If you know your way around a Hollywood face sheet, chances are one character in Apple TV+’s “The Studio” might look and sound familiar to you: Catherine O’Hara’s Patty Leigh, where the “Schitt’s Creek” Emmy-winning actress is obviously doing a play on producer Amy Pascal. Especially in terms of Patty’s hairstyle, wanton tresses that feel like an extension of her frittering mind after she’s ousted from the fictional studio Continental Pictures.

Patty is introduced in Episode 1 of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg‘s series entreating new studio chief Matt Remnick (Rogen) to give her a three-year overall exclusive deal — a standard exiting strategy and one where Patty also asks for a “put picture,” or one she can greenlight without the studios’ permission. Given that Pascal is one of the most influential producers in town — and one of its most powerful women — and is also one whom...