‘Pluribus’ Star Samba Schutte on John Cena Cameo Nobody Saw Coming

[This story contains spoilers from Pluribus season one, episode six, “HDP.”]

In the post-apocalyptic world of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, an extraterrestrial virus has essentially turned 7.3 billion people into a collective of friendly genies who can fulfill endless amounts of wishes for the 13 remaining humans with immunity. Of that baker’s dozen, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) and Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) reject their offerings to varying degrees, so someone has to enjoy this blank check as if they’re in a more grown-up version of a 1994 Disney movie. That someone is Samba Schutte’s Koumba Diabaté.

Thus, Mr. Diabaté surrounds himself with five supermodels at all times and drives a different Lamborghini for each day of the week. He flies on Air Force One, having renamed it Air Force Koumba, and he role plays as James Bond in Elvis Presley’s former penthouse suite in Las Vegas. But there’s a good heart underneath the Mauritanian’s attraction to the hackneyed lifestyle of the rich and the famous. Out of all the immune “Old-Schoolers” he’s met, he’s the only one who hasn’t turned his back on Carol due to the death and conflict she’s knowingly and unknowingly caused.

“Koumba cares about Carol because he knows that she is struggling not only with her loneliness, but also with the change in the world,” Schutte tells The Hollywood Reporter. “As much as he loves his new life, he, just like her, does not want to sacrifice his individuality [to the Joining]. So he values that in her and says, ‘Hey, we’re on the same team here. We’re just approaching this differently.’”

Throughout season one, the hive mind, aka the Joined or the Others, have been drinking copious amounts of milk, and the fifth episode, “Got Milk,” saw Carol pose as a gumshoe in order to get to the bottom of it. At that point in the story, I was quickly reminded of John Cena’s DC show, Peacemaker. Season one had an alien invasion storyline in which parasitic butterflies take over human bodies, but they can only consume amber milk from a beastly cow they teleported from their dying planet.

So you can imagine my surprise when Peacemaker himself, John Cena, appears on Mr. Diabaté’s television in episode six to explain that Pluribus’ own milk-like fluid is derived from many ingredients, including the protein of humans who die each day from natural causes. The individual known as John Cena makes the convincing case that it’s out of necessity due to a “caloric deficit.” In other words, the hive mind population is only consuming “HDP” (human-derived protein) to delay starvation over the course of a decade.

Oddly enough, Peacemaker was partially influenced by Gilligan’s previous show, Better Call Saul. And while his Pluribus writers room is filled with Peacemaker fans who were conscious of the slight overlap, they were more interested in casting Cena’s earnestness than making a meta joke. “John Cena was the right balance of friendly, famous and trustworthy — and we also just thought it’d be fun to watch him say all that creepy stuff,” executive producer Gordon Smith tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Schutte couldn’t see Cena on the day of shooting, but he did enjoy Gilligan’s recorded delivery of Cena’s monologue as a temporary placeholder. The Pluribus crew then flew to Miami to film Cena’s video presentation several weeks later. 

“Rhea and I had to react to Vince saying, ‘We’re cannibals, but we have to be,’” Schutte recalls mid-laugh, while imitating his showrunner’s congenial Southern accent. “But to know that it was eventually going to be John Cena was so perfect. Who better than John Cena to break down why they’re cannibals and make sense of it in a sweet PowerPoint presentation way?”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Schutte also discusses Mr. Diabaté’s humble backstory, before looking back on his “intimidating” first day on Pluribus opposite five supermodels in a hot tub.

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What’s the most dramatic version of your casting story?

I did the audition with dummy sides. The story involved a producer trying to steal some musician’s client from another producer, and I thought I nailed it. But I didn’t hear anything for five months, and I was devastated. I was like, “No! I want to be a part of Untitled Vince Gilligan Project. I don’t care if I’m a toilet cleaner.” So I didn’t hear anything for five months, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, Vince called me to say, “Hey, you got the job.” And I was like, “What!?” 

He then told me why it took so long to cast me. It was because it was so hard to find an actor who could play this character not as sleazy or creepy, but with a child-like wonder and sweetness to him. So it was such a relief to hear that they chose me and that they wanted that quality that I gave them in the audition. And then making him Mauritanian like me was just the cherry on the cake.

You’re also a stand-up comedian, and Vince GIlligan shows have a storied history of casting comedians (Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Lavell Crawford, Joe DeRosa). Did this pattern come up at all?

We just talked about the amount of comedy in this story. We very quickly established that, even though there’s moments where Koumba is the comedic relief, we’re not playing for the joke. As a very grounded character, anything you do has to come from the character himself within the situation. So Vince really appreciated my physical comedy and my ability to find the humor in a scene, but it always had to feel real and grounded. I love that he appreciates comedy. 

