Dying For Sex
Jenny Slate, and Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock: On Throwing Out the Rules | 9
Wed, 16 Apr 2025
Comedian Jenny Slate sits down with Nikki Boyer to dish about playing the fictional "Nikki Boyer" in FX's "Dying for Sex”. Jenny opens up about smashing taboos, celebrating the power of female friendship, and her journey into the role's most vulnerable moments. Then, showrunners and close friends Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock share how they transformed the podcast into a television series, from navigating emotional depths of the characters to keeping the heart of Nikki and Molly’s friendship at the center. Wondery+ on WonderyWondery+ on Apple PodcastsWondery+ on SpotifySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Jenny Slate and what role does she play in 'Dying for Sex'?
One day, Molly and I were sitting in our hospital room, eating pudding and talking about the important stuff, you know? Like, hey, if Dying for Sex ever became a TV show, who would play us? And Molly had a lot of opinions about who would play her. She said no pop stars, no rom-com fluff. Like she wanted somebody with depth. Someone who was a force. Someone, well, like Michelle Williams.
And when it came to me, she said, oh, you'll play yourself. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which was really sweet. But let's be real. I'm not famous enough to play myself on TV, which is kind of funny. But it got me thinking, since I couldn't play myself, what would I want from the person who did?
Definitely someone honest, someone weird, someone who laughs hard and maybe talks a little too fast when they're nervous. Someone who gets that life is messy and ridiculous and kind of beautiful. And then Jenny Slate walked in and she nailed it without even trying to be me. She was everything I had hoped for and somehow more.
You may know Jenny and her voice from Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, I Want You Back, Obvious Child, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. She has two hit stand-up specials, Stage Fright and Season Professional, and she's written two books, Little Weirds and Life Form. Literally, what doesn't this woman do?
And I am so completely honored that she played me, because honestly, I kind of want to be her when I grow up. I talked to Jenny about stepping into my shoes and bringing this story to life on FX's Dying for Sex.
Yeah, I liked her courage. I liked her instant boil anger because I don't express anger in the same way. And I really needed that moment to be able to be loud and unapologetic. I loved that about the character. Oh, I love that.
Yeah. Later in the episode, I'll talk to Liz Merriweather and Kim Rosenstock, who are the co-creators, writers, and executive producers of the TV series. We'll be talking about friendship and not cutting away when things get uncomfortable.
We did the scene that's from the podcast where she pees on a guy in a bathtub and like she had a rig taped to her leg. And then you're just like, I can't believe that like I'm doing this. I can't believe that this is my job.
This is episode two, Jenny Slate and Liz Merriweather and Kim Rosenstock on Throwing Out the Rules.
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Chapter 2: How did Jenny Slate prepare to portray Nikki in the series?
That's one thing that's pretty accurate.
Yeah, I believe so. I think that I asked you that when I first met you.
So let's talk about the moment that we did first meet.
Yeah.
Because it was kind of trippy. Right? I think so. So they said, I'm going to bring you over to Jenny's trailer. They opened the trailer. door and I'm in my actual normal Nicki person attire. Yes. And you are in the Nicki costume. But our shirts were the same. The same. And we were like, what? And we just were smiling and hugging. And I'm like, we have to take a picture of this.
We're literally wearing the same shirt. Like, how did this happen? And immediately you felt like someone I had known for a very, very long time.
I felt the same. Really? Yeah. Just easy.
Yeah. Yeah. And then we just sat on the couch and we talked and you were changing clothes and I was looking at the script. It was like we had been girlfriends and we were in our bedroom. Total comfort. I loved it. I'm so glad. And I feel like Molly kind of brought us together in a weird way.
Yeah, I mean, that day when we filmed the first scene, which was actually way into the Shoot. The first scene where you see Nikki and Molly together, I feel like, you know, because that scene was sort of looming. It was like it hadn't been shot, and then it got pushed, and it was like, this is a really hard scene. But on that day, it had already started to be spring, and there was a beautiful...
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Chapter 3: What are the emotional challenges and intimate moments in filming 'Dying for Sex'?
Do you have Harry Potter lightning bolts on your surgical hat? Was there anything that you learned from doing the show, maybe about yourself or maybe looking at something differently that you didn't see before?
Yeah. I mean, this might seem like it's coming from left field. And also one would think like you learn from the character you play, but in fact, you learn from everyone in the story. At least I do. And I thought a lot about Molly and what she was unable to confront for so long. You begin to understand that.
Molly believes in an ever-present, always threatening, like tightly, the springs are ready to spring off badness. And the badness is going to come out. And it's already directed her and her life. And when I watched that, I started thinking about my own fear of death.
upsetting people, my own fear of being criticized, and how that can make me impatient, angry, and scared sometimes, even if I don't express it the way that Molly expresses her own anger when she eventually does, or how Nikki immediately expresses anger. And I really thought about it and I was watching Molly and watching Michelle.
