Award-winning Italian actress Valeria Golino was already a big fan of Apple TV+'s The Morning Show. Watching the first season of the hit series during the pandemic in Italy "became a little happening between me and my friends, all locked in our houses and apartments," Golino, 56, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "It was, 'Who are you rooting for? Alex or Bradley?'"

So when Golina received a call to audition for the show's second season, she jumped at the chance. "I mean, I had to change my schedule a lot, but there was no way I was not going to do it," she says. Though she first made an impression on America audiences playing Tom Cruise's love interest in 1988's Rain Man and holding her own with Charlie Sheen the 1991 comedy Hot Shots!, Golino is making her U.S. television premiere with her role as a documentary filmmaker who befriends Steve Carell's character in The Morning Show.