Do you have an opinion about womance?
About what it takes to make an iconic womance?"
Though to hear Borstein define it, “Bodily functions is what womance is all about.”
Rachel Brosnahan as Midge in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
“We’re disgusting,” Brosnahan summarizes with a laugh.
Distinctive, without question.
WhenThe Marvelous Mrs. Maiselpremiered in 2017, it hardly seemed a sure thing.
Rachel Brosnahan as Midge in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
That success is undeniably thanks to this marvelous pair.
“This is the love story of the show,” notes Borstein.
“They can’t make it without each other.
Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan channel Ethel and Lucy.CAMRAFACE for EW
Susie’s not gonna be able to win a race because she’s not running in it.
Midge is her horse and she’s… is she the owner or is she the jockey?
It’s one of those.”
Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein as Laverne and Shirley.CAMRAFACE for EW
(Most likely, pink.)
That’s in part because their love fest extends to the women behind Midge and Susie.
Though no one seems too worried about that.
Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan as Rhoda and Mary.CAMRAFACE for EW
“You’re going to see a rapid acceleration of Midge and Susie’s journey,” Sherman-Palladino hints.
“And the toasters are still very attractive.”
“There were very few women who chose to be a road comic or a stand-up at all.
Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein as Midge and Susie in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime
It’s not the most feminine of occupations.
It would take a lot of luck, a lot of talent, and a lot of fortitude.”
“She had the balls.
Rachel Brosnahan in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
She’d never done a comedy before.
She always played very tragic roles.
But she wasn’t afraid of the monologue [from the pilot].
Will Brill, Marin Hinkle, Tony Shalhoub, Rachel Brosnahan, and Justine Lupe in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
Once you saw Rachel do it, it was game over.”
Brosnahan remembers it differently, feeling utterly terrified.
“Midge felt so far away from me in almost every way,” she says.
New series regular Reid Scott and Rachel Brosnahan in season 5 of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.Philippe Antonello/Prime
“The only thing that we share is a flat refusal to give up.
But apart from that, the character felt out of reach.
With Brosnahan cast, Sherman-Palladino had to convince Prime Video that Borstein was right for Susie.
Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan as Velma and Daphne.CAMRAFACE for EW
“It was so obvious they were the perfect pair.”
“I was immediately intimidated by Alex,” Brosnahan remembers of first meeting Borstein at that chemistry read.
“I just knew we fit,” she says.
Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan as Susie and Midge.CAMRAFACE for EW
We felt immediately comfortable.
Like we’d already known each other.”
“Our souls tangled right from our first audition,” reflects Borstein.
“We would never have met otherwise, but from the get-go, we fit in a weird way.
Like dance partners.”
“Their chemistry is perfection,” saysKevin Pollak, who plays Midge’s father-in-law, Moishe Maisel.
“It’s beautifully oil and water.
“The foundation of my life is my women friends,” she says.
“There is something so essential for women about other women in their lives.”
Dare we call that rarefied, so infrequently depicted relationship a “womance”?
(Alex Borstein, your check is on the way.)
“Midge knows that she and Susie are soulmates, in business and in life,” proclaims Brosnahan.
Can the manager and comedian move forward together?
Or is there a fracture in sight?
All that remains to be seen, but no womance is without obstacles.
“Season 5 tests this relationship tremendously,” teases Borstein.
Marriage ain’t easy, and this one is certainly not immune to a lot of the trouble.
Whether that means they’re going to be working together forever, I don’t know.
But they have to be a part of each other’s lives forever in some regard.”
“They’re both going to be pushed and stretched in ways that they can’t imagine.
Sometimes they do their best work out the other side of a big blowup between the two of them.
We can certainly expect the roller coaster to continue.
But ultimately, it’s the two of them at the end of the day.”
Will Moishe change his ways after his brush with death in season 4?
What will happen to Joel and his club and pregnant Mei (Stephanie Hsu)?
How will Midge’s successes or failures impact all of them?
“It isn’t about status and income now.
It’s more about being your own person, having your own voice.
He’s got a bigger pulpit, and he likes that.”
Easy to see where Midge gets it from.
Hinkle teases that Rose might face unintended consequences for forging ahead with her matchmaking business despite threats from competitors.
“There’s been such tension and a double standard.
Midge and her parents share a drive that they would never admit to each other.
“Both Abe and Rose, as we discover, are fighters too.
They know how to adapt.”
They’re fighting against the way that life progresses.
Not just their own lives, but Midge’s too.
But the season celebrates her stick-to-it-tiveness and her drive and her compassion.
And it ends up affecting everyone.”
“The last days on our set were traumatic,” Borstein says.
“It was hard to get through a single line of dialogue without crying.
Susie feels like a mother character and saying goodbye to this show is like saying goodbye to a child.
Because while their days makingMaiselmay be over, the legacy they’re leaving behind is still coalescing.
“That’s been exhilarating for a lot of people to watch.”
“It’s about breaking boundaries,” she says now.
This show is about women that stepped out of line and continued to do so.
Its creator did, and these characters did.
“This show changed my life,” adds Brosnahan.
“Midge and I grew up together.
Finding the unflappable confidence that Midge has was a daunting task that never got easier.
But the process of trying to discover that taught me a lot about what’s possible.
One can only hope that people keep finding it and feel a little bit of that same thing.”
If you ask Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, that’s all because of Midge and Susie.
“We depicted these two women in such strong, unapologetic ways,” reflects Dan Palladino.
“They were soft, but they did not apologize a lot.
They were very, very strong, and they were themselves, and they were individualistic.
They came off as real.”
How’s that for a fine womance?
