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This interview contains spoilers for theFleishman Is in Troublefinale, The Liver.
Turns out Libby is in all kinds of trouble, too.
And there are a lot of thoughts about aging, mental health, misogyny, and divorce to process.
Taffy has said your character is partly based on her.
Did you discuss that with her?We did talk about it.
Shes looking back, shes reflecting on things.
It confused me before we started shooting, and I didnt know how to tackle it.
I trusted her and she was correct.
A lot of this voice-over was lifted from the book.
Her prose is so impressive, and for whatever reason, it felt like how I think.
Then there was a whole process of recording the final version in the actual sound booth.
Because Id very, very happily read the audiobook.
It was sad, the thought of never getting to say this stuff again.
You recently toldVanity Fairthat you identify with Libby more than any other character youve played.
I had a bat mitzvah.
I went to Hebrew school.
I went to Israel for two months.
Im friends with my Jewish-summer-camp friends.
Ive played Jewish characters before, but I dont know if they were written by Jewish people.
There was something so lived-in about Libby.
Libby has been married a very long time.
She got married young.
She has two kids who are somewhat older.
I have a baby!
Were parents!None of it felt stale, stifling, suffocating.
It was a very strange dichotomy.
I was really moved by the last two episodes of the series.
Because I saw it in this post-COVID-ish environment, I could relate to Rachel having no sense of time.
Claires character, Rachel, is objectively not okay.
She is not doing well.
Postpartum stories still feel like something people dont want to touch.
Its something so ugly.
Even now, I remember reading some spec script for a pilot that was an exploration of postpartum depression.
The number of people who text me, God, Rachel Fleishman.
What a bitch, how could she be such an asshole?
Im like,Uh-huh, yeah, thats exactly what youre supposed to think of her.
Just you wait.The harsh judgment about even the Fleishmans daughter is wild to me.
Oh, shes such a bitch.
Its crazy the way that Taffy has succeeded in Trojan-horsing these inherent, misogynistic things we all share.
All of the clues are there.
Youre just completely ignoring them.
The Libby side of it has less fireworks.
These are not huge emergencies for her, and yet they feel like emergencies.
Her body doesnt know the difference.
We can all relate to that.
These are first-world problems.
We love to sweep how were feeling under the rug.
The thing that gutted me the most is this idea of divorce.
Some of my friends are starting to get divorced.
If you just get rid of your husband, then you get to be yourself again.
Its not true because what you really want is to be young again.
And that is agut punch.
I hate an unsolvable problem, and it is fully that.
I want to ask you about Libbys confrontation of Toby.
She says, Hey, I found your wife, and shes had a nervous breakdown.
And hes like, Thats not my problem.
Theres a real heartbreak in that for Libby.
Shes really seeing the limitations of her friend.
It forces her to reexamine her allegiances.
Its interesting because I felt that more reading the book than watching the show.
I wouldnt describe him completely as an asshole.No, I wouldnt either.
Hes very hurt as well.
Hes mourning the loss of that promise.
Even in the arguments between Rachel and Toby, they both have salient points.
The arguments feel so real.
Both people feel right and want to feel vindicated by the other person.
Thats another testament to the writing.
Its another Libby line: There arent people who are all bad or all good.
You both start crying.
It was all,You guys take this and do it how you want to do it.
Even now, if I reread it, Id start to cry.
Shes speaking these truths that feel bad and have no solution.
In that montage, there are some flashbacks, some of which are from the show.
But there are some photos that look like they might have been your personal photos.Yes, they are.
I hadnt really looked through those.
Theyre all very authentic Jewish-girl-getting-older shots.
A lot of my friends who are my personal Toby and Seth are in those photos.
Weve all known each other our entire lives and are just as close as we were 30 years ago.
I recognize how rare that is.
Its something Im very grateful exists in my life
Lets talk about the ending of the series.
What is your take on that?I dont really know.
It drove people crazy in the novel.
They really wanted to know did they get back together.
I dont think it really matters.
And its strange it feels like none of my business if those two end up back together or not.
Some of the bigger plot points in the show are not the things that necessarily resonate with me.
Theyre just things that happen so we could get these ideas out.
Its less about this 100 percent airtight, accurate retelling of what went down.
At the end, we see Libby come home and apologize to her husband.
She tells him she loves him.
But that would be, in my estimation, the next chapters.
So how does she make her day-to-day life more tolerable?
Thats probably one of the hardest things to do.
I dont know how people work that out.
I definitely have friends that ask themselves these questions and we talk about it.
I dont know if there is a solution.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
