As published in CLAUDIA

I’ve lived with the word Cancer in my family since I was very young, having lost both my grandmothers and great-aunt to the disease. It’s never easy. But one detail left a deep impression on me when I was little: a TV movie, made with a soundtrack by John Denver called Sunshine. My grandmother, who was already undergoing chemotherapy, was so moved that she bought the soundtrack and we would listen to it all the time. Sunshine was about a young woman in her early 20s who is diagnosed with cancer and, in a fight against time, decides to record diaries on cassette tapes so that her daughter can hear her thoughts, advice, and curiosities since she will no longer be around when the girl grows up. The early 1990s film My Life, starring Nicole Kidman and Michael Keaton, is the male version of a similar story. That’s why when I heard about the series Dying for Sex starring Michele Williams, I had a paradoxical reaction of strangeness and excitement. The series, which is inspired by a true story by Molly Kochan, is taken from the Wondery podcast she created with her best friend, Nikki Boyer. After Molly is diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, she decides to leave her husband Steve, and begins to explore the full breadth and complexity of her sexual desires for the first time in her life. No one can deny that it’s a bold and different concept.

The podcast was a huge success before Molly passed away in 2019 at just 45 years old, and was brought to life by two amazing writers and friends – Kim Rosenstock (Glow, The New Girl and Only Murders in the Building) and Elizabeth Meriwether (The New Girl and The Dropout) – who immediately understood the power of the story that was there. Faced with imminent death, Molly decided to live life to the fullest, sexually too, and recorded her adventures in the podcast which was a huge success. In it, she describes her experiences exploring her sexual desires after her diagnosis, including dating and getting involved with new partners, with funny and sincere moments that highlight the challenges and joys of seeking intimacy. Several episodes delve into dialogues with sexual partners about boundaries, desires, and the emotional complexities of intimacy when one partner is dealing with cancer. Stories emphasize the importance of communication in relationships.

Sensitively conveying such a current and relevant story required talent behind the camera and on screen, which is why the presence of Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate proved to be so crucial to ensuring authenticity was present throughout the narrative. Just before the series premiered, I spoke exclusively to CLAUDIA with Kim and Elizabeth, going over all the challenges and surprises of a series that will certainly be present at the 2025 and 2026 awards.

CLAUDIA: Can I give you a heads-up? You made me cry and laugh.
LIZ: Sorry for making you cry, but I hope it was good. [laughs]

CLAUDIA: Molly’s initiative to make a podcast and record her last years kind of put me on a set that I lived with my grandmother and an old movie, Sunshine, so I was afraid I would cry a lot, but since I didn’t know the podcast, it was a surprise! How did you discover Molly’s story through the podcast?
LIZ: A producer friend of mine sent me the podcast and I just listened to the whole thing in one night. I felt like I was crying. And I was! Everything you just said: crying, laughing. I’ll admit that as a bit of a prude, I was shocked too. But at the same time, I felt like I had just opened my heart. I felt so alone. It felt so deeply, so wonderfully human and real and I was so excited to tell her story and also to put these two women on television because I hadn’t seen characters like them before. Both dealing with some of these issues that felt like really new territory, you know? An exciting challenge. Because I worked with Kim for almost the entirety of The New Girl and we’ve been friends since I was 20, I sent the podcast to her.

CLAUDIA: There was a connection to Molly and Nikki’s friendship, right?
LIZ: Yeah. Like, I knew it would always be fun, and I would always be laughing with her. The friend that whenever we get together, we lift each other up, we have fun. That was an exciting aspect of the project.

KIM: Yeah, being able to do a show with a friend about two friends. But for me, when Liz called me and asked if I would listen to the podcast about a woman who is dying of cancer, I was hesitant. It was the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic and I thought it was a kind of dark time. I didn’t know if we should or if it would be good for my mental health. But then she said, “But she’s also having a lot of sex,” and I was like, “Oh, absolutely! Send it to me immediately!” [laughs]. The sex was really what drew me in, and what I find so exciting about telling this story is that it’s such a unique and unusual story about a woman who’s dying but also having a sexual awakening at the same time. It felt like a huge challenge to portray that, and I felt like there was so much we could explore.

CLAUDIA: Since Molly passed away in 2019, did you get to meet Nikki? What was her reaction?
LIZ: Yeah, we never met Molly in person, but we did meet Nikki in 2020. It was amazing to have her in the process because she does such an incredible job of being Molly’s advocate and keeping her memory with us in this beautiful way. We were so aware of her bravery, of both her bravery, of putting the story out there and always wanting to be truthful. We always wanted to feel like it was something Molly would have approved of. That it was right.

