Amber Chardae Robinson is fully aware of the absurdity in Palm Royale. “Sometimes watching myself feels like fresh hell,” she laughs. “Why’d you do that with your lips? Why’d you look over there?” But when it comes to watching her castmates, she’s all in. “Episode six wrecked me. I was bawling. Not just because of the story, but seeing how all the artwork and elements came together—I was like, wow, this is actually a really good show.”
Robinson plays Virginia, the character she describes as “the alarm clock” of Apple TV+’s powder-keg comedy. Set in Palm Beach, 1969, it’s a world of pastels, privilege, and delusion—but Virginia isn’t buying any of it. “People call her the moral compass,” Robinson says. “I see her as someone who lives in reality. As a Black woman in 1969, I don’t get to choose the fantasy life. I don’t get to rob my dead daddy at his own funeral,” she laughs, quoting one of Virginia’s sharpest lines. “I have to live what’s real.”
The show’s trick is wrapping all that commentary in comedy. “Comedy makes it palatable,” Robinson says. “You can slip in ideas about feminism, patriarchy, racism—things people might otherwise turn away from—and suddenly they’re laughing, but they’re also thinking.” Still, it’s tough to keep a straight face when Kristen Wiig is across the table. “Laura Dern and I would literally turn our heads away from the camera. Kristen would improv the most absurd things with a straight face. She’s a genius. I couldn’t look at her without breaking.”
Robinson found Virginia’s power in subtlety. The character even has a theme in the show’s score—something she didn’t realize until the composer dropped it on Instagram. Asked what her personal choice would be, she doesn’t hesitate: Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” “Virginia sees everything. She’s overqualified to be in this environment. She has the power to take these people down.”
Between filming Palm Royale and wrapping a stage production of Black Cypress Bayou at the Geffen Playhouse, Robinson has been reflecting on dream eras. The Harlem Renaissance tops her list. “I’d love to just touch the hem of Langston Hughes’ garment,” she says. “The energy, the creativity—it was such a huge moment for us as artists.”
For now, she’s content to be the alarm clock in Palm Beach, grounding a comedy about pastels and privilege with a heavy dose of reality. “Virginia is living in what’s real,” she says. “Everybody else is playing in fairy-tale land.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the trailer below.
