Jenny Slate Interview on ‘Dying for Sex’ FX Series

Mere days after she wrapped Dying for Sex, Jenny Slate chopped off all her hair.

She’d had mainly the identical type all her grownup life, however by means of the method of filming the FX most cancers comedy, her locks started to take on new that means. “I felt that my long hair held the sadness, and I just needed to reboot my physicality,” she says, explaining how she bought what was left of her character out of her head. “Usually an extreme haircut means, ‘Oh hey, looks like you’re getting divorced!’ ” she notes. “But this was the first time I’ve changed my appearance because something good happened to me.”

And actually, Dying for Sex ought to be excellent to, and for, Jenny Slate. It’s the type of sure-to-get-noticed status restricted collection — debuting April 4 — that may doubtlessly alter an actor’s profession trajectory. Not that Slate, 42, wants a lot of a course correction. Over the previous decade or so, she’s stolen scenes on Parks and Recreation (as Mona-Lisa Saperstein), appeared in Marvel superhero movies (as a scientist finding out symbiotic life varieties in Venom), voiced Harley Quinn in a LEGO Batman film (and a slew of different animated characters, together with a bunny named Judy in Zootopia) and, most not too long ago, performed Blake Lively’s sister within the most-obsessed-about drama of 2024 (Slate declines to remark on the continued It Ends With Us feud or any of the accusations and counter-accusations her co-star and director Justin Baldoni have been flinging at one another).

Her position in Dying for Sex, although, undoubtedly seems like new floor. The miniseries, co-created by Liz Meriwether (New Girl, The Dropout) and Kim Rosenstock (GLOW, Only Murders within the Building), relies on the lifetime of the late Molly Kochan, performed within the present by Michelle Williams, a podcaster who obtained a terminal most cancers prognosis, determined to depart her unsatisfying marriage in order that she might pursue as a lot life-changing intercourse as she might bodily deal with, after which died together with her finest pal, Nikki — Slate’s character — by her facet.

“This show is a love story about a lot of things — a woman and her body, a woman and her neighbor, a woman and her vibrator,” Rosenstock says of the collection. “But ultimately, it’s about two best friends. And how friendship can be a life force.”

For Slate, an actress who lower her tooth on laughs, it’s a task that might open dramatic doorways. She started her profession within the Brooklyn comedy scene within the late aughts — after rising up in Milton, Massachusetts, and attending Columbia University — staging a weekly stand-up selection present known as Big Terrific, creating and voice-starring within the brief movie collection Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (which she later voiced and produced as an Oscar-nominated feature-length animated movie) and even, in 2009, spending a season on SNL.

Her first large appearing break got here in 2013 when she landed that half on Parks and Rec, which was shortly adopted by a task in Gillian Robespierre’s well-received indie drama Obvious Child, during which Slate starred as a comic whose one-night stand results in an unintended being pregnant after which an abortion (it gained her a Critics Choice award). She describes the remainder of her profession — which has additionally included two stand-up specials and two best-selling memoirs — as roughly a collection of serendipitous occasions.

“I am a person of many appetites and curiosities,” she says.

About a yr in the past, although, Slate got here to a choice about her future. She known as her brokers and instructed them that, going ahead, she solely wished to take part in artistic endeavors that allowed her to go, as she put it, “full wingspan.” Whether a daylong job or a starring position, she wished the expertise of actually unfurling herself in entrance of the digicam. She had no remorse or resentment towards what she’d performed up till that time — she says she was by no means unhappy with any of her roles — however the colliding elements of turning 40 and changing into a mom (she has a younger daughter with husband Ben Shattuck, a author and painter; they shuttle between houses in each Massachusetts and Los Angeles) altered her mind chemistry in a approach that made it unattainable to proceed as she was.

“I just got to a point where I felt like there was something in me that I’m trying to work out,” she says of her considering. “There was a new development that I urgently wanted to take for a spin.”

Just a number of days after that decision together with her brokers, she bought to take that spin. Meriwether and Rosenstock had been working on the Dying for Sex bundle since earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown, and at last all of the items have been coming collectively — besides for one. They nonetheless hadn’t discovered an actress for the position of Nikki.

“We needed someone who could draw out Michelle and bring her to life in ways she didn’t know she was capable of, who could be really kind and tender and also bring comic relief,” says Rosenstock. “We needed a unicorn.”