CLAUDIA: I felt like her spirit was really there. Which brings me to the casting. How did Michelle Williams come into the project? She looked so much like Molly physically!
KIM: Honestly, it was like a dream casting that I don’t think any of us ever thought we would get. The absolute ideal person for the role was Michelle Williams and it was completely amazing and shocking when she wanted to meet with us and told us that she had been impacted by the podcast in the same way we had, that she felt this deep connection with Molly. And I think it was pretty clear almost immediately that no one else could play the role because Michelle felt like it was exactly the kind of character she wanted to play, with themes that interested her.

LIZ: Molly’s vulnerability and courage really spoke to Michelle as a woman and as an artist. She’s so funny in this and we don’t get a lot of chances to really see how funny Michelle can be. I loved that she was so excited and understood what we were trying to do with the comedy, to be in this joyful and human place honoring Molly. Michelle just jumped in and took it all head-on. There’s no way we could have done the show without her.

CLAUDIA: Yeah, the show touches on so many taboo subjects and such timely and sensitive topics. To go on that quest when you have such limited time and look as positively as you can through it. And you had to cram that into eight episodes. What was that like?

LIZ: I think the way some of the “kinkier” sex on the show has historically been portrayed on television and in movies has been a little bit from a distance, like, ‘Oh, these people are kind of weird or problematic for wanting that.’ Early on, we decided we were never going to take that approach: in a dramatic or comedic way. We never wanted to make it the butt of the joke. It was always going to embrace all the chaos and silliness and weirdness of trying to find yourself sexually, but never make fun of it. It was a helpful way to get through some of those moments, and I hope that comes across to the audience. Wait, what was the question? [laughs] The challenge! Yeah, there are a lot of taboos, but I think we were very conscious of wanting to take away some of the shame around them. It was really inspired by Molly because Molly was so open with these men and non-judgmental. It’s so moving. For some of these men, it was life-changing to meet Molly, even if it was just briefly because she kind of accepted their desire without judgment. And we tried to have that attitude as well. Although, yeah, there were definitely times when I was covering my face with my hands. [laughs]

KIM: Yeah [laughs], but because we had this incredible opportunity — as women — to do a show about women and their bodies with a network that was really creatively supportive, it was amazing. We hadn’t seen sex like that before or shown it like that. For example, being able to show a woman masturbating with a vibrator and actually show it all uncut. These are things that we’re only used to seeing the beginning and the aftermath, but not the actual thing. And so I think that was really exciting. And this idea that, like, you know, we could show all these different ways that people find pleasure and all these different ways that desire can manifest itself. Excited, pleasurable sexual encounters that maybe don’t look like what we’re used to seeing on screen. We talked about this: there’s something terrible that happens to women in our society that still asks, ‘What is normal?’ ‘What is normal sex?’ and this show felt like a great opportunity to reframe it not as ‘what is normal,’ but what you like, what feels good. Don’t worry, there’s no such thing as normal sex. It’s ridiculous to think that way, it’s harmful. Another issue is also taking away the monopoly that beautiful, healthy people have had on sex on screen. We need to expand who we see having sex. A lot of times on television and in movies, for many reasons, it’s kind of just beautiful, healthy people having sex. It’s good to recognize that that’s really a small percentage of the sex that’s happening in the world.

CLAUDIA: True!
KIM: You asked about the eight episodes, and it was really hard to narrow it down because there’s so much in the show. But I think for us it was about the friendship, the love story of that friendship that was the driving force of the story. We wanted to make sure that we were following that journey, that relationship, but also each episode really shows Molly’s journey of knowing her body, loving her body, and healing herself. Healing her body while she’s simultaneously dying, but still making sure she’s doing it. We had these big moments in each episode where she takes a step forward and gets closer to knowing herself. That felt helpful when we had to make some really tough decisions about what to cut and what to keep going.

CLAUDIA: What did you take away from that experience in your lives? What do you hope women around the world take away from that?
LIZ: I think Kim kind of said that. This idea of ​​just opening up the conversation around a lot of these issues, even if it’s just with yourself. That’s certainly been true for me. We should be talking more about all of these things and exploring sex and kind of getting rid of the shame around it. In my personal life, it made me ask myself, who are the people in my life that bring me joy and make me feel good? To make sure that I purposefully spend time with those people as much as possible, because, you know, life gets so busy with work and kids and you can find yourself not thinking about life and whether you’re having fun. Another thing: the way that we talk to our doctors and the way that we can advocate for ourselves in medical situations. I think that’s a really big part of this story. Molly learning to take control of her treatment process with her doctor. We don’t end up talking about this, but it’s important to learn that you can trust that you know your own body and that you can advocate for yourself in a medical situation, and make your own choices. It’s very powerful.

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