For Michelle Williams, Dying on ‘Dying for Sex’ Was “Therapeutic”

Michelle Williams knows what it’s like to die and come back again.

Dying for Sex stars Williams as Molly Kochan, who leaves her marriage to explore her sexuality after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The series, inspired by a true story and created by Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock, also stars Jenny Slate as Molly’s best friend, Nikki, and Rob Delaney as a neighbor of Molly’s who becomes her unlikely sexual partner. In the final installment of the eight-episode miniseries, Williams delivers a tour de force performance as Molly says her goodbyes, enjoys her wild last few days (including trippy hallucinations)—and dies. The emotional finale filled Williams with appreciation for her own life, and the fact that she could get out of that hospital bed at the end of each day. “I get to wash off some of the makeup that’s meant to make me look unwell, and I get to walk on my two strong legs,” she tells Little Gold Men. “I get to leave this place and go back to my home. That’s the part that I take away.”

Dying for Sex, which brought Williams back to acting after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, earned nine Emmy nominations, with two honoring Williams: outstanding limited or anthology series, as she served as an executive producer, and lead actress in a limited or anthology series. She previously won that same acting award in 2019, for her role on Fosse/Verdon.

Williams—who admits she’s struggling a bit with “mom brain” these days, caring for her five-month-old baby along with her three older children—spoke to Vanity Fair about Dying for Sex’s flying penises, what it’s like to die over and over again onscreen, and what keeps her optimistic about the film and TV industry. (Listen or read on below.)

Vanity Fair: I love the way this show captured female friendship.

Michelle Williams: That was a really big weigh-in for me, because my female friendships had been the stabilizing force of my entire life. And when I would talk to those female friends about the idea of doing this show, they just got this misty, far-away look, and they said, “Please do this for us. For how much we love each other, and for who we are to each other, and how passionate a friendship can be.” I just related to it so much.

I assume you’ve heard from a lot of people since the show has come out. Have you had any reactions that really stuck with you or surprised you?

Every single one of them, it’s so moving. I think Nikki Boyer told me about a pair of best friends who watched it in hospice while one of them was passing. That I never could have anticipated. And they sent Nikki a picture of them watching it, both with huge smiles on their faces.

I listened to Molly and Nikki’s podcast when it came out, and I remember finishing it and crying my eyes out. What was it like when you first listened to it?

Same. It was a gut punch for me. I didn’t know about the show when it first came out. I was introduced to it alongside the first draft of the first episode that Kim and Liz sent to me. I finished it and thought, Hang on a second. Is that as good as I think it is? I need to go back and read it immediately again. And I did the same thing with the podcast: What happened to me? Why did it overwhelm me to the point of weeping? That’s so unusual. So I immediately went back to it and listened to the whole thing over again, and wept for a second time. So then I thought, Okay, here we go. I’m in.

Was there anything about this character that felt hard to wrap your head around?

No. I mean, there were things that I was nervous about or unsure of how to do, but I really embraced her wholeheartedly from the very beginning. Such a beautiful record was left for us—not only the podcast, but also Molly wrote a book. We don’t include that in our show, but she really wanted to finish her book before she died, and she did. So I also had that to go from. The questions that I had, the answers were in front of me.

The tone of this is tricky; it is a very sad story, but there’s so much humor. What were the conversations like with Kim and Elizabeth about getting that right?

It was just that: “But what’s the tone?” “But what’s the tone?” “Seriously, you guys, what is the tone? Because this is a lot of things, and so just tell me what the tone is.” And they were like, “No, we can’t, really. It’s just all of this muchness. You have to just embrace that, and let’s call that the tone.” And so I finally dropped that question a few episodes in and just said, “Okay, I’m gonna go with this big, big soup that we’re making with so many ingredients. I hope it comes out really flavorful and bright, and not muddy.”

You’ve spoken about how you had an intimacy coordinator on the series, but what was the collaboration like between you and Rob Delaney on the more intimate scenes?

I think that when two people look at a piece of material like this and each decide to embark upon it, there’s an immediate groundwork of trust and camaraderie and love, because it’s going to require you to be so intimate and so vulnerable with each other. Rob and I have connective tissue, and that keeps things stable but pliable underneath us.

Were there times either of you doubted the choices or the direction in which a scene was going and had to work through it?

No. I think that there were things we had nerves about doing. It’s hard to get to the end of a project when you’ve spent so much time on it. It’s hard to get to the end of a project when the end is somebody dying. I think that we were both kind of digging in our heels, wishing we could put the brakes on and not really get to episode seven, even though everything’s been leading up to episode seven. And that was painful. It was painful to see it coming. And these two people were gonna have to say goodbye to each other. They were gonna find fulfillment, and the thing that they had been mutually questing for was going to be satisfied. But then they would have to say goodbye, and Rob and Michelle would have to say goodbye. And that’s hard.

The final episode makes a lot of bold choices, like the hallucination scene where stuff’s flying off the walls and there’s a flying penis. What did you think when you read it?

We didn’t have all these scripts when we started. We started with three scripts. So you would be receiving this information in real time while you’re engaged on one episode and the work of that episode. Then you get the information about what’s happening a little bit further in the future. When eight landed, we’d all been hotly anticipating it: How are we gonna land the plane? What’s gonna happen? We were in mutual awe of what Liz and Kim had dared to dream of, i.e., flying penises. And torn up and sad, and ultimately excited to go get to work.

What was it like to get into the headspace for the death scene?

That was quite a space to walk into and out of. They built this hospital room with a waiting room, and I saw it for the first time on camera when Molly is wheeled into where she’s going to die. It was emotional. I’ll tell you what, though: When you die on camera a few times and have the experience of people grieving over you, the feeling of standing up and walking out of there is really therapeutic.

Wow, I never thought about that.

I have a new lease on life. I’m a new person. I won’t make the same mistakes. I know why I’m here.

Do you feel like what you choose to say yes to is different now than earlier in your career?

It is just an instinct—guided by location.

Right. That family that you want to be near.

Right. It’s an instinct that happens without my presiding over it, and it happens or it doesn’t. And so it’s an easy yes or an easy no. And then there’s location.

The industry has changed so much since you started. What keeps you optimistic about a part of this storytelling world?

I suppose it’s that people continue to seem to want stories, and crave them, and return to them. The formatting is different, but the basic human need is there.