Jenny Slate Interview on ‘Dying for Intercourse’ FX Sequence

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

She’d had principally the identical type all her grownup life, however by the method of filming the FX most cancers comedy, her locks started to tackle new which means. “I felt that my lengthy hair held the disappointment, and I simply wanted to reboot my physicality,” she says, explaining how she bought what was left of her character out of her head. “Normally an excessive haircut means, ‘Oh hey, seems to be such as you’re getting divorced!’ ” she notes. “However this was the primary time I’ve modified my look as a result of one thing good occurred to me.”

And actually, Dying for Intercourse 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 kinds 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 just lately, performed Blake Full of life’s sister within the most-obsessed-about drama of 2024 (Slate declines to touch upon 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 Intercourse, although, positively seems like new floor. The miniseries, co-created by Liz Meriwether (New Lady, The Dropout) and Kim Rosenstock (GLOW, Solely Murders within the Constructing), relies on the lifetime of the late Molly Kochan, performed within the present by Michelle Williams, a podcaster who acquired a terminal most cancers analysis, 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 along with her finest pal, Nikki — Slate’s character — by her facet.

“This present is a love story about plenty of issues — a girl and her physique, a girl and her neighbor, a girl and her vibrator,” Rosenstock says of the collection. “However finally, it’s about two finest pals. And the way friendship is usually a life power.”

For Slate, an actress who reduce her tooth on laughs, it’s a job 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 College — staging a weekly stand-up selection present referred to as Large Terrific, creating and voice-starring within the quick movie collection Marcel the Shell With Sneakers 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 massive performing break got here in 2013 when she landed that half on Parks and Rec, which was rapidly adopted by a job in Gillian Robespierre’s well-received indie drama Apparent Youngster, wherein Slate starred as a comic whose one-night stand results in an unintended being pregnant after which an abortion (it gained her a Critics Alternative award). She describes the remainder of her profession — which has additionally included two stand-up specials and two best-selling memoirs — as kind of a collection of serendipitous occasions.

“I’m an individual of many appetites and curiosities,” she says.

A couple of yr in the past, although, Slate got here to a call about her future. She referred to as her brokers and informed them that, going ahead, she solely needed to take part in inventive endeavors that allowed her to go, as she put it, “full wingspan.” Whether or not a daylong job or a starring position, she needed the expertise of actually unfurling herself in entrance of the digicam. She had no remorse or resentment towards what she’d carried out up till that time — she says she was by no means unhappy with any of her roles — however the colliding components of turning 40 and changing into a mom (she has a younger daughter with husband Ben Shattuck, a author and painter; they shuttle between properties in each Massachusetts and Los Angeles) altered her mind chemistry in a method that made it unattainable to proceed as she was.

“I simply bought to a degree the place I felt like there was one thing in me that I’m making an attempt to work out,” she says of her considering. “There was a brand new growth that I urgently needed to take for a spin.”

Just some days after that decision along with her brokers, she bought to take that spin. Meriwether and Rosenstock had been engaged on the Dying for Intercourse bundle since earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown, and eventually all of the items had been coming collectively — apart from one. They nonetheless hadn’t discovered an actress for the position of Nikki.

“We would have liked somebody who might draw out Michelle and convey her to life in methods she didn’t know she was able to, who may very well be actually sort and tender and likewise convey comedian reduction,” says Rosenstock. “We would have liked 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 really couldn’t imagine she was keen to do this, as a result of to me she’s like an enormous film star,” says Rosenstock. Slate recollects being extra nervous for the assembly than she’s been in years. “I haven’t felt like that since earlier than speech staff tournaments in highschool after I would throw up on the bus,” she says. The edges had been from a scene within the first episode, when Molly tells Nikki that her breast most cancers has change into metastasized and incurable. “On the finish of her learn, it was a type of moments the place you’re like, ‘That’s it, that’s the present,’ ” recollects Meriwether.

Slate started capturing Dying for Intercourse shortly after wrapping It Ends With Us, a movie that’s been mired in controversy for the previous a number of months since Full of life filed go well with 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 concerning the feud — apart from releasing a short assertion in assist of Full of life early on — and gained’t change that coverage throughout this interview.

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

“Anybody can ask something,” she goes on when pressed about how she’ll preserve boundaries throughout crimson carpets and junkets, “however my solely duty is to talk about the work I’m there to advertise. It was so essential to me to get this job, so why would I spend time speaking about something however that?”

Clearly, nonetheless, the Dying for Intercourse set felt like a secure house to Slate, though, because the title implies, a lot of the performing concerned within the manufacturing required close-quarter intimacy. One of many episodes, as an example, has Williams’ and Slate’s characters attending a kink occasion. To make the actors comfy, the showrunners introduced in further intimacy coordinators.

“The visible of all of them standing there, sporting earpieces, I used to be like, ‘Wow, I’m in a complete new world,’ ” says Meriwether with amusing. “We thought lots about how one can painting the intercourse on this present and how one can actually make it concerning the character and the story,” she provides. “We needed you to know one thing new concerning the character by the top of the scene, versus simply watching intercourse.”

To maintain the temper gentle, particularly throughout the darkest scenes, the producers and stars would typically name in snack wagons as a deal with for the crew. “For some motive, it was fairly often an ice cream truck,” says Slate. “I bear in mind considering, ‘Wow, there are such a lot of ice cream vehicles on this intercourse most cancers present.’ After we shot considered one of Molly’s closing talking scenes, we had been all crying and hugging one another, and thru tears I used to be identical to, ‘Do you guys know if you happen to’re going to get the honeycomb or the strawberry?’ “

No quantity of ice cream, although, might soften among the present’s emotional blows. The collection forces viewers — and its actors — to cope with a number of Large Subjects: 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 along with her capacity to assist her pal with out abandoning herself. It’s heavy stuff, particularly for a comic.

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

Slate’s personal confidence with the position was bolstered by director Shannon Murphy, who made it some extent to go with the actress on the convenience with which she tapped into emotional extremes. “I’ve had plenty of boyfriends say that to me, however I’ve by no means heard it put in a constructive context,” Slate jokes. “I used to be like, ‘I’m lastly sporting this the suitable method.’ “

Now that she’s on the opposite facet of this doubtlessly career-elevating endeavor, Slate’s brokers can in all probability anticipate different telephone 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 can be particularly inquisitive about any half reverse Grover or every other Muppet — however about the best way {that a} specific undertaking makes her really feel.

“I’m actually glad concerning the life I’ve had to date,” she says. “It feels very lucky and good. However going ahead, I’m making an attempt to fly increased. I wish to be in one thing that feels pretty much as good because it felt to be part of Dying for Intercourse.“

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