Michelle Williams on Balancing Motherhood and Career: ‘Go Easy on Yourself’ (Exclusive)

Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate are dishing on their new comedy drama miniseries “Dying for Sex,” based on the true story of late author Molly Kochan from her podcast of the same name.

“Extra’s” Jenny Taft spoke with Michelle and Jenny, who are both mothers balancing it all with their busy careers and family lives!

What’s the big secret to handling it all? Michelle, who reportedly welcomed her fourth child weeks ago, answered, “You go easy on yourself as much as you can. You kind of, you give up on the small stuff and you, like, focus on a few things that feel really important to you, like a few important values that you can really become known for in your family, like, ‘There goes mom, like, harping on about her three big things.' And then, you know, maybe the rest of it, you can really let slide.”

The series has Michelle playing Molly, who learns she is going to die and chooses to get in touch with her sexual side.

Michelle reflected on getting outside of her comfort zone for the show, which is not shying away from sex!

She said, “To be totally honest, like, I’ve always looked at my work as a place where I can get out of my comfort zone and where I can learn and grow and change, because it’s actually, like, a very safe place to do so, and whatever I find fertile there, I am actually able to take back into, like, my Michelle life. So, it’s kind of like a little bit of, like, a classroom for me, so I’ve always appreciated the opportunity to go to it and learn and then come back to my life, which has real actions and real consequences, and take some of what I’ve been given.”

Slate plays her best friend Nikki, who was by her side through the journey.

Jenny shared, “I wanted to do this project so badly and when I met Michelle, I felt like, ‘Oh, God, this is everything I would hope, everything I hoped it would be,' you know? Just, like, getting to work with this actor, it was our chemistry read,  which means like I was reading to see if, you know, I would be the one.”

Michelle chimed in, “You were always the one.”  

Jenny went on, “We both, I think, are people who like to prepare. It’s an honor to be able to prepare a role, but to be able to connect like that and offer each other respect and to be playful right off the bat, that is a true delight.”

Their friendship off-screen was apparent as they held hands during the interview.  

As for what Michelle took from the real-life story of Kochan, who died at age 45 in 2019, she shared, “I know what I took from it, which was her insistence to live her life on her own terms, regardless of what people thought or said or how they might have judged her, or really that she could have failed at her own experiment.

"You know, she had this idea that with the time that she had left, she wanted to open up her life experience, and she wanted to feel bodily pleasure before she descended into pain and then before she descended into the great unknown.”

Michelle continued, “But she had no idea how that might go for her or what she would find along the way or if she would find fulfillment or she would find pleasure or enjoyment, all the while, enduring these the medical process of a cancer diagnosis. So, this insistence on being more than a cancer diagnosis, this insistence on being a whole human and finding ways to continue to experience her own sexuality, her own pleasure, amidst pain, I think, like, that’s life itself.”

When asked what they would put on a hypothetical bucket list, Jenny said, "More of what’s happening, like, I really desire what I have and I just want more of it. I want to do more acting, I want to go on more dates with my husband, and I want to take my daughter to school more times, you know, like, I like making the lunch in the morning, I like learning my lines, I like the way my life is.. That’s the biggest treasure to me and was not, like, for sure something I thought would happen."

 Michelle is already getting rave reviews, which was something Michelle didn’t anticipate.

She commented, “I think if I ever thought about what people would think, I would be too scared. I really just think, I get sort of, the first word that comes to my mind is, like, I just get kind of sort of titillated for myself, like, ‘Why is this thing calling to me? Like, what about me is it? Like, why me?' I don’t know, I really don’t, and I say yes so that I can find out what I can give, what I can receive, and why it landed in my path.”