Jenny Slate Says ‘Dying for Sex’ Made Her ‘More Free’ as a Performer

For Jenny Slate, filming the FX series “Dying for Sex” prompted the seasoned comedian and actress to open up as a performer and a person, enabling her to feel “more free” by the end of the project.

“The combination of sexual awakening and terminal cancer diagnosis is not one that I’ve ever encountered before, so I was really lucky … to also be watching while I was performing, to get a glimpse of what it is like to try something new in this context, and I honestly think it really opened me up as a person,” Slate told TheWrap. “I felt a bit more free in my life, actually, when we wrapped, but I also felt a sense of loneliness, for everyone I had been around almost immediately.”

In “Dying for Sex,” Slate plays Nikki, whose world turns upside down when she becomes the caretaker of her best friend, Molly, who leaves her husband and begins to discover her sexuality after learning of her incurable cancer. As Molly grapples with what she wants the last chapter of her life to look like — and who will be included in it — her journey prompts the same questions for Nikki, which also trickled down to Slate.

“I asked myself some of the questions that the characters ask themselves, like, who do you really want to be with? Does your life and your relationships in your life represent that? How close are you to that? How do you want to treat yourself? What do you want to say to yourself about yourself, privately?” Slate said. “I found that I felt really lucky in terms of my relationships. I love my life … I’m really fortunate and I developed very keen sense of gratitude for my relational constellation that I’m in, but also for my own health.”

Slate found the Molly to her Nikki in Michelle Williams, whom Slate had met briefly prior to the audition process, but noted their chemistry read was a “very different way to meet … on level ground,” admitting “I was mostly just trying not to be a jaw-dropped weirdo just staring at her because I’ve admired her for so long.”

While Slate admitted it can be “scary” to meet performers you admire because, “we can put a lot of like high expectations on them, professionally and socially,” she said Williams “showed [her] so much kindness and respect from the start that it only made me into more of a bigger fan.”

And luckily, they connected instantly. “Both Michelle and I are performers that are really connected to the scene partner, and I felt like that was happening from the start, and it just unfolded naturally, and that’s very dreamy,” Slate said, comparing chemistry to not knowing when sleep might fade into a dream. “I was careful not to think too hard on it, and just let us connect.”

Slate said she’s proud of how “alive” their connection is, and hopes that viewers are reminded of their own dearest relationships when they watch the show.

Slate’s Nikki is based on Nikki Boyer, the real-life best friend of Molly Kochan, who together created the podcast “Dying for Sex,” based on Molly’s experiences. Although Slate played a dramatized version of Boyer — creators Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock said they transformed Nikki into somewhat of a “hot mess” for the show — Slate leaned on Boyer as she worked through grappling with such grief and anger.

“Nikki, I felt, gave me really clear permission to interpret the character on the page, but also depend on her as a friend and a real person,” Slate said, adding that she felt concerned about Boyer as she watched parts of her life be fictionalized. “She and I offered each other a lot of care, and, even now, I text with her constantly.”

Fictional Nikki’s anger was one of the qualities that Slate was drawn to given that it was so different from her own personality — with Slate saying “I tend to err more towards the thoughtful, more cautious when I am feeling my own anger” — as well as what she grappled with as she stepped into the role of Nikki.

“When she finds something to be unfair or offensive, she just really blasts her rage out into the world, and I wanted to know what that was like,” Slate said, adding that her lack of a filter is what Molly loves about her. “There’s a lot of refinement that Nikki needs to go through … How do I take that and make it into more of like a purposeful lightning bolt or purposeful heartbeat, or synthesize this flame into a larger, more useful area of warmth?”

While Slate admits she didn’t know what acting would look like after she turned 40, she said “Dying for Sex” has “shown [her] a world of possibilities and filled [her] with so much energy.”

Starring in “Dying for Sex” has made Slate more curious about “portraying intensity through fear and panic,” heightening her desire to be in a “very scary movie,” but she also is eager to take on more dramas, or revisit her early days on the “Kroll Show,” saying “I miss playing big, wacky characters.”

“I find myself more open to everything, and I think part of that is a deep, but new self knowledge that I should step into whatever appeals to me, and not be afraid of being too tightly defined or pigeonholed,” Slate said. “What I’m realizing now is that I really can do a lot, and that’s what it’s about for me, and if I’m lucky enough to receive offers that appeal to me, that I should take what I’m offered in the time that I have … this is my time.”

“Dying for Sex” is now streaming on Hulu.

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