And I got to this really weird place of unexpected catharsis, which was like, oh, I think I've been thinking that there's something deeply wrong with me for basically my entire life. And I was able to really start to let that go during this work. Anyway, I've been thinking of the difference between...
something bad happened or I even did something bad and I'm bad yeah is so important and you can intellectualize it and you can suggest that other people go you know and understand that and live by it but I actually don't think I have been living according to that line of thinking until I made this show Oh, I love that.
You want to know what one of my favorite scenes is? Yes, I should have asked. You're sitting on the park bench and you stand up and across the street is Molly's first doctor that misdiagnosed her breast cancer. And he comes walking out and you scream, I forgive you. Yeah. I saw the words on the page and I read it and I thought, oh, how beautiful.
But when I saw you perform it, I was so moved by it because your performance was so raw and so real. And it's also something that I never got to do. So in a way, watching you do it in person gave me that a little bit of that experience of being able to do that. So thank you.
I'm glad. Yeah, that was one of my favorite scenes when I read the script. And I actually think that that scene was the scene that when I read it, I started to have that feeling of like, oh man, I would love to be able to do that.
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Chapter 4: How does humor and friendship influence the storytelling in the series?
I think both of us were like, holy shit, we have this opportunity to make a show about women in their 40s and sex and bodies. And FX said we could do whatever we wanted. This is an amazing, maybe once in a lifetime opportunity.
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Chapter 5: What insights do Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock bring as creators of the show?
How cool would that have been, though? You would see, you would, like, be inside Molly's body.
I think both of us were like, holy shit, we have this opportunity to make a show about women in their 40s and sex and bodies. And FX said we could do whatever we wanted. And so it was like, oh, my God. It almost felt like paralyzing at a certain point.
Right, right.
This is an amazing, maybe once in a lifetime opportunity. And there's so many things I think both of us wanted to do and say about this. But ultimately, the friendship and the love story of the friendship, I think, was like a huge through line that I think we just kept coming back to over and over again.
I just also want to say, Nikki, you gave us like an enormous amount of freedom and grace of just like being able to.
kind of make mistakes but also kind of needing to do our own work on who the characters are and there's some big differences between the Nikki character in the show and you and also Molly you know there are differences but I think our North Star was the spirit of Molly in the podcast like how do we get the spirit of what she was trying to find in herself and into the show.
The other thing I wanted to just like pinpoint is how hard we worked on that first scene in front of the bodega where Molly tells Nikki that she has cancer. I think that kind of encapsulates how hard the sort of tone of the show was. And it was like, okay, we are starting this show with a scene where one woman tells her best friend that she has cancer, but it needs to be funny.
Because it's a very serious... Like, we don't want to ever feel like we're making light of it or making... It's not funny. It's really awful.
I love that scene because it showed everything you needed to know about those two characters in that moment. Like, Molly's just staring at Nikki lovingly while she's getting this horrible news. And Nikki's losing her shit because she's mad at the world. And I just... You guys nailed that scene so much. And I just... I want to know, like, the relationship between Molly and Nikki.
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Chapter 6: How did Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock's friendship shape the show's development?
And, you know, I think it was just, we tried to kind of be aware of that when we were shooting, like that we weren't going to shoot it in the same way that I feel like every time I saw a sex scene growing up, it was, like, two people kissing, and then it would, like, the camera, like, pans off of them and, like, pans back into that, you know?
Or it's just, like, everything is glowy and in a beautiful light. And then when you actually have sex, you're like, where's that? Where's my beautiful light? Yeah. There's been some times where I've been like wishing that the camera would pan away, like metaphorically, whatever.
I feel like there was this feeling that like Molly had been so fearless and like on the podcast, you can hear that fearlessness. So like, how do we show this sex in a way that feels fearless, but is also highly conscious of everyone's experience and wanting to make sure everybody feels good while being
making it um and she was so non-judgmental i mean molly was so incredible in that way and i i think it was so important to us that we went into everything with that feeling of like we're not making fun of people's desires we're making we're just living in the moment and the full humanity of it and the silliness of it and the the joy of it and i think i I mean, I really wanted it to be hot, too.
I wanted to find a way that all of that could also be very hot and fun.
Well, let's get into the nudity. I mean, I really want to talk about the male frontal nudity because I feel like we've come to really expect shows to just naturally show female nudity. Like, oh, this is what we do. It's a no brainer. We show the ladies parts. But I think this really took a different approach.
And I just would love to know what kind of conversations you had about that choice, because I love it.
I think it was more just really based on the character and what had gone on with Molly. Because I think Molly loved lingerie. Molly loved to kind of, like, perform while she was having these moments with these guys. And so it actually felt right in this framework of her being in the more, you know, top or sort of dom position and the man being more submissive.
It felt right that there was male nudity and not female nudity. But... Yeah, I mean, it's a show about bodies.
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