‘Dying For Sex’ Star Michelle Williams Interview

When Michelle Williams first listened to Molly Kochan’s podcast Dying for Sex, her reaction to the story of a woman choosing to begin a journey of sexual exploration after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer took her by surprise. “This podcast was cracking me open in a way that is unusual for me,” she says. But as is the case with Williams’ selection process, it was the unsettlement that made the FX limited series adaptation so irresistible. “That’s really why you take a part, because you feel some deep connection, but also you are under the spell of its mystery and you go there to discover what it is that has moved you.”

DEADLINE: What was it about Molly Kochan’s journey that touched you on a personal level?

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: I really didn’t know at the time. I went back and I listened to it again, because I didn’t understand why I was having such a strong response. So, I listened to it again and I had the same reaction: cracked wide open. And I think in that moment I knew, OK, well this is for me.

DEADLINE: Were there themes or moments that touched you more than others? Were there parts of that journey that really hit you?

WILLIAMS: It was the whole thing for me. It was the female friendship. It was reclaiming a body. It was taking something to the very edge of experience. It was pleasure. It was medical process and healthcare systems. It all worked as a whole for me.

DEADLINE: This series doesn’t just feel like a woman’s final journey; it’s the full range of a lived experience.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, all rolled into one big, messy ball.

DEADLINE: What is the importance of being surrounded by the right people on a project like this?

WILLIAMS: You want to be excited to greet people. You want to look forward to the faces that you see, and the time between cut and action is also a very valuable part of your time and also a lot of where your workday is spent. A lot of your workday is spent waiting, preparing, talking, discussing, planning, brainstorming, which is also just your time on Earth as a human being. And so, to be with people in that space who you respect and admire and trust, it expands your human experience, not just the experience of the specific project that you’ve gathered to do, but it makes your life as a whole more meaningful and feel like time well spent.

DEADLINE: What was it about series creators Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock that made you realize you, as lead and EP, and the show, were in the right hands?

WILLIAMS: The scripts. I read that first episode in tandem with listening to the podcasts, and I thought, “My god, I think I’ve just looked at a perfect thing.” The way that it was able to balance themes and tones and ideas, I thought, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like this before.” And that’s a real guiding principle. I knew just based on the work that they had done, and what was in front of me, that this was a journey. These were people I wanted to walk down the road with.

DEADLINE: How did the casting of Jenny Slate as Molly’s best friend Nikki Boyer come about?

WILLIAMS: All of us were such huge fans and admirers of her incredibly varied body of work. And then we had an instant kind of connection point and chemistry, really. And it’s very easy to fall in love with her and want her to be your best friend.

DEADLINE: I feel like that is the love story of the show. Did it need a person that you knew that you would gel with instantly?

WILLIAMS: I think so. I think it’s a kind of intrinsic understanding and also curiosity and desire to meet in the middle and find what’s discovered in the space between two people and how you can enrich each other. And I think that feeling was very much present in the room.

DEADLINE: In the show your character chooses to die with her best friend, telling Rob Delaney’s character, “I don’t want to die with you. I want to have a dog with you.” That was the part where I thought, I have never, until this show, thought about who I want to die with.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. “I don’t want to die with you.” That struck me. That line was so resonant because, similarly, I hadn’t asked myself that, but at other points in my life I know I would’ve turned to my best friend and said, “Everybody else out of the way.” Like, “You and me,” right? So often, the A storyline is romantic love, and this idea that, actually, a platonic friendship can be so full of passion, that it is befitting of end of life, that’s another thing that has been so resonant for people. It really forced people to ask questions that they never would, or look at death in new ways.

DEADLINE: Also, the fact that her journey is sexual rather than going on a road trip, which for some reason feels like the way the end of life is often portrayed in film and television.

WILLIAMS: I think the thing that it’s doing is that it’s taking death on your own terms rather than something that happens to you, that overwhelms you and does itself to you. She managed somehow to grab hold of it and make it what she wanted it to be. It was her own ending. I find that incredibly moving and so brave, and a testament to this very real woman, this real Molly, this real Nikki. That is how they took hold of the worst possible news, which is going to happen to all of us, and made it theirs.

DEADLINE: For some of the sex scenes, you worked with a body rig with a camera. How was that used?

