Allison Williams & Ebon Moss-Bachrach Reunite After 7 Years

Oh my God,

what are you doing here? Oh my God.

[Ebon laughing]

[Ebon] What are the chances?

Hi.

Hello. It's so weird.

Should we sit in these chairs?

[Ebon] Yeah.

[bright upbeat music]

When did we first meet?

I'm just gonna, I'm gonna apologetic preamble,

Allison's gonna remember everything perfectly-

No!

With 100 percent recall,

and I can't even remember this morning, so.

We have the same problem.

Oh, this is gonna be so boring.

I think my first day of work was at the Brill Building.

Okay-

But then my first day of work with you

was at the Gramercy Hotel.

Right. Right?

And that was a wild night of filming.

Yeah.

What I remember most about that first night of filming

was watching you try to keep it together

in the presence of Andrew Rannells.

Yeah.

Which was not something that you were capable of doing.

Yeah, that was a recurring obstacle for me

over the- I have videos of you on set

just trying to like keep it cool.

The worst one that I remember about Andrew

is we were playing, there was a Marnie and Desi gig,

maybe the first one

or second open mic night- Yeah.

And we were shooting in Williamsburg.

Yep.

I have a video of this.

Andrew and Lena were like in the audience,

maybe up on a balcony- Up on a balcony.

Yeah, up on a balcony,

and I remember Andrew improvising something or saying,

and he goes like, he goes,

Oh, never trust a man in a Henley.

Or something like that.

And I could hear him, somehow I could hear him,

even though we were singing and playing

and he was all the way over there

and it made me laugh so much.

This is gonna be a real shit show.

Marnie, we love you!

[gentle acoustic music]

♪ I'll catch you when you're falling ♪

We had some incredible luck,

in terms of the music that we performed,

like I actually think a lot of our songs

were really beautiful.

The lyrics are what made them cringey-

Yeah. Often.

My favorite song, I think,

there are so many beautiful ones,

but my favorite one is Oaxaca.

It's the last Marnie, Desi,

we recorded it in a studio.

Okay.

The lyrics are so cringey that I like

don't wanna say them out loud,

I don't wanna- Say them out loud.

Come on.

Um, shaking my maracas, doing what you do,

where there no gringos are,

yeah you'll find me at a bar, Oaxaca.

♪ Yeah you'll find me in a dark bar ♪

♪ Where no gringos are ♪

♪ Yeah, you'll find me in a bar ♪

♪ Oaxaca ♪

Marnie singing the word gringo

is like- Mhm.

It should be illegal. Mhm.

It shouldn't be able to happen.

I found out the other day that we had all,

most of our songs were just discards from Kelly Clarkson.

Well, some of them were.

Yeah.

I think the song Breathless, yeah, I don't know if,

I guess we're allowed to say this, it's been a long time.

Uh-huh.

It was written by Jack Antonoff.

Okay.

For Kelly Clarkson. Okay.

The one with like, And I'll ride over on my bicycle.

Yeah. Oh-oh-oh.

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I like that song.

It's a great song. Yeah.

She should have done it. Yeah.

But we got it as a result.

But yeah, I think the other thing was,

we often were really performing.

Yeah.

Which is nerve wracking.

I mean, I think what was nice that was built in

was that they were supposed to be maybe not so great,

like nobody had expectation, like a very high expectation.

Yeah. So that felt safe to me-

Totally safe. To just like go for it.

But hard to decide how good to,

like how much to try and how good to be.

I tried as hard as I could try.

[Allison and Ebon laughing]

Well there was always this like,

you know that it's being used for comedy.

[Ebon] Yeah.

So you're like, the pain of giving it my all.

Yeah, but like you say, like the lyrics were so

like kind of a lot in a way, and so specific,

and sort of guileless and-

Yeah. Embarrassing,

that even if, you know, Leonard Cohen could sing 'em

and they would still suck, you know like,

you know what I mean?-

No, it would've sounded awesome.

Like even if he, yeah, you're right, maybe.

But I do remember thinking like,

Ugh, God, if I do my best and I look over at video village

and everyone's giggling, that's just gonna scar me

like forever. Yeah.

I'm just never gonna recover from that.

I had this experience of performing Stronger on the show,

where it was quiet, except for my voice.

♪ Work it, make it, do it ♪

♪ Makes us harder, better, faster, stronger ♪

There's no more vulnerable experience-

Yeah.

Than a room full of background, silent,

and just your little voice just in the room.

Yeah.

Echoing against nothing else, singing,

I'll be your white Kate Moss tonight.

It's just like a very embarrassing.

When you've doubled down and commit to someone's tragedy,

it kinda like, it can be funny.

