Time for love, laughs, friendship and orgasms

At an acting class, two opposites collided.
Molly Kochan “was kind of a wallflower,” said Nikki Boyer, who wasn’t.
“She had long, brown hair. We were in an acting class and she couldn’t stand me…. She was very quiet and to herself and she didn’t like my energy.”
Naturally, one of the great friendships was forming. It survived through Molly’s stage-four cancer diagnosis, through her end-of-life sexual odyssey and through their podcast, “Dying For Sex.”
Now that’s been turned into a mini-series (shown here) that arrives in one lump (eight half-hours) on Friday, April 4. Many people will find it compelling, especially with the riveting work of Michelle Williams as the late Molly and Jenny Slate as Nikki. Some will find it off-putting, because of its sexual kinkiness.
“Way back in my head,” Williams said, “I heard someone say, ‘Don’t do something your grandmother wouldn’t want to see.”
She ignored the voice. “I love to leap and not look.”
And that required guidance. As writer-producer Elizabeth Meriwether put it, there were “talks about what each of these orgasms was going to be.”
Even for Williams, with five Oscar nominations, this was demanding – playing a quiet introvert with huge emotions creeping across her face.
By comparison, Jenny Slate got to play Boyer as someone who is big, broad, forever excited and often distracted. “I really like acting,” Slate said. And here was someone “with such an interesting combination of characteristics.”
In real life, Boyer said, she and Molly were paired in an acting exercise. “I thought she was intriguing. And then, I forced her to like me.”
Molly got into the friendship gradually – which is how Williams got into the role. “It’s not very often that you come across material that really surprises you,” she said. So “I was ready to go – and found I was pregnant.”
This was her third baby and her second with husband Thomas Kail, best-known for directing “Hamilton” and directing Williams in “Fosse/Verdon.” (The third is the daughter of the late Heath Ledger.)
“Dying For Sex” waited through the pregnancy and beyond. After pausing for a year-and-a-half, the filming began, with Williams, Slate, humor, warmth, tears, orgasms and a memorable friendship.