‘Made for Love’: Cristin Milioti & Billy Magnussen Preview Their Toxic Onscreen Relationship

Made for Love - Cristin Milioti & Billy Magnussen
Preview
HBO Max

Ever wonder what it would be like to read your significant other’s mind? HBO Max’s comedy Made for Love explores the concept in a unique and dark way through Hazel (Cristin Milioti) and Byron Gogol (Billy Magnussen).

Set in a technologically advanced society, Byron is the billionaire at the head of a company peddling a new product – the Made for Love chip. The device is intended to allow couples to monitor each other’s emotions, feelings, and outlook.

When Hazel discovers that she’s patient zero, things go a little berserk. Apart from not giving permission to Byron, Hazel is already disillusioned by her dull day-to-day life of strict routines that include rating orgasms and taking scheduled naps. “She is a woman reckoning with how she ended up where she is, with a marriage that was wildly unequal and a life that she felt suffocated in,” teases Milioti, who is no stranger to sci-fi romps such as this. The actress recently starred in Hulu’s comedy Palm Springs alongside Andy Samberg.

Instead of finding herself stuck in a time loop, Hazel finds herself trapped in Byron’s synthetic world contained within the walls of Gogol Industries. She manages to escape once she discovers that her brain has been “chipped,” but there’s not much else to go back to.

Made for Love Cristin Milioti Billy Magnussen

(Credit: HBO Max)

Milioti reveals that Hazel “has to go back home to her father, who she’s been estranged from, and deal with all of the things that she’s been running from.” Her father is played by Ray Romano who, as a widower, has decided to shack up with a synthetic partner known as Diane.

Hazel’s departure doesn’t please her perfectionist husband, who Magnussen describes as “the personification of capitalism and toxic masculinity in the [form of a] human being.” So, if things are so toxic between the pair, what drove them together in the first place?

Made for Love Billy Magnussen Cristin Milioti

(Credit: HBO Max)

“They are enamored with the idea of each other and the idea of what the life that they end up living could look like as opposed to actually seeing each other,” Milioti answers. Echoing his costar’s words, Magnussen adds, “These are two characters that love the idea of love and love the idea of each other, but don’t actually love each other. And they’re lost in this mismatch pattern that they can’t find each other.”

While it may be a match not made in heaven, Hazel and Byron’s story is certainly entertaining and enlightening. “I think love happens like that all the time. We fall in love with the idea of the person other than the person themselves, and then we forget to listen and open up.” Tune in to see Hazel and Byron’s imperfect union fall apart as they learn lessons along the way in Made for Love.

Made for Love, Series Premiere, Thursday, April 1, HBO Max