My worst moment: When the highly versatile Zoë Chao met her match

Everywhere you look lately, Zoë Chao is there. Last year she starred in the Apple TV+ series “The Afterparty” and more recently she showed up in the rom-coms “Your Place or Mine” and “Somebody I Used to Know.” She also joined “Party Down,” the ensemble comedy about cater-waiters that is back on Starz after 13 years. Chao plays a new character: A chef who leans into experimental (possibly inedible) ideas instead of your more standard hors d’oeuvres.

“When I was auditioning, I was shooting ‘Your Place or Mine’ and I was staying in an Airbnb and the person above me was a personal chef,” said Chao, “and I told him I needed some help and did he have any tools I could use as props? And he said: ‘I’ll one up you. I’ve got tools and I’ve also got my chef’s uniform.’ So he gave me a hat and the shirt and a cravat and he got me ready for my audition, which was really sweet.”