And I just felt like, you know,

the more tragic I thought Desi was,

was kinda the funnier it was,

it was like the more he cried, the funnier it would be.

I tried to cry like-

Almost every season.

At least a couple times a season.

[Allison laughing]

It was never so important to me in any other,

that was like, to cry.

[Producer] I'm wondering like what it was like

being known as these characters.

Did people think of you as Marnie and Desi?

100 percent.

Like, fully assumed that the girls on Girls

were just in like a documentary series

and the men were doing like acting.

Which was a compliment,

a very backhanded compliment, I guess,

'cause we were just, I dunno, we seemed like our characters,

but. Yeah.

We really didn't get credit for like performing,

people just assumed we were exactly the same

as our characters were.

But then you'd have, I'd have weird experiences,

I was the same age as my character, living in the same city,

people would come up to me and just be like, Marnie.

And then I'd be like, I know.

I'd go, Yes, okay? Yeah.

Yeah, I, yeah, am, it's so true-

I think it's just a testament to the show,

I think that just that people were like, you know-

It was, yeah, it was such an honor

to be part of a show that felt like,

it was so real that people thought they were

running into that character on the street.

Like they'd see me in like a SoulCycle class

and be like, Yeah, Marnie's in my SoulCycle class-

Yeah.

And like, she is in a way.

Yeah.

She's with you, she's everywhere.

Or, like in the subway.

But then people were also very, very free

to tell me how much they hated her.

Like in person, spontaneously-

Yeah, I remember hearing about that.

Yeah. Yeah.

What did people say to you about Desi?

I don't really remember.

Somebody came up to me on the train last night

and was like talking to me about The Bear,

and he was like,

How come your restaurant opens at 3:00 PM?

I'm like- What?

Dude, it's a fake restaurant

on a show that I don't write.

Like, I dunno what to tell you.

He was like, I know, I know, I know, I know.

And walked away, but yeah-

He's like, But really, though, you gotta think about it,

3:00 PM is weird. Yeah, I was like, all right.

But sometimes people still come up to me

and they're like, Desi!

'Cause there's a bunch of.

Re-watching.

Or like I feel like there's a lot of,

mostly women that I've interacted with,

like in their early-20s,

who are like seeing it for the first time

or whatever. Mhm.

My dad, who loves like lurking on social media,

sends me all these like Girls re-watch clips

of like people re-watching the show and reacting to it.

And he always is like, The comments are so pro-Marnie.

And it's like a very unfamiliar feeling,

'cause my parents were like Marnie defenders for a decade

and that now they're like,

Oh, it's just a pro-Marnie world.

My theory is,

what was coded as selfishness among millennials-

Yeah.

Is now coded as self-care,

and just like being aware of what you need

and advocating for your needs and standing up for yourself.

And so Gen Z is like, No, we get her.

She makes sense to us.

Like she, I guess, was just before her time.

And the whole show like got a lot of flack

when it was airing for everyone being too selfish

and self-centered and blah, blah, blah,

like that was like the number one-

Yeah, and now just that level of narcissism

is just, that's just the baseline.

No, I actually think that it's a bunch of girls trying

to like create the best environment for each of them

to survive and thrive and being wrong,

but like still trying and caring.

I think that's a pursuit that is resonant in a new way,

whereas before it just looked like we didn't know

that any other countries existed,

or like that anyone had lives

that were less fortunate than ours.

But that was sort of the point,

it just got like missed a little bit.

But I think people are just getting it-

It was massive narcissism.

I mean it's- Yeah of course, of course.

Insane self-involvement, but I do,

I think there's something too that.

I like to imagine Girls in the time of TikTok,

like how it would've changed.

Shosh would have a banging, very thriving TikTok-

Mhm. Following, I think.

She would have like lots of like acrylic nails,

like tapping against a Stanley Cup,

and then like, get ready with mes,

and I think she would be,

did any of these things make sense to you?

No, no, no. Kay, got it.

But I have- I just saw

your soul leave your body.

I feel very, I feel taken, I trust you.

I think Marnie's, I think she'd still be trying

to have a singing career, in addition to other jobs.

I picture her with another marriage under her belt,

come and gone, I think.

Probably on the verge of deciding to have a baby on her own.

Do you see her in New York?

I see her like outside of Boston, sort of,

like wanting to stay close, Amtrak away,

but not in the same, needing to have a new.

Right. Zip code.

Right.

Just sort of start again a little bit.

Yeah, what about Desi, where is he, where did he go-

I don't know, I could see him like

working with troubled youths, like at-risk teens.

Uh-huh. You know, like-

Like Scared Straight?

Yeah, maybe like, or leading, like-

NOLS trips?