Slate’s brokers despatched her the scripts on a Thursday. By Tuesday, she was taking the prepare down from Massachusetts to New York for a chemistry learn. “I truly couldn’t believe she was willing to do that, because to me she’s like a giant movie star,” says Rosenstock. Slate remembers being extra nervous for the assembly than she’s been in years. “I haven’t felt like that since before speech team tournaments in high school when I would throw up on the bus,” she says. The sides have been from a scene within the first episode, when Molly tells Nikki that her breast most cancers has turn out to be metastasized and incurable. “At the end of her read, it was one of those moments where you’re like, ‘That’s it, that’s the show,’ ” remembers Meriwether.

Slate started capturing Dying for Sex shortly after wrapping It Ends With Us, a movie that’s been mired in controversy for the previous a number of months since Lively filed swimsuit towards Baldoni for sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear marketing campaign towards her, prompting Baldoni to file his personal counterclaims alleging defamation and extortion. Slate has not spoken publicly in regards to the feud — except for releasing a short assertion in help of Lively early on — and gained’t change that coverage throughout this interview.

“I don’t have anything to say about that,” she says when requested to check the 2 productions. “Everything is its personal factor. I poured my coronary heart into this work, and each minute of [Dying for Sex] was vital to me, and I simply need to discuss that.

“Anyone can ask anything,” she goes on when pressed about how she’ll preserve boundaries throughout purple carpets and junkets, “but my only responsibility is to speak about the work I’m there to promote. It was so important to me to get this job, so why would I spend time talking about anything but that?”

Clearly, nonetheless, the Dying for Sex set felt like a secure area to Slate, regardless that, because the title implies, a lot of the appearing concerned within the manufacturing required close-quarter intimacy. One of the episodes, for occasion, has Williams’ and Slate’s characters attending a kink occasion. To make the actors snug, the showrunners introduced in extra intimacy coordinators.

“The visual of all of them standing there, wearing earpieces, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m in a whole new world,’ ” says Meriwether with amusing. “We thought a lot about how to portray the sex on this show and how to really make it about the character and the story,” she provides. “We wanted you to know something new about the character by the end of the scene, as opposed to just watching sex.”

To preserve the temper mild, particularly in the course of the darkest scenes, the producers and stars would typically name in snack wagons as a deal with for the crew. “For some reason, it was very often an ice cream truck,” says Slate. “I keep in mind considering, ‘Wow, there are so many ice cream trucks in this sex cancer show.’ After we shot considered one of Molly’s remaining talking scenes, we have been all crying and hugging one another, and thru tears I used to be similar to, ‘Do you guys know if you’re going to get the honeycomb or the strawberry?’ “

No quantity of ice cream, although, might soften a few of the present’s emotional blows. The collection forces viewers — and its actors — to take care of a number of Big Topics: How can we spend our days? Who can we spend them with? How can we expertise pleasure? What can we take with us on the finish? As Williams’ Molly strikes towards the ultimate moments of her life, Slate’s character finds herself grappling together with her capacity to assist her pal with out abandoning herself. It’s heavy stuff, particularly for a comic.

“She knows when to make a joke or when to sit quietly and rub your shoulders,” Williams says in an electronic mail of how her co-star dealt with the depth of the venture. “Nothing escapes her.”

Slate’s personal confidence with the position was bolstered by director Shannon Murphy, who made it a degree to go with the actress on the benefit with which she tapped into emotional extremes. “I’ve had a lot of boyfriends say that to me, but I’ve never heard it put in a positive context,” Slate jokes. “I used to be like, ‘I’m lastly sporting this the fitting approach.’ “

Now that she’s on the opposite facet of this doubtlessly career-elevating endeavor, Slate’s brokers can most likely count on different cellphone calls: She has a brand new bar for the kind of onscreen position she’s keen to take. It’s not a lot about style, and even content material — although she does say she wouldn’t thoughts making a horror film, or a thriller, and could be particularly excited about any half reverse Grover or some other Muppet — however about the best way {that a} specific venture makes her really feel.

“I’m really glad about the life I’ve had so far,” she says. “It feels very lucky and good. But going ahead, I’m making an attempt to fly increased. I need to be in one thing that feels nearly as good because it felt to be part of Dying for Sex.“

This story appeared within the March 19 subject of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click here to subscribe.