‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ EPs, Stars On Eve Of Final Season: “I Grew Up On This Show,” Says Rachel Brosnahan – The Deadline Q&A

Jill Goldsmith
Updated ·9 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

As the fifth and last season of Emmy-winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel launches on Prime Video Friday, creator and EP Amy Sherman-Palladino reveals she hates “every moment of it [being over]. It’s miserable.  The thought of not being with these people every day. I hope the season is gratifying, at least for others. I’ll be drunk the whole time.”

Her late father was a comedian in the Big Apple and the series is a love letter to him and to New York City. “I apologize to my father for turning him into Rachel Brosnahan. I don’t think he would have been good with the hats, but I think that he would understand the pivot,” she said, joining EP Daniel Palladino and stars Brosnahan and Alex Borstein — who play Miriam “Midge” Maisel and her manager Susie Myerson — in a Q&A.

More from Deadline

The story of an Upper West Side Jewish housewife turned standup comedian debuted in 2017 to critical acclaim, tackling religion, class and female stereotypes and showcasing an expert ensemble cast and vibrant, midcentury NYC, where it’s filmed, from Greenwich Village to Coney Island.

Last season, Midge tried to rebuild her career and reputation after burning bridges, yet stubbornly turned down gigs right and left. She was last seen exiting Carnegie Hall in a massive snowstorm after a pep talk from headliner Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby), reinvigorated and ready to fight for stardom. Season 5 “is the culmination of everybody’s emotional journey. We kind of brought them to the end of their arc, and really paid attention to each and every person,” said Palladino.

The first three of nine episodes drop on Prime Video on April 14 followed by new episodes weekly.

DEADLINE: Rachel, Alex – these were defining roles. How do you feel as this chapter winds down?

RACHEL BROSNAHAN: I haven’t fully processed this. I think because we get the opportunity to be back together, get the gang back together, talk about this season. So even though we wrapped it in November, it doesn’t feel like it’s done yet. And no one’s seen it yet. So, there’s still so many more conversations to be had about these characters. And we’re having a lot of fun remembering all the parts about the season we forgot. And the previous seasons that we forgot. And to kind of sit in the gratitude we all have for being able to be a part of this thing that changed all of our lives. So, it’s a hard question to answer, because it feels like we’re still going to be saying goodbye for a long time. It may only [hit us] in January or so when we’d be normally returning to work.”

ALEX BORSTEIN: I think you’re right. This show is still very much alive and still exists. Until that last episode drops. And, you know, that being said, on our last day of shooting, there was a lump in our throats. I could barely get through any of the dialogue. And there was confetti, and there were tears, confetti stuck to the tears on our faces. It was really emotional. But yeah, I don’t think we’ve completely accepted it.

DEADLINE: The Midge-Susie relationship is the emotional core of the show. I assume you didn’t know each other before. Was the chemistry immediate?

BROSNAHAN: We discovered we were from the same town, Highland Park, Illinois. But no, we didn’t know each other. That helped make what you see. It feels so real because as we got to know each other, as people and actors, Susie and Midge got to know each other. They got shoved together at a really unlikely time in both of their lives. And they learned about each other, and they both learned how to get better at what they do, which I certainly did over the course of this show. I think it feels organic. I think there’s something people recognize in it because it was real, it was us getting to know each other too. And, yeah, that chemistry thing is so elusive. [From the first read] you could feel that kind of sparkly thing there that you can’t manufacture.

DEADLINE: Amy, what’s one big achievements for you from the series?

AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO: We were just hoping not to let them [the cast] down. Our biggest concern is always like, we want the actors to be able to look at this, the ones who will look at themselves on camera, which aren’t all of them, and be proud of the work, because that’s sort of like the ultimate. I think if an actor can look at themselves and not want to be sick, then I think the fans are going to like it. We all just worked together so closely, that I think we hit it… Once we knew it was the fifth season, it was an unspoken nod of like, ‘We are all going to give 200% this year or die trying.’ So that was something that I’ll take away to the mental asylum that I’m checking myself into.

DEADLINE: Do you feel the story arc is completed, ending with Season 5?

SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I think we did. It sort of, as sad as it is, it completed an arc, that sort of made sense to wrap it where it did.