To be honest with you, Vince is a very, very funny person. He came up with a bunch of buttons each time, like the Harrison Ford bit on Air Force One in episode two. And when all the women leave him alone in the hot tub, it was his idea to have Koumba be like, “Joette?” So he comes up with these buttons on the spot, and he trusts comedians to be able to deliver them within a very dramatic moment or scene. It felt very reassuring for him to have confidence in my abilities, but it was very much like, “Hey, don’t overdo it. Bob Odenkirk talks a lot with his hands because comedians want to do the thing, but just remember you’re enough.”

You recently attended a charity event alongside Rhea, Bob and several other Better Call Saul folks. Did you get a chance to talk about your Vince Gilligan experiences? 

I got a chance to talk to Bob, and he was like, “So what’s it like working with Vince [on Pluribus]?” And I told him that Vince is just one of the most collaborative people I’ve ever met. He just wants to bring out the best in everybody. No ideas are worthless. I then talked about how Rhea called and welcomed me when I got the job, and to say that she wanted to rehearse with me. And Bob just went, “Yeah, she learned from the best.” (Laughs.) 

At the premiere, I met a few people from Better Call Saul, like Michael Mando, and they all said that working on a Vince Gilligan set is very unique in Hollywood. It’s very much its own experience, and you feel how special it is because everyone feels like family. So it was just so reassuring to be welcomed and to hear that confirmation from these legends who have also worked with Vince.

Unlike Carol, Mr. Diabaté is having the time of his life in this post-Joining existence. How much do you know about his old life that might explain this very clichéd fantasy world he’s created for himself? 

We talked about it. In the audition, his name was Mr. Koumba, and I thought that was really funny because Koumba is a woman’s name in my [Mauritanian] culture. The only way you get named after a woman in my culture is when your mother dies during childbirth. So I was like, “That’s a very interesting quality that Vince came up with, wow.” I then told this to Vince, and he was like, “I had no idea. I just came up with an African name, and Mr. Koumba sounded cool.” And I was like, “Well, this is a fun detail to have for this character,” because he doesn’t have family members when he shows up on Air Force One. Like Carol, he’s very much alone. He shows up with supermodels, sure, but he doesn’t have any family with him. 

So we talked about his backstory, and Vince said, “This guy did not come from opulence. He did not have a good life, and he was never successful with women. He was probably very geeky, nerdy and alone. Now, all of a sudden, he’s a kid in a candy shop, and he has the desire to live out the greatest fantasies he’s ever had.” So that informed me about who this guy is, and again, he’s not a sleaze bag or a creep. He’s someone who’s embraced the change, and he’s learned the rules of the game in order to navigate it. So he decided he’s going to live the best life he possibly can until they find a way to turn him.

The way he mimicked Carol’s open-faced avocado toast sandwich, as if he’d never seen it before, also suggested to me that he didn’t come from much. So he’s probably just aping the stereotypical version of wealth he saw on TV.

Yeah, or what he’s observed of other people or what he thinks you would do if you had all the money and power in the world. That [breakfast] scene was so key because it showed how curious he is to experience new things. Why choose The Westgate? Why be fascinated by Elvis Presley? Why mash the avocado and toast together to mimic Carol? It’s because he’s so curious about new experiences, and he wants to pay attention to all the little details of what makes something so special or delicious. So that scene was so special because he bonds with Carol, and he gains a new experience from her.

Having done some homework on you, your needs and wants don’t overlap with Koumba’s in any way, shape or form, so did you have any difficulty stepping into his shoes? 

It was more like, “Can I live up to this guy?” I’ve never been surrounded by supermodels in my life. I’ve never been in a hot tub with five at the same time in my life. That was the first thing I filmed, by the way. I met these women as all of us were naked in a hot tub, and that was its own thing. So, because I started with episode six, I was very intimidated on my first day of filming.

After I got to the hotel in Vegas, security guards stopped me to say, “You’re the guy!” And I was like, “What do you mean I’m the guy?” So they took me outside and showed me the huge posters of Koumba hanging everywhere. And I was like, “Oh, that is who this character is.” He’s just embracing being the king of the court. So I really had to step into those shoes, and I brought it back to what Vince and I talked about beforehand: “He’s like a kid in a candy store, so play it from that sweetness, and the rest will follow.”

Perhaps his most admirable quality is that he won’t turn his back on Carol like the other Old-Schoolers and the Joined. Why do you think he continues to give her the benefit of the doubt? 

He recognizes the loneliness in her. He doesn’t like being abandoned either. So Koumba cares about Carol because he knows that she is struggling not only with her loneliness, but also with the change in the world. I love that he’s this rational guy who can have these valid counterarguments to her point of view, but still understand where she’s coming from. He’ll be like, “But at the same time, peace on earth.”

