Read more on hollywoodreporter.com

Alex Borstein on Love for Midge in Series Finale and ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s’ Depiction of Imperfect Women

Logo text[This story includes major spoilers for the series finale of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.]

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ended the only way it ever could have: Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) and Susie (Alex Borstein) still friends and laughing together 50 years after they met.

The final episode, “Four Minutes,” of the Emmy-winning series from creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino saw Midge finally achieve the success she had always dreamed of, with the support of her long-time manager and friend. When Midge is invited to be a guest on The Gordon Ford Show, she thinks Gordon (Reid Scott) is giving her her big break. Instead, he brings onto the show, sits her on a stool and asks her about being the show’s “resident lady writer.”

Related Stories

With four minutes left on the broadcast, and Gordon eager to get Midge off the stage, the comedian tells her manager she’s thinking about doing “something reckless” that could end both of their careers before they even really get off the ground.

“You started your career by standing on a stage that no one told you to get up on, saying a bunch of shit that no one wanted you to say. So, tits up,” Susie tells Midge, sharing their now-iconic salute of encouragement. With Susie onboard, Midge launches her career into superstardom with one brief, albeit incredible, set.

Midge and Susie have been the heart and soul of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel since their story began in season one. The women have made questionable choices and shown a pair of imperfect women on television who audiences can still root for.

“They’re not wholly wonderful, good people,” Borstein tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t like to refer to people as good or bad, but they have some really shitty, really selfish qualities, and they’re short-sighted, and they’ve spent a lot of their time scrambling to try to get what they want and a lot of people have been hurt along the way.”

Below, Borstein also opens up about how Midge was Susie’s big romance after her first love (Hedy, played by Nina Arianda) broke her heart, what it was to see how far Susie’s career went and why the manager refuses to take no for an answer.

In the finale, we see Midge and Susie come together again after their falling out. Why do you think that was always going to be their ending?

Wow, you sound so sure about it. (Laughs.) I actually didn’t know that. You don’t know which way she’s gonna go. When you think she’s going to zig, she zags, and I think it keeps things so fresh and exciting as a performer. Yeah, I’m still not sure. You know, I know that we saw the ending and what it is, but there’s still a lot of questions. I still have a lot of questions about like, “Well, what happened between this time and this time? And, what does this mean this way?” There’s still so many moments that I would love to see and love to know about, but I do love that we end up in each other’s worlds again.

I just figured Midge and Susie’s friendship was endgame. I had hope.

You see everything as half full, and I see that the glass is broken, and the water is everywhere.

Season five is told in three different timelines: the past, present and future. What was it like playing Susie across several decades?

Honestly, it was really challenging. You build everything on what you’ve been playing so far, and she has been this hungry, hungry animal that is operating out of fear and hunger and that is what drives her, and then to imagine this future, where she’s had some of that hunger satiated where she doesn’t have so much to fear if she has some financial success. Then, you have to look at like, what am I left with? And who is this person when you take those things away? And does she lose some of her gusto? Does she lose her spark? And that’s what was really interesting and challenging for me to play and fun. It made it really different.

In the “Testi-Roastial” episode, we see that Midge eventually made it big and so did Susie. What was it like coming together in that way with all these incredible actors and celebrating Susie in this unconventional way?

What was the most enjoyable was the time I got to take with her. So, what I just described before how Susie operated out of fear and being hungry. She moved that way. She hustled. She walked into it… she almost ran into rooms. She paced. She didn’t stop moving, like a shark. In that episode, the way she even gets out of the car is slow, deliberate. She knows that the room is gonna wait for her now. She knows that she’s the center entering the room and that people are going to look to her, and it’s OK to be on her own. That was really different and really fun to get to play that. Even the way she speaks, when she got up to speak on the day, she doesn’t have to talk so fast. She’s not selling anything anymore. She is now a curator and people come to her to purchase. She doesn’t have to go to them to sell.

What do you think are some of Susie’s best qualities that got her to that point of success in her life?

I think just her inability to take the word no for an answer. I think she’s unable to. She just would not take it as an answer and could not accept that. She has been indefatigable. She’s tireless, and she has just been able to push and push and push, and I think most of that, like I said, it came out of hunger.

We got a glimpse at Susie’s love life in a way that we hadn’t before. What were your thoughts when you first read her past with Hedy (Nina Arianda) in the script?

