michelle Monahan, Jody Turner Smith for Apple TV+ you don’t turn that down!” says Martinez.
No. No you do not.
While the call and job were new, the surroundings for the new show certainly were not. Martinez, born and raised in Miami, was only too happy to represent her hometown and her community. “One of the things that I loved about this script is that they made Florida a character in this script,” says Martinez. The show is “heavily immersed into the South Florida Keys kind of culture and environment. It helps as an actor to be in that, because you don’t have to fake the humidity. You don’t have to fake that heat, you know, it’s there. You’re playing off of it,” says Martinez.
“I think it’s just amazing, because if you’re not from Miami, you don’t know Miami. It’s a very different place, and unlike any other. The culture, it’s a melting pot. The way we talk, the things we say things, the way we live our life, the way we party. I mean, everything is so different. So it was really great to be able to be in the locations that we shot in, because I think it brings an authenticity to the show,” she added.
Martinez’s authenticity and respect for the show don’t stop at the locations. Like many other Bill Lawrence projects, this one has a full force of formidable females at the forefront. What’s more, her particular character came from the very crevices of her own Cuban culture. “I loved it because she [Rosa] represented me. And I feel like I don’t have that much representation in the sense where I’m Cuban American. I feel very Latin and Cuban.” Martinez continues, “I was raised by my grandmother and my mother and I grew up with the culture and the singing and the dancing and the food and just that lifestyle,” she goes on. “But, I’m also American, you know, and I speak perfect English or kind of,” she smiles.
“You have a very huge population here [in Miami] that are first generation, second generation born here. We kind of have our own take on what would be Latino. I had that with [Rosa], and I was able to kind of portray a mirror version of myself, and the people kind of grew up like me.”
Adding more culture to the crew is Puerto Rican actor John Ortiz (American Fiction, This is Us) as Yancy’s former partner Rogelio. He rounds out a solid cast that includes the aforementioned Monaghan and Turner-Smith. Along with Zach Braff (Scrubs), Rob Delaney (Catastrophe), Meredith Hagner (Search Party) and SNL’s Alex Moffat.
Unlike the one-way road to the Keys, Bad Monkey has more twists and turns than a tropical storm’s path inside the cone of uncertainty. But I’m not giving any spoilers here, although those who have read Carl Hiaasen’s New York Times Bestselling book Bad Monkey, the book that the series is based on, might already know how it ends.
What we can tell you is that with names like Vince Vaugh, Michelle Monaghan, and Bill Lawrence, Bad Monkey is projected to be a hit for the streaming service.
Bad Monkey’s first two episodes of its eight-part season drops on Apple TV+ on August 14.