DANIEL PALLADINO: We always had this ending in mind. We didn’t know exactly what season, we didn’t know which episode. We hopped around a lot. But we always knew that we were going to end with where we ended. It was a culmination of this specific professional journey that Midge and Susie went on. But it was also the culmination of everybody’s emotional journey. We kind of brought them to the end of their arc, and really paid attention to each and every person.

BROSNAHAN: It’s the right number of seasons, because that’s the number of seasons that we got. I think that there’s [still] juice. I mean, these characters, there are so many stories to tell. And Amy builds universes. You don’t tap one or two characters. She keeps expanding. It keeps expanding. Rose’s [Marin Hinkle] career takes off. Abe’s [Tony Shalhoub] whole career path changes. You start following Joel [Michael Zegan]. There are all these mini-universes. But I think what we have is pretty satisfying.

DEADLINE: Rachel, Alex, what did the show mean to you personally, professionally?

BROSNAHAN: Speaking personally, I grew up on this show. I was 25 the first time I read the script. And those have felt like pretty big years, where a lot of things have changed. And I’ve been so lucky to be surrounded by this amazing family as I’ve been doing all the deeply imperfect work of growing up, and to have had their guidance. Everyone who’s passed through this show has given me a lot of grace and has lifted me up at moments that have meant the world to me. And now strangers can pronounce my last name.

BORSTEIN: She grew up on the show. I grew old on this show. Personally, it was great. Amy decided I was capable of doing things, and then I had to rise to the challenge and do them. You know, acting is a muscle, and she tore through mine. And I built a lot of strength. And I’m so grateful for that. Professionally, I’m curious to see what the next big jump is going to be. And what’s hard is that I’ve been spoiled. Maisel is so well written and so well produced. And everyone is a pleasure to work with. At this point, I don’t have time for a-holes. I don’t want to dive into something for another five years and work for the sake of working, or with people that are not going to give me that same family or that same kind of vibrancy. So it’s tricky, because, you know, how do you follow?

DEADLINE: Can you talk about the love New York City in the series?

SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I grew up with these stories. It was like the most magical place on earth, New York in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I was in Van Nuys. Anything was better than that. It was just the stories about Greenwich Village, and the Catskills and the touring, and it just felt like what a glamorous time to bring back to life. When comedy was changing, and comedy was becoming more personal and more aware of political and social events and being willing to talk about it. And it felt like a good time to have a woman coming into her own.

BROSNAHAN: We shot at Carnegie Hall and Coney Island and were able to watch The Players club and all of these iconic New York locations transform for this show. It was being a part of something able to transform these spaces, and also to be a love letter to the city of New York. I’ve lived here for almost 15 years. It’s been really, really cool. And we definitely got a number of those moments this season. While we were saying goodbye to this show, and to these characters, we also got to blow one final kiss to New York.

DEADLINE: Over the past five years of the show there’s been a major shift, continuing a trend away from broadcast and cable, to streaming. How do you see that? And do you have any thoughts about a possible writers’ strike?

SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I think that any time there’s more opportunities to do more stories, it’s a good thing. I think anytime there’s more open doors for experiences and people, I think that’s an amazing thing. And I think that streaming is the only way that that would have happened. Like, I don’t think you could have stuck with the old system and seen a change. It just wouldn’t have happened. I mean, this is a business about money. It’s not a business about heart and mind and souls and doing the right thing. It’s about the bottom line. It’s about needs. So, it’s like, if people have needs, and they need the stories, and they need the faces to be able to make the money, then that’s what streaming did. It put competition out there, and it gave people places to go. And I think that can only be a great thing in the end.

PALLADINO: Yeah, same thing. I mean, Amy and I were both kind of separately beating our heads against the wall working within the network system. It was very confined, very constrained. There’s a lot of us who sort of died on the battlefield of like, ‘I’m gonna give them an idea that’s different, but it’s still going to be accessible.’ And then, ‘Yeah, yay we love it. We don’t want it.” It’s a lucky thing to be around during this change. Really just literally looking for what the networks would not do opened up a lot of storytelling for people from all sorts of backgrounds and identities. And it’s been a really great thing.

The Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.