The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Marin Hinkle On the Scene That Gave Her Hives
For those who haven't watched the first three episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's second season, light spoilers ahead!
Marin Hinkle does not share a fashion sense with Rose Weissman. For The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, in which the actress plays the mother of the titular comedienne, Hinkle exclusively dons the highly structured period garments of the 1950s, determined to always put her most polished face forward. There's something sharp about her look-something that isn't exclusively located in her exacting hemlines.
Today, that's all gone. When I sit down across the table to speak to Hinkle, that aesthetic has been replaced with a softer one. The actress's wavy hair grazes the table, framing a gauzy pink dress. Her makeup is expertly applied, but somehow seems looser; the pigments aren't hemmed in by the keen-edged eyeliner and lip liner that midcentury fashions demanded. And yet, there's something familiar.
Perhaps, as Hinkle hints toward during our interview, her kinship with her character runs deeper than first impressions might suggest. Below, just before the Maisel's second season drops on Amazon, the actress discusses anything and everything Rose Weissman-starting with her character's sudden jaunt to Paris.
How did you react when you found out that Rose was absconding to Paris?
I got a phone call about a month or two prior to shooting started on our second season. It was a funny phone call because I picked up, and the guy who was a production manager said, “Hey… do you know French?” I was like, “Uh, I took it in high school.” He said, “we’re gonna pay for you to learn some more French.” I asked “why,” and he said “because we’re gonna be headed to Paris!” I was thrilled!
How did you think about how to play Rose when she’s so much looser?
I went to talk to hair, makeup, and wardrobe, about what will she be like when she, so to speak, lets her hair down. Of course in that time period, you could only let it down so much, so the clothing wasn’t going to alter too much but it did a bit.
She goes to art school there, and to the museums, and she’s connecting with younger women. I guess the way I thought of it, I thought “who was she in her 20s when she was studying there?”
I think that’s what happens. When I go back home, I kind of have this strange, eerie, back-in-time way of handling myself. I’m almost unrecognizable as the 52-year-old woman. I somehow become about 12. And I think Rose has a little bit of that too-she really lives life as a young student when she’s there.
Why do you think she ultimately agreed to go home?
Well, first, I’m glad, so that I can be a part of the show. So that’s good news. I did have that thought-there was a moment where I thought, what if they’re thinking that Rose stays in Paris?
But I think that as much as she felt independent, the truth is she’d miss so much. And she knew that. She could never live without her husband and her kids.
So when she does decide to go back and she does continue to have a bit of the taste of that life, that scene with the nude male model is obviously hilarious. I was wondering if you could relate to her.
Right, right right! So I grew up in a fairly modest family, but I was a ballet dancer. So I had these two juxtaposed worlds. I’ll never forget that for years and years, before ballet, I would leave the room of naked women to change in a private bathroom. So I think I am a very modest person, and I connected to Rose in that that day.
I did not understand that that model was going to be naked. It wasn’t like a covered up area! They were shooting, and I said to the director, Scott Ellis, “but we’re not gonna really have him naked?” And he said, “oh no, of course he has to be naked. That’s part of the scene. It would be wrong.”
My cheeks and my whole body got covered in hives, because I was so embarrassed for what was happening. And I wanted to make the beautifully kind model feel comfortable, so I started talking to him, and it turned out he was so comfortable. He had been a nude model for years in art classes. And I honestly think he loved doing it, he hadn’t done a TV show before. And I was like “you’re very good at this!” And then I got embarrassed, because I felt like I was objectifying him! Like, “you do a nice job being naked?” Is that what I meant? But I guess I just wanted him to feel comfortable.
Sounds like he felt very comfortable.
He was. It’ll be interesting to see him at the premiere.
Reunited!
I haven’t seen him in clothes. I’ll say, “I didn’t recognize you with the clothes on!”
In a different vein, how do you prepare for the period element of the show?
Sometimes I don’t invest so much in an audition, because I don’t want to want the job too much. But this one I wanted so badly. So I actually went to costume houses, and donned the clothing of the era, and was even going to wear a wig for the audition.
I think a lot of who these characters are is their presentation of self, which is very different from how contemporary life is. So I felt like for the role, I had to do that.
Do you have to wear a corset?
I don’t want to sweat because I feel like Rose is not a sweater, and when I first started wearing that stuff it was making me a little sweaty. My confession is after a while, I was like alright, I’m pulling this off.
Yeah, I think I would do the same.
They’re very hard! Have you ever been in one?
No, it looks terrible.
It doesn’t allow us the kind of freedom… And in a way it kind of explains who these women are. They were pretending they were comfortable and really were not. There’s a whole lot of act that’s put on there.
Like Rose and her daughter Midge both do their nightly routine-
Oh my god! Can you imagine? I wear sweatpants to bed-I can’t even imagine putting on a face of makeup to sleep next to someone. It’s hilarious that her husband does not know.
Like in that amazing scene where [Midge's] husband Joel looks at her after they’ve had sex, at the end of the first season. And he’s like "I don’t remember you looking like this." He had never seen her in her natural look in the entire marriage! That’s a very poignant moment. Kind of like, "oh, if we only did live more honestly with each other, would we have actually saved the marriage?"
Do you think, even after her time in Paris and everything, that Rose still puts on make-up to go to bed?
I thought about that. I think you’ll notice that I do have a shift in how I put myself together. I wear a more youthful set of clothing in the second season. But I think she does still do it, because she's not sure yet if Abe would be okay with her.
She’s still a woman in the '50s, is the way to answer it. She hasn’t yet had such a liberal explosion that she feels ready to sort of burn the bra, so to speak. So yes, she is still putting herself together. "Maybe, it would be okay," she thinks, "if I didn’t do it. But I better do it."
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