TV Talk: CMU grad sings, acts as ‘belittling voice’ in a man’s head in Hulu’s ‘Up Here’

In Hulu’s new musical romantic comedy “Up Here” — all episodes stream Friday — Lindsay (Mae Whitman) and Miguel (Carlos Valdes) meet cute in 1999 New York City, but they both having warring voices in their heads that lead to self-doubt and questionable choices. (Audiences see those voices personified on screen.)

For Lindsay, those voices include her perfectionist mother (Katie Finneran, who was a student at Carnegie Mellon for a year). For Miguel, the voices include a 17-year-old girl from his past, Renee (2020 CMU grad Emilia Suarez), who is both catty towards Miguel and the women he’s interested in as romantic partners.

With music and songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the musical team behind the “Frozen” movies and “WandaVision,” “Up Here” marks a breakout role for Suarez, who gets to sing, dance and act, talents she nurtured growing up in Jacksonville, Fla., before studying acting at CMU.

Acclimating to Pittsburgh winters took some effort at the start of college — “Walking from your dorm to your classes at 7:30 in the morning was absolutely miserable,” Suarez recalled. “I’d be talking to my mother on the phone and I’d have to hang up so I could put my hand in my pocket.”

And then there was covid at the end of her college career, which canceled her senior play.

“I’ve never actually performed on the Chosky stage [at CMU],” Suarez said. “But I do feel very fortunate with my casting when I was at CMU. I played Juliet in ‘Romeo Juliet’ and had a substantial part in play called ‘Pilgrims.’ ”

While the pandemic led to many take-out meals from Noodlehead, it also upended Suarez’s Pittsburgh bucket list plans: “I thought my last semester I’d go to museums and then unfortunately I have never gone to so many things. I never went to The Mattress Factory!”

Suarez returned to Pittsburgh in March 2021 to collect some belongings and to record a role for Quantum Theatre’s “10 for 21: Ten Stories for Our Times,” an audio experience.

Then it was on to New York and auditioning, which proved less tricky for TV/film than for stage work at that point in the pandemic. The part in “Up Here” followed a year later in spring 2022.

The show doesn’t spell out specifics of Renee’s past relationship with Miguel. There are hints she may have been a former bullying girlfriend, but Suarez said, “It doesn’t feel like she probably would have ever let him call her that.”

Suarez said she and the Lopezes talked about Renee and her role in Miguel’s life. The show doesn’t go into many details about how Renee and Miguel were once connected because “there’s probably a power to not spelling out just what his pattern is with women” in the first season. But Suarez is game to depict it should “Up Here” get renewed.

“Renee is just the most belittling voice we keep in all of our heads,” Suarez said. “That was really helpful for me in finding her and especially by the end, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have this girl in my head, too.’ I dont know who she is from my past, but when I do a take and I’m like, ‘That was so stupid and so bad. You’re not funny.’ Its, like, oh, there she is!’”

“Up Here” debuts on Hulu the same day as the film “A Good Person” arrives in theaters. Suarez shot a pivotal scene for the movie, which was directed by Zach Braff. In May, Suarez will be back on stage in “Destiny of Desire” at The Old Globe in San Diego.

Suarez said both “A Good Person” and “Up Here” were made by “empowering sets of people; everyone has been angels on both shows that I’ve worked on.”

One question I often ask CMU grads is how the school prepared them for their jobs and they invariably tell me the school doesn’t spend as much time as it could (or maybe should?) on preparing actors to work in front of a camera.

Suarez said she wished she came into her on-camera roles with more confidence that additional on-camera training may have instilled.

“I can walk into any theater room with a lot of confidence,” she said. “[On film and TV sets] I really struggled with impostor syndrome, and I really struggled with a sense of just, ‘I’m gonna get in someone’s way.’ … I didn’t feel as free to play around and to have as much fun as I should have had with the whole process. But I was just so happy to be there and felt so lucky to be working with icons in this industry.”

Suarez did find her CMU training helpful in other ways, including the notion of putting the story first.

“The story is never about Renee and so the comfort I could give myself within my insecurity was that, ‘OK, well, the scene is never about whether or not I’m funny, I said the right thing.’ It is always about Miguel, it is always about what he’s feeling and where he’s going. And as long as I can just shut my brain up and serve that, I’ve got to be doing at least sort of the right thing.”

She credits CMU associate professor of acting Tony McKay for teaching her that “technique is there for when your instincts fail you.”

“It really was comforting to me to know that I do have all these tools in my pocket, I do have all these things and I would not be where I am if I did not have this giant arsenal of tricks and tools and support that I’ve received in the past to be here,” she said. “I’m very fortunate that I was able to come from an environment where I was so uplifted to enter one where, again, I was uplifted, but I didn’t always know how to uplift myself within that.”