That was a shock to me. I never knew what’s coming with Susie. I never had any inkling. I think Rachel actually knew that Hedy was gonna be a thing before I knew. I had no idea. We shot a scene of me running around a corner and looking for someone, and I’m like, “What the fuck am I even looking [for]? I don’t even know what this is gonna turn into.” I just follow Amy [Palladino] blindly and trust her. She tells me what I’m feeling. She tells me it’s someone from my past, and I’m like, “OK,” and then boom, it’s Hedy. It was great that Amy didn’t tell me too much so that I could play off of that kind of shock and that fear when I find out that I’m about to be vulnerable, when I find out that the world is about to know too much. It just felt so real, that fear of facing me when Hedy walked onto the set. But she was so much fun to do the scenes with. I really loved working with her. She’s so great and so real, and it was just very easy to do those scenes with her. I mean difficult because it’s vulnerable and emotional but easy because you felt like you’re inside of it with her.

What is it about creators Amy Sherman-Pallaidno and Dan Palladino that helps you follow them blindly?

It’s probably great to be the smartest person in the room, but the even better thing is to just know who the smartest person in the room is, and that’s what made me smart — knowing it was Amy and Dan, and they know what they want out of this show. There were many times I think in the first season that I had some doubts, and I was nervous about this or that, and then as things unfolded and as people responded to the show, I was like, “Ah, OK. I’m going to shut up for the rest of my life,” because they know exactly what they want. They know exactly what they’re doing. Amy creates these worlds, and they exist in real time in her head, and they’re fully realized, and she knows who these characters are, and Dan with her. They know them backwards and forwards. So it’s hard to question them.

Susie and Hedy didn’t really solve any of their past issues. How do you think this will impact Susie in the years to come?

I feel like that was Susie’s only love that she ever actually really went after, that was like a tangible, three-dimensional love affair where she really was in love. I think maybe she had other physical relationships, but I think I think Hedy was it. I think the next romance in her life was Midge. I think that that was the next person she fell in love with, and that was never physically realized. It was platonic, but it was just as deep and just as powerful. But I really think that Hedy kind of crushed her heart. I don’t know that she was able to go after that again. She was the first and the last.

Susie, Frank and Nicky seemed to have gotten to a good place prior to this season, almost becoming friends, but then they remind her that she owes them a debt. Why do you think that is? Did you expect that to happen? Was Susie always thinking that would happen?

Well, I think that’s the game, isn’t it? I think these guys, they kind of do that. They kind of buddy up to you and make you feel safe. They say we’re gonna protect you, and you forget. You forget that you are in bed with the devil, and there’s not really any such thing as a friendship. It’s a friendly enemy is what it is, and Susie loses sight of that. She really forgets that she’s given up a piece of herself. So it’s dangerous. And I love that Amy wrote them very comedically, and you have these moments where you feel like they’re Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and then when they when the claws come out, it’s shocking and alarming, but I think that kind of makes it fun.

It’s also a big catalyst for the storyline, too, since Susie’s involvement with Frank and Nicky landed Joel (Michael Zegen) in prison. What do you think was going through Susie’s head when that happened?

I think Susie kept kind of saying: This is tomorrow’s problem, this is tomorrow’s problem. Yes. There’s this debt. Yes. I know this. Yes. I know Joel has gotten involved, but I don’t think she ever thought it was going to come to pass and come down that hard, and Joel was actually going to pay that hard of a price for it. I don’t think she saw that coming. I don’t think she meant to sacrifice Joel like that. But, boy, she fucked up. That’s the thing that I love about these two female characters — both Midge and Susie. They’re really imperfect. They’re not wholly wonderful, good people. I don’t like to refer to people as good or bad, but they have some really shitty, really selfish qualities, and they’re short-sighted, and they’ve spent a lot of their time scrambling to try to get what they want and a lot of people have been hurt along the way. Joel was one of those.

Midge’s relationship with her kids sort of falls to the side when it comes to her career and being successful Why do you think that is?

Some of that is a product of the times. Today, a lot of women work and a lot of women are gone a lot, like myself, and have to work really hard for a living and want to make it work, but it’s a little more socially acceptable now. I think part of the damage with Midge and her kids’ relationship is how all of that was perceived. The kids were raised in a time where everyone else around them probably continually said, “Where’s your mother?” “Why isn’t your mother here?” “Oh, your dad’s taking you or your grandfather?” That was a little different. So, I think that’s, unfortunately, part of the reason why the relationship was so strained because it was in that time, but Midge was very driven. Midge really wanted to have this career for herself, especially when her home blew up. What she thought she was going to have or what her occupation was going to be was ripped away from her, and she was humiliated and devastated, and this was how she found a way to rebuild. This is how she found a way to stay whole as a person. That’s kind of what she had to do, and her kids ended up with a different kind of mom as a result, so their relationship paid a price.

