Jenny Slate Bares All in Dying for Sex: “I’m Finally Doing the Work That I’ve Always Wanted”

The first episode of FX’s Dying for Sex, now streaming on Hulu, introduces Jenny Slate as Nikki—the humorous, foulmouthed best friend of Michelle Williams’s Molly, who soon reveals that her breast cancer is terminal. “If you’re dying, why are you fucking weirdly vibing right now?” Nikki exclaims. Within minutes, she is loudly weeping and hurling expletives, then breaking into disbelieving laughter at Molly’s composure, hitting a note that’s both emotional and happy—a tone Slate has perfected in projects such as Obvious Child, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Though Slate was drawn to these sorts of high-volume moments, she also appreciated how playing Nikki—who agrees to be Molly’s caretaker during her end-of-life sexual odyssey—gave her an opportunity to look inward. “The microphone makes me loud, but I’m not actually a loud person,” she tells Vanity Fair. “Occasionally, there’s the errant scream…but I am not really explosive at all. I really loved the idea of being able to scream on the street, not just from one’s diaphragm, but from the center of one’s breaking heart.”

After exploring sexual agency and emotional intimacy across two stand-up specials and a pair of best-selling books, Slate was ready to funnel those feelings into a fictionalized character. Enter Dying for Sex—adapted by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether from a Wondery podcast about the real friendship between Molly Kochan and Nikki Boyer. Slate is already earning career-best reviews for her performance, with Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson calling her “a revelation” who emerges as “the true phenom of the series.”

Speaking in peaceful tones so as not to disturb her four-year-old daughter Ida’s nap in the next room, Slate nimbly sidesteps talk of her last major movie’s protracted legal battles and delves deep into the meaningful work that followed. “This part came to me at just the right time. That said, I don’t have a scary feeling like it’s a fluke,” she says. “It helped open a door for me, and I do feel that there’s a lot on the other side. I don’t exactly know what it’ll all be.”

Vanity Fair: Nikki is introduced as a calamitous person, and many people consider you to be a very emotive actor who does voices and physical comedy. But for most of the series, Nikki has to keep her feelings close to the vest. What was that like to inhabit?

Jenny Slate: I love that question a lot, because it really gets to the heart of what I loved about the character. When you meet Nikki, she’s spraying her emotions out. And the more that she becomes a caregiver, it’s not that she becomes repressed; it’s that she experiences a deeper understanding and refinement of her own power. She understands where to spend her energy.

God, it felt so good to play someone who has a composed, clear awareness of what is in the depths. She can keep her strength in the deepest part of her, and keep her love and ability to be vulnerable in the most accessible parts. And none of that is a sign of diminishment. It’s a really, really lovely way of Nikki finally being able to understand herself as an instrument of love and care.

By the end of the performance, I was asking to be as physically stripped down as possible. Can I take all my jewelry off? I don’t want to wear any makeup. Nikki in real life almost always has lipstick. And we kind of kept that, but she’s pared down, wearing the clothes that she probably would in a movement class.