Yeah, like leading trips, like in Arizona,

you know, like in the desert or something,

and like taking like kids that need, yeah,

Scared Straight, that kinda stuff, so I could see that.

I could also see him like busing tables

at a place like Pappy And Harriet's,

like out in Joshua Tree or something.

Like adjacent to a music scene, maybe.

[Allison] Mhm.

You know, but I like the idea of him as like a therapist.

Not like a licensed therapist,

but somebody's who's really getting-

Yeah. Their hands dirty with like-

He like knows how to make a fire

and give advice.

Yeah, just like, I've been there, guys,

I know what you're going through.

Yeah. You know.

This was something I debated talking about,

but we have one scene in particular

that was instantly iconic and that people I do not know

talk to me about all the time. Yeah.

And it was a scene where your face was in my-

[Ebon] Yeah.

Butt. Yeah.

And we filmed it I think on my birthday.

Okay.

It was the first day of shooting for that season,

facts that feel helpful.

Okay.

And at the premier,

at which I was seated with my whole family,

after that scene played, which is one of my favorite,

hold on, I wanna remember the dialogue exactly.

[Ebon laughing]

I believe, I believe Desi says, I love that.

I think it's like, I love you, I love that.

Or, This or something-

I think it's, I loved that.

And Marnie says, I love you, too.

And it's- Ah.

A montage at the beginning of the season,

where you're like catching up with everybody,

and it's literally all you need to know about

where she is, what's going on. Yeah.

So the scene ends and Kathy Griffin,

who's in front of me in the theater,

just slowly turns around,

[hands clapping]

and slow claps in my direction after that.

And I was like, well, as if I weren't already

gonna remember this for the rest of my life,

I will remember it.

Yeah, we had a lot of sex on the show,

a lot of us had a lot of sex.

I think I had the most.

Yeah. Of all of us.

I think, I know you did, because that was,

Lena was making sure of it.

So, I'm obsessed with The Bear, as you know.

During this award season, I had the honor

of being in many rooms with you

while you were winning awards,

and I'm sure you were out of body while it was happening.

But I started to get made fun of

by the Fellow Travelers cast

because the minute they would call your name,

I would be like levitating in the air, like screaming.

It was the most exciting thing to watch-

[Ebon] Thank you, thanks.

Your performance is so gorgeous.

Thanks.

I wonder what it was like being in that ensemble.

Because it really is, you have such spectacular moments,

and your episode in particular,

but it is really like a family, from the outside at least.

And I'm wondering what that's like.

I dunno, for me it's like, yeah, you know,

it's not dissimilar from Girls,

where you have just like a really good company,

it takes a lot of pressure off,

you know- Mhm.

You just feel like you're on a journey,

everyone's telling the story,

so you have less of a burden on you.

And I really love actors and collaboration

and being in a room with a bunch of people

with a bunch of energy and having a lot of ideas.

Like big, messy scenes

are kind of the things- Mhm.

That I have the most fun with, personally, like-

Yeah.

That episode of,

the forks one- Best.

Where people really love, like,

I really didn't enjoy making that so much,

it felt kinda lonely for me in this quiet restaurant,

and I was working with really good actors,

but they, it wasn't like my family of like the people

that I had been working with in season one

and like that kitchen, you know, of like Matty and Liza

and Lionel and Jeremy and Ayo and everyone.

I'm an actor because I wanna collaborate with people,

not because I want to like be by myself.

If forks was a little bit lonely,

what was the most fun?

I like the first season.

[Allison] On top of each other all the time-

Like it's just like a mess,

it's like a sinking ship. Yeah.

You know, like people talk about like kitchens

and they describe, I've heard somebody describe a kitchen

as like being on a submarine.

Yeah.

I got stabbed, not right now, I got stabbed,

son of a fucking, Abram-

[Carmen] Open in one minute!

Abram, I got stabbed.

[Abram] Probably fucking deserved it.

Eh,

maybe.

I haven't seen Fellow Travelers.

How dare you, I'm walking.

So that's like, that's, fuck.

[Ebon and Allison laughing]

It's okay.

I have to explain something to you,

which is that when we make these things,

there's now all this technology,

you can continue watching it for quite some time afterwards.

Mhm.

Unless it gets taken off a platform

unceremoniously someday.

But for now, it's still there-

I'm gonna watch it, but I think I'm gonna

watch some Girls first.

Well, why not? Because I'm not,

like I'm on fire right now-

As long as my face is part of it, obviously,

malignant narcissism.

Yeah, so what are you, like, okay,

because after, well maybe during, you did,

it was Peter Pan, right?

Mhm.

And then, was Perfection?

Get Out was before Perfection.

Get Out, right, right, okay.

Yes, so that was kinda because of Peter Pan.

