Amy Schumer has never shied away from sharing the messy, unfiltered, intimate aspects of her life. But her upcoming Hulu comedy-drama series Life & Beth might be her most personal project to date.
The streaming service released the first trailer for Life & Beth on Tuesday, and it offers a glimpse into the seemingly perfect New York City life of Schumer’s titular protagonist. Based on experiences from Schumer’s adolescence, which was defined by her dad’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis, the show flashes between present day, as Beth faces her 40th birthday, and decades prior, when she was stumbling through her teenage years.
As the trailer reveals, Beth’s life is far from perfect. She’s unfulfilled in her successful yet boring career as a wine distributor, and she’s on the verge of a breakup with her boyfriend. An unspecified incident (though it appears to be health-related, based on the scenes in doctors’ offices that are peppered throughout the trailer) forces her to confront painful memories from her past.
“I can just save you some time. I’ve had over 30,000 drinks, I don’t really chew my food, and I’m, like, barreling toward 40,” Schumer deadpans to a doctor at the beginning of the trailer. When he clarifies that he was simply asking about preexisting conditions, she replies, “I’m a woman.”
It’s classic self-deprecating Schumer humor (pardon the rhyme), but the trailer also hints at a more tender side to the 10-episode series via a budding romance with a laidback farmer played by Michael Cera. Schumer has said that Cera’s character, John, was inspired by her real-life husband, Chris Fischer, who is also a farmer.
There will certainly be no shortage of jokes in Life & Beth—which mark’s Schumer’s return to television six years after Inside Amy Schumer ended—but it also touches on the dark realities of everyday life.
Along with Schumer and Cera, the cast includes Violet Young, Yamaneika Saunders, Susannah Flood, Kevin Kane, and Laura Benanti. Michael Rapaport rounds out the group as Beth’s dad.
Life & Beth premieres on Hulu on March 18.
