Dying For Sex Features A Lot Of Sex Scenes, And Michelle Williams Told Me Why She Was Ready To ‘Leap And Then Look’ Into This Project
Michelle Williams opened up about depicting Molly's sex journey in Dying for Sex.
by Riley Utley · CINEMABLENDMinor spoilers for FX’s Dying for Sex are ahead. If you want to watch the show in full, you can do so with a Hulu subscription.
The title Dying for Sex says it all. The series that just premiered on the 2025 TV schedule follows a woman named Molly after she is diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides to go on a journey of sexual discovery. As you likely deduced, the comedy is a sexually explicit Hulu project, and I asked Michelle Williams, who plays Molly, about filming the show's intimate and explicit scenes. In response, she told me why she was ready to “leap and then look” into this sex positive series.
During my interview with Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate (who plays Molly’s best friend and caretaker Nikki) about this new streaming show, I asked which sex scene was most intimidating to film. In response, The Fabelmans actress didn’t name a specific moment, but rather explained how she dove into the show and all these intimate scenes:
There were so many. And I before, when we signed onto the show, there were one, maybe two, scripts written. So I really had no idea what position, literally, I would find myself in. But, I like to leap and then look, that's just who I've come to find myself to be. And so I was so excited to be able to work together with my now twin, Jenny [Slate]... and with [co-creator] Kim [Rosenstock] and [co-creator Elizabeth Meriwether].
Along with being excited to work with these remarkable women, Williams also told me she was incredibly moved by the real Molly’s story. Dying for Sex was inspired by a podcast of the same name by Molly Kochan (who Williams plays) and her best friend Nikki Boyer.
The actress and EP told me she was “so drawn” to the source material, and knew she needed to be involved in its adaptation, saying:
I had faith in the journey of Molly and Nikki, and I had been so drawn to the podcast in ways that I really didn't even understand. But I was just like, ‘I am bewitched by this thing, and I am going where it takes me.’
Now, the number of sex scenes in this show could be seen as intimidating. From masturbating all day to going to a sex potluck to getting into the details of learning about dominating to spending a night with a man who likes to dress like a dog, Dying for Sex doesn’t shy away from anything.
Williams acknowledged that during our interview, noting that intimate and explicit moments “would show up” all the time:
It just kind of kept coming, these scenes would show up. And I was like, ‘Well, this is what it's going to be.’ I mean, one after the other.
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However, due to the way the FX comedy approached these sequences, she was ready and willing to be part of them.
Along with complimenting how Dying for Sex used an intimacy coordinator in an earlier interview, Williams praised how sex is depicted on this series, telling me:
But to be honest, they were all done with such love and affection for the partners that she encounters, and without any shame or judgment. And I think that's really at the heart of the show, and it was really at the heart of the real Molly's journey that moved me so much, is the complete and total absence of judgment.
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As someone who has seen the show in full, I completely agree with Williams' explanation. There is a “total absence of judgement” in Dying for Sex, and it celebrates all kinds of pleasure as well as sexual discovery.
Molly is at the center of that journey, which means the actress who plays her is in all of these scenes, and she performs them with care and heart. It was moving to hear her speak so openly and lovingly about a topic that can be seen as taboo, and it highlighted just how sex positive and thoughtful Dying for Sex is.