How Rob Delaney’s ‘Catastrophe’ Inspired the Creators of ‘Dying for Sex’

How Rob Delaney’s ‘Catastrophe’ Inspired the Creators of ‘Dying for Sex’

Dying for Sex’s Elizabeth Meriwether, who co-created and executive produced the FX series alongside Kim Rosenstock, was, ironically, in a doctor’s office when she learned they’d been nominated for an Emmy for outstanding limited series. 

“I had been waiting three or four hours to see the doctor, and then almost as soon as he walked in the room for the exam, my phone started buzzing and I was like, ‘I can’t look at my phone; this is what I’ve been waiting hours for,’ ” Meriwether recalls.

Eventually — in the middle of trying to get a boot for a broken foot — Meriwether did sneak a peek at her messages and learned of the nine nominations the show garnered, including outstanding writing, and acting nods for Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate and Rob Delaney.

“I was like, ‘I need to tell somebody,’ so I told the receptionist, ‘I just got nominated for an Emmy!’ She was like, ‘Cool,’ ” Meriwether says with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Well, all right.’ ”

The humor with which Meriwether retells the unfolding of her Emmy news on the East Coast is the same she and Rosenstock brought to the story of the real-life Molly Kochan (Williams), who, before succumbing to a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2019, detailed on a podcast with her best friend Nikki Boyer (Slate) her journey of sexual exploration after leaving her husband of 15 years. Here the co-showrunners talk about Kochan’s lasting inspiration and changing perceptions of sex and death onscreen.

Was Michelle Williams the first person you had in mind as Molly?

ELIZABETH MERIWETHER I think anyone who goes in saying, “It has to be Michelle Williams,” is, not delusional, but kind of. She feels like the top of anybody’s list. So the reaction from us at every stage was, “Well, this is never going to happen, but let’s take the meeting.” But almost immediately upon talking to her about the role, it became so clear it had to be her, and that she understood it to her bones. 

How did you find your Nikki in Jenny Slate?

KIM ROSENSTOCK Jenny came in to do a chemistry read with Michelle. And I think that says it all about Jenny, because Jenny Slate is a very successful, in-demand performer. I don’t think she needs to go in and do a chemistry read with anyone. But she actually said, “I don’t know why I wouldn’t go in and do the chemistry read. You need to make sure that you have the right combination of people in those parts. Otherwise, the story doesn’t work.” And when she came in and read with Michelle, Liz and I just looked at each other and we were like, “Oh my God, it’s going to work!”

What was behind the decision to make Rob Delaney’s character, Neighbor Guy, an amalgamation of different men from Molly’s past?

MERIWETHER That was the place where we knew we wanted to go off of what had actually happened with Molly, but take some different experiences and people that she was with and put them into one person, and possibly continue her journey to where she found this real connection with this other person — which was something that, in the podcast, she gets to by the end, but then, ultimately, doesn’t have the time to do. We wanted to give that to her. We wanted to give her this love. And Rob came in and understood immediately what we were trying to do. … I find the scene where she kicks him in the dick so exciting, from a pure character and story perspective. That was really the moment when the show tilts and changes. It feels like she’s just opened up this whole new world in that scene, and they managed to pull off this relationship that is really kind of weird, and I don’t think you’ve seen it a lot on television. It’s like BDSM, yet there’s so much love in it, but it’s also not a committed, monogamous relationship, and it’s a submissive man. It’s a lot of things that could have been so daunting for an actor.

ROSENSTOCKCatastrophe [which Delaney starred in] was one of the shows that we talked about in terms of tone and things that had gone to these darker places while also being so funny, and Rob helped us understand what this tone could be. He’s one of the people who inspired us, so having him actually be in the show, playing this part, was a huge gift.

How did you decide how much sex to have in the series? 

ROSENSTOCK Well, we knew we had to have sex. (Laughs.) I think one of our first meetings with FX, after they decided to make it, they were like, “We can show anything.” And we were like, “All right, we’re going to test it.” And we did. It was important to us that we show sex as serving a purpose for Molly in her spiritual healing, in her emotional growth. It was never just sex for sex. Sex is the thing that bubbles up for her immediately when she gets this diagnosis. She doesn’t even understand why, but it’s calling to her and she starts listening to that urge. And she starts understanding it as she gets deeper into looking at herself for the first time and these things that she’s always known are there, but that she never really wanted to feel. It was also important to us to make sure we were showing sex in a way that it was never the source of humor. It could be funny, but it was never her desire that was funny. That was a big part of what the real Molly was trying to do when she was telling her story. And also, to show that a sick person can also be a sexual person. That different kinds of bodies can experience joy and pleasure in these ways that we don’t normally see on television.

Was it always the plan to end the series as you did, talking the audience through the death process?

MERIWETHER It was a tricky thing. In the moments that were the hardest to find any comedy in, we wanted to keep it funny. And one of the things we did was go back to the podcast transcript and look at what Molly actually said. That’s where the title [of the episode], “It’s Not That Serious,” came from, because Molly said that. She was like, “It’s not that serious. Let’s get this show on the road.” It was such an incredible thing to hear her voice in those final moments, to hear her still trying to figure herself out, still making jokes, still having so much love for her mom, against all odds, and also Nikki. Also, a lot of the research that we’d done on hospice came out in the scene with Paula Pell, who was incredible as Nurse Amy, just talking about death. Kim and I felt like there’s been all kinds of sex on television, but almost no detailed descriptions of the death process. That, weirdly, felt more surprising in some ways than some of the sex stuff. 

ROSENSTOCK Also in the last episode, there isn’t sex, so it felt like the dying process takes the place of sex. This is what’s happening to her body now, and we’re going to be as unflinching in our portrayal of it as we have been with how we’ve looked at sex. We’re not going to cut away. We’re going to push in when you would normally zoom out. One of the things that’s been so amazing and surprising has been how many people have reached out about that episode. I think many people had their eyes opened by this. And, again, that’s what the real Molly was doing by letting herself be recorded on her deathbed. Trying to make it less scary, trying to make it something that we could all know better and feel less terrified about, find it less mysterious, because death’s actually not as mysterious as we all think it is. We’re just not used to looking at it or talking about it. But in a way, information is comforting. 

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.