Jordan Peele was like, She'll do anything.

Yeah, yeah.

She's crazy.

She'll do anything, she just flew on live television,

sword fighting Christopher Walken, like she's down.

[Ebon laughing]

She will be the ultimate villain of this movie.

And he was right.

Yeah. And I loved it.

And so then from there, I just was like

trying to keep doing things that felt really interesting,

and also kind of playing with

what audiences were expecting from me after each choice,

like it kind of changed, and I really enjoyed that.

Like I knew that the first time people saw me

after Get Out, they wouldn't trust me for a while.

Right. Again.

And so choosing movies and genres

where I could play with that felt really like-

So using expectations.

Exactly.

Based on what you just did,

or what you've- Yeah.

Done, the, whatever, your body of work,

and then it just.

Yeah. Yep.

Exactly. I think that's smart, yeah.

Well it's been really fun,

and it's kept me in this, the thriller mix genre,

which I never expected,

and I can barely sit through a horror movie. I'm too scared.

Mhm.

But it is really fun,

and the character's are really interesting.

And then I got to do a show like Fellow Travelers,

which is totally outside of that genre,

and is historical fiction and drama.

And that was a really fun challenge

that felt also very different,

but rewarding in a very similar way.

It's actually, I'd be very curious,

based on just- Okay.

Anything you know

about the show- Okay.

To ask me a question blindly-

Okay.

Knowing nothing more than you know.

All right, so is Matt Bomer

really that handsome in real life?

So handsome, it's crazy. Yeah.

[Ebon laughing]

Great question.

Great question.

Girls was always like a,

kind of like a work in progress,

which I think gave it like a bit of, um,

life. Life, yeah.

And sort of, like and almost also like

a dangerous quality,

almost in a way- Yeah.

Like it'd feel like it was almost,

it could almost come off the rails.

Fellow Traveler, more traditional kind of scripted.

Definitely, also because it was,

we jumped around time within episodes,

but then also like narratively.

So I'd have to keep track of like

where we were in like broad chronology,

like just a timeline, but also in the show,

the order that details were being revealed in the show,

and then the order that we were filming those things,

it was all a jumble of like- Yeah.

Time periods, we went from the '50s to the '80s.

So it was a very different process.

It was like a different voice, different look every decade,

and so that had to be much more meticulously planned.

Fellow Travelers, based on the play?

Based on a book.

Based on the book.

And then there was an opera, I think.

Okay.

And then a play, and now our show.

Okay, tell me about that accent.

My accent? Yeah.

You're just, this is so funny,

this is like Mad Libs interview.

By the way, it's Fellow Travelers, plural.

Okay.

But we'll get there, it was fine,

we can ADR that.

Do you have an accent in it?

I don't have an accent. Okay.

I have a kind of like, what would've been,

we hope, accurate.

I had a dialect coach, would've been an accurate way

for a lady of my station to have spoken during that time.

I based it on my grandmother's best friend, Annie,

who has an incredible voice.

Like a kind of upper-class- Kind of partition.

Mid-Atlantic kind of-

Yeah, slightly.

Years ago you wrote my husband a letter.

You slipped it under the door of his apartment.

Do you remember?

Yes.

I burned it.

He never saw it.

Any more Fellow Travelers questions?

Um.

[Producer laughing]

I know, he's been texting me nonstop,

he's a mad fan, he can't stop, he's on his four re-watch.

This has been such a delight.

I'm so happy to see you.

I'm always happy to see you, I love you very much.

You're killing it, I love you too.

Gimme a hug.

[bright upbeat music]

[Ebon smooching]

[bright upbeat music]

[Producer 2] Have you seen the Marnie and Desi

Tortured Poet Department memes?

Have I ever, I'm a insane Swifty, I'm so honored.

I love the idea of Marnie and Desi

being in the tortured poets department,

where someone, who won't be named, is running,

dashing out with their typewriter.

Now I'm also referencing something you just have,

you're just looking at me with like.

I'm listening and learning.

I have an open heart-

It's the titular song off of the most recent

Taylor Swift album- Okay.

There were a lot of memes about us being the original,

the tortured poets. Okay.

It feels right, it feels canonically accurate.

That sounds right to me-

And his man shall not be named, would've fit right in

with our world and would've I think probably really like

livened up our music, in a way.

But also, you know, it feels right, I.

[beep]

[Producer laughing]

But.

It's just sort of-

Okay, oh, okay, okay.

[Allison] Rumored to be the muse of that song.

Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha- With his typewriter.

[Ebon] Gotcha.

[Allison] Yeah.

Okay, all right.

[Allison laughing]

Just that's,

I'm deep, I'm deep, I'm deep.