WILLIAMS: I loved that thing. God, I loved that thing. It was called SnorriCam, and it’s a light rig. And I wore the camera, it’s like a teeny tiny little steady cam. You’re performing and you’re operating, so you’re both in the throes of the performance, but you’re also having the control of the camera, and I just loved it. I kept saying, “Can this be in SnorriCam?” It’s meant to alter the perspective of how you’re experiencing what the character is going through. I like learning new things, and this is a new phase for me, being a producer on a show. Stepping into roles that are slightly outside of what I do normally has been exciting to just grow these parts of myself and figure out where I feel passionate about.

DEADLINE: I’ve never heard of a SnorriCam before. Is that something that is commonly used?

WILLIAMS: I’d never heard of it either.

DEADLINE: We often talk about sex scenes being through a male gaze, and to some degree not even knowing what a female gaze means because we’re so used to seeing things a certain way. Do you feel like being in control of the camera changes that perspective?

WILLIAMS: I always feel very neutrally towards the camera itself. I don’t have an awareness. I try to not have an awareness of how it sees me, but what I do have an awareness of is who is behind the camera. And that’s the relationship that I actually really enjoy bringing into the scene. I feel a tremendous closeness with the men and women who are behind the camera because I feel like it goes to their eye first and they’re in the scene with you. And so it was interesting to have myself as that person.

DEADLINE: Did you then look at the footage after the scene?

WILLIAMS: No, I’m not at this point able to watch my performances. It’s a skillset I would like to grow, but right now I don’t have that ability.

DEADLINE: In terms of portraying the sexual fulfillment scenes, did that make you nervous as an actor?

WILLIAMS: You know what? I think both things are possible. I think it’s possible to be both scared and brave at the same time, but to let the right one win.

DEADLINE: Are you in general a self-conscious actor?

WILLIAMS: No, I don’t think so. I hope not.

DEADLINE: These experiences are so intimate and personal. Does it feel technical on camera or does it feel like something you’re able to give into?

WILLIAMS: I think I’m always looking to let go, relent, allow. That’s the experience that I want to have between action and cut, and I aim to let it be a place that is both conscious, but free from judgment.

DEADLINE: How vulnerable do you have to be in those moments, and do you control the environment so that you feel safer?

WILLIAMS: There’s a way that you want to set the room in terms of your relationships with the real people who are there. Hair, makeup, camera, boom, first AD — the people that are having this experience with you in real time. That’s really what I’m more concerned with. When it goes out into the world, it doesn’t belong to me anymore and it’s no longer my experience, it’s an audience’s experience. But what I really care about is that room, and I care about the safety and the sanctity of that room, the same way that I care about the safety and the sanctity of the set at large. I need a safe space where I can work, and now that I have begun to produce, my great passion is to expand the safe space and be responsible for that. Yeah, it’s very meaningful to me.

DEADLINE: Ten years ago, I don’t think that we would have been so concerned with a sense of safety on set, in terms of vulnerability and comfort. Have you sensed a change or is this you as a boss creating it?

WILLIAMS: I think that we’ve seen these two movements, between #MeToo and the social justice reckoning, I think that there is a greater consciousness. And the Women’s March of 2017. In my lifetime, I hadn’t seen change in the air like that. So, do I think it’s still living and breathing? Yes. And, for me, it feels very personal. I’ve been doing this since I was 12. I’m 44. That’s 32 years. So for me, my greatest accomplishment would be to be a part of social change rather than just my own personal growth as an actor. So these sets, these environments, are where I can practice that.

DEADLINE: In terms of Molly’s journey, did you take away lessons about the fragility of life or about sexual awakening?

WILLIAMS: It really continues to evolve as I hear from people who have seen the show. And now what I think I’m really connecting to are other people’s stories, and trying to understand how the show is being received as a healing modality. That’s what I’m holding onto right now.

DEADLINE: What’s next? Are you going to be taking a break?

WILLIAMS: I’m about to start shooting a movie right now called A Place in Hell. I’m going home tomorrow to start shooting on Sunday. So, it’s just a New York job with Andrew Scott and Daisy Edgar-Jones and written and directed by a woman named Chloe Domont.

DEADLINE: Is there a professional challenge that really drew you to that?

WILLIAMS: That’s what I’m about to go find out.

DEADLINE: Is the Peggy Lee film happening or did it happen?

WILLIAMS: No, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen and not as far as I… I don’t know. Not as far as I know.

DEADLINE: What is it that draws you right now to projects?

WILLIAMS: It needs to work for my family. It needs to work for my life. So location is pretty crucial for me. And then it just needs to have that quality that I was talking about earlier where it’s like I know that I’m going to do it before I can say that I’m going to do it. It’s like an impulse that I can’t control.