Minor SPOILERS for Dope Thief are ahead! If you're not caught up on the series, check out the first three episodes with an Apple TV+ subscription.
If you're like me and up to date with the 2025 TV schedule, you're watching the new Apple TV+ series Dope Thief. From there, you'd realize how incredible it was to see Kate Mulgrew and Brian Tyree Henry share the screen. One moment between them in Episode 3 – where Mulgrew's character, Theresa, slaps Henry's character, Ray – made me legit snort out my drink, and I knew I had to ask the actress about it.
The moment is born from Ray confessing what he has been doing with Manny the entire time – dressing up as a DEA agent to rob houses in order to get money and give some to her. Theresa slaps him barely without a second thought, and it makes me snort. When I asked the actress for behind-the-scenes about that moment, she said it was "wonderful" to act out and that it was because of the energy, she felt with Henry that they were able to make it work so flawlessly:
It was spontaneous. It's born out of this energy between Brian and myself, the chaos in the room and – not just the energy, but the size of the writing allows you to do anything you want as long as you're deeply immersed in the character and understand your partnership with the other actors, which I did implicitly…behind every dark curve was a little of that. 'Snap out of it.' It was wonderful to play. Wonderful. I had many of those moments. Loved it.
While Mulgrew and Henry had never shared the screen before, it didn't feel like that in the scene. The two perfectly capture the complicated relationship between Theresa and Ray as the parental figure in Ray's life and their complex dynamics. And, of course, it's pulled off by two master-class actors.
But truthfully, it's not that surprising. Henry is classically trained at the Yale School of Drama and has had plenty of excellent roles within the movie and TV industry. Most know him from one of the best FX dramas, Atlanta, but he's appeared in various other well-known projects, like Eternals, Class of '09 and Godzilla vs. Kong, to name a few.
Mulgrew is no different, with her career spanning back to the 1970s and her alma mater being NYU. I know her personally from her time in the Orange is the New Black cast, but many also know her from playing Kathryn Janeway in the Star Trek franchise, as well as roles in Ryan's Hope and The First Lady, among others. To have these two well-trained and seasoned actors in the same scene was an absolute delight, and of course it makes for great television.
I'm so down with Peter Craig's Dope Thief and the crazy adventure that these characters are going on. I know with these two taking the lead, any scene they are in will be legendary – but probably not as legendary as that slap. If you're looking to check out Dope Thief, new episodes premiere Fridays.