She needs an ally, and because of his diplomatic humanitarian nature, he recognizes some things in her that bond them. As much as he loves his new life, he, just like her, does not want to sacrifice his individuality [to the Joining]. So he values that in her and says, “Hey, we’re on the same team here. We’re just approaching this differently.”  

We only hear his side of a phone call in which he says, “But she’s so lonely.” Do you think that was when the Joined encouraged him to broker the peace treaty that Carol rejected before driving off? 

I think he was trying to negotiate on her behalf: “Why won’t you guys return?” And as he tells Carol at the end, the only way they’ll return is if she has a change of heart. He’s the mediator in this conflict between the Others or the Joined. I also think that was the phone call where he finds out that they can’t turn either of them without permission. They can’t gather their stem cells [without consent]. He said to Carol, “They made this discovery only yesterday.” So that phone call has many layers to it, but more than anything, he is negotiating on Carol’s behalf because he feels her pain and her loneliness. 

So you receive Vera Blasi’s script for episode six, and you suddenly read that the individual known as John Cena appears to explain HDP (Human-Derived Protein). How does one react to that out-of-left-field cameo? 

(Laughs.) I mean, come on! Who doesn’t want to work with John Cena? It was hilarious and exciting to read that wrestler/actor John Cena was going to explain why they eat bodies. But I did not know how it was going to go down [on the day]. When we eventually filmed the scene, it was actually Vince on the TV. He recorded himself talking about the milk and why they drink it. 

Rhea and I had to react to Vince saying, “We’re cannibals, but we have to be.” (Schutte imitates Gilligan’s warm Southern accent.) So that was a lot of fun, but to know that it was eventually going to be John Cena was so perfect. Who better than John Cena to break down why they’re cannibals and make sense of it in a sweet PowerPoint presentation way?

I love that my character hangs out with John Cena and learns wrestling moves from him. He also addresses him as John, which Carol hates. There’s a side of Koumba Diabaté that’s like, “Hey, I see these people as individuals too. Even though they’re part of the hive, they still have individual qualities.”

That’s interesting that they shot John’s segment after the fact because they recorded Patrick Fabian’s auditory cameo before filming in order to get Rhea to break character. (She didn’t.)

Yeah, he was scripted, but they flew to Miami to film him a few weeks after we filmed that scene.

I hope they release the Vince cut on Blu-ray someday. 

(Laughs.) I hope so too. “Vince, it should’ve just been you!”

Any form of cannibalism is disturbing, especially since the Joined are probably still consuming the remains of people their virus killed. But their rationale is relatively sound in terms of the impending food scarcity and making use of the other 100,000 people who die per day from natural causes. How did you reconcile their consumption of “human-derived protein”? 

I love that Koumba is a curious character who’s been doing his own investigations. Like Carol, he’s been investigating how the Others work and why they drink so much milk. He’s a straight shooter, so he is not afraid to ask them questions and understand the rules of the game. He has a rational, diplomatic nature at his core, and he wants to see both sides of the coin. 

As much as it disturbs him that they’re cannibals, he realizes that this is the only way to give them sustenance, or 8 billion people are going to starve to death. That’s one of the questions about the show: How would you deal with this change? And how would you want to save the world? The answer for Carol is by reversing it; Manousos by [spoiler]; and Diabaté by stopping 8 billion people from starving to death. 

Yes, they’re cannibals, but they did not kill the [100,000] people [who die per day, post-Joining]. They’re recycling, and it makes sense as disturbing as it is. So it was really interesting to find his logic. At the end of the day, I was like, “I don’t agree with you, but I understand where you’re coming from.”

Koumba’s harem were all wearing leopard-print jackets at the disastrous lunch in Spain, and we now know that they are literally eating people’s faces. Do you think this was a subtle play on the “leopards eating faces” meme? 

You are blowing my mind right now. I had not put two and two together. For me, it was just because he’s in his hunter outfit, and they’re his prey. But I did not think about it that deeply. If the writers are going that deep with it, then their genius just continues to blow my mind.

As you referenced, it’s not all fun and games for Koumba. He’s holding biweekly Zoom meetings with the other Old-Schoolers to solve the food shortage problem. Going forward, would you like to think that he eventually grows tired of the James Bond-Elvis act and focuses exclusively on the world?

Who wouldn’t? How long can you keep this up? How long is it until you’re done playing with all your toys? He has a genie and unlimited wishes. But once you have everything you’ve ever desired — the finest foods, the finest drinks, the finest women, the finest fantasies — you grow bored of it after a while. So it’s going to come to a point where he does grow tired of it, and luckily, he has this humanitarian quality that he can focus on now that his priority to not become one of the Others is solved.

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Pluribus is currently streaming new episodes every Friday on Apple TV. Read THR’s previous interviews with creator Vince Gilligan, EP Gordon Smith and stars Rhea Seehorn and Karolina Wydra.