There’s a scene in which Susie asks her client, James, to essentially wait his turn to be a superstar since Midge has been waiting for much longer than he has. Where do you think that came from?

I think she was so frustrated with the way the game was tilted against Midge, and James points out, like, “Excuse me, I’m an African American guy. You think it’s easy for me?” which was a really interesting twist on it too. Susie’s got people on her roster that no one was a shoo-in. Susie believed in people before anyone else would believe in them, but it was cooler and hipper and more interesting to take a young African American unknown comic at that time than to turn to this woman who has already been walking the pavement and trying to get a name made. She was just the back, back, back of the list, and it was so frustrating for Susie.

At the beginning of the show, I didn’t really expect Susie to become this badass manager. What do you think she wanted when the show started versus when it ended?

I think, initially, Susie really saw, “I want to grow this talent. I want to make Miriam Maisel the superstar that I think she is, and I think I can do it.” I think that was just her very kind of myopic goal in the beginning, and then she realized, “I can’t count on this one person. I have to persify. I have to have more eggs in my basket. This is dangerous. What happens if she never makes it?” That’s the real relationship at the core of this show — the romances between Susie and Midge — and I think Susie started realizing, “What if this person leaves me? Just like any relationship, I better have some backups. I better have other irons in the fire.” But I don’t know if she thought she would become the manager.

Would you be interested in a Susie-focused spinoff?

Have you written one?

I haven’t, but if Amy were to write one, would you want to do it?

If Amy writes something and has me audition for it or casts me in it, I will be there. Absolutely. Almost no questions asked. I just trust her implicitly because she has known what I’m capable of before I’ve known what I’m capable of. She’s forced me to do things that were so out of my comfort zone and stretched every muscle that I had as an actor, and I’d be a fool not to follow her. So, yes, if Amy were to write that, I would be there.

What was it like having so many of your Gilmore Girls co-stars in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?

It was very cool. A lot of the people from the show I had light interactions with. I knew Kelly Bishop slightly, so it was really fun to get to do those scenes with Kelly Bishop. She’s such a pro. She’s so good and so sharp, and that was delightful. I always love doing scenes with women that are older than I am. It’s my favorite thing in the world. They’re the wisest fucking creatures on the planet. They’ve done it all and seen it all, and they know exactly what you’re thinking because they’ve thought it too. That was really a pleasure. Then, on the “Testi-Roastial” episode, that was a fabulous reunion of people I knew from not only Gilmore Girls but also Will Sasso from Mad TV. My friend John Viner was in the scene. He’s from Family Guy. I think that was also a wise and intentional move by Dan: Fill the room with people he knew that I would feel sentimentally connected to in some way and making that scene easier to do.

Speaking of the “Testi-Roastial,” we see how Mike Carr (Jason Ralph) and Susie’s working relationship has evolved over the last few decades, where now it seems like they’re great friends who have so much respect for one another. What was it like playing that journey between them?

That was a beautiful circle, and both of our characters had a very similar growth pattern. When we first meet him, he’s so high-strung, and he’s so on edge, and he’s so worried. Him and Susie are very similar in that way. Then, you see them at the Testi-Roastial calm, cool. They’ve got some success. They’ve got some power. They’ve been at this a long time, and now they’re just like busted rocks on a river stream. They’re both worn down, still very strong and causing the water to go a certain way, and that was really nice to see and have them have that love and respect for each other.

With Marvelous Mrs. Maisel ending, what are some of your favorite memories from filming?

Any times that my kids were able to visit the set, those were always stellar. It was so much fun to get to see all of it through their eyes, this childlike wonder coming on, like what is this? The 1950s? What are these cars? What are these outfits? Those were always really magical moments.

Rachel and I, anytime we’ve had a good fight, those were fun moments, when we would get riled up and angry at each other. Rachel, as an actress, that was hard for her to get into fighting, and for me, that’s where I’m most comfortable. So, those were really fun days to see her out of her box and me just in the center of it. We had one night in particular where we had the giggles and could not stop, and it was 4 in the morning, and everyone wanted to murder us. It didn’t happen often. That was like the one night where we could not get our shit together. Miami had some incredible moments being out there and awful moments, too. We both got sunstroke. We’re so white and pasty, and I had this big covered thing for us, and it didn’t matter. We still both burned and passed out.

Also, our set was very focused, very serious, and everyone was slightly terrified at all times and wanting it to be great. So, there was a lot of tension in a good way, like excitement, that like pre-show jitters. You’d have that feeling every time, it was really exciting.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is now streaming on Prime Video. Read THR’s final season coverage.