Where we left off: Abe Weissman announces that he’s going to resign from Columbia, which would mean that he and wife Rose will have to give up their lavish apartment (Columbia owns it). Can Rose talk some sense into her suddenly reactive husband?
Amazon Studios
What’s to come: Surprises, and lots of them. “The curveballs just kept coming,” Hinkle says. “Rose continues to be thrown and has to find a way to right the ship. She’s fierce, though. I never had any idea what her path would be [from episode to episode]. Although I want Rose to be comfortable, I love that everything is completely out of sorts for her.” It’s a sentiment that Sherman-Palladino echoes as well. “Rose is figuring out her new reality,” she says.
Amazon Studios
Sophie Lennon (Jane Lynch)
Where we left off: Sophie pleads with Susie to represent her and fight for her the same way she does for Midge. Will Susie accept? And will Sophie soften her attitude towards Midge?
What’s to come: Lynch is now a series regular, which means that you can expect to see a lot more of Sophie. Still, Lynch isn’t hopeful that Sophie will turn over a new leaf. “She won’t change at all,” she says with a laugh. “And although she wouldn’t admit it, she’s inspired by Midge. She’s abandoning Sophie from Queens for now and is going into a new realm. She wants to try her chops at acting and she wants to break out of where she was. But her insides are pretty much the same throughout the whole season.”
Amazon Studios
The third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel premieres Friday, December 6 on Amazon Prime.
Jessica Radloff is the* Glamour West Coast editor. You can follow her on Instagram here.
Do you have any particular favorite songs or artists to start the night off?
You know, the Spice Girls always put me right back in the ’90s. Spice Girls, ’90s Britney Spears—or was that early 2000s?
She started in the late ’90s!
It’s funny, the late ’90s and the early 2000s kind of blend together for me because I was like 9 and 10, you know?
The Backstreet Boys for sure started in the ’90s.
Yes, the Backstreet Boys! I get really thrown back when you get into like a Lyft or an Uber and they’re blasting the Backstreet Boys.
Yes! Okay, let’s move on: Your hair is gorgeous. What do you do to keep it in such great shape?
Olaplex, Olaplex, Olaplex. Especially while I’m coloring it. Also, hair masks are kind of a new thing for me. I never, ever used hair masks until about a year or two ago. But I’ve been coloring my hair since I was 16, so the addition of masks to my routine has changed everything. Now that I’m blond, I’ve been using the Christophe Robin purple hair mask. It’s really great. It helps keep the brassier tones and the yellow out of my blond.
Rachel Brosnahan at the 2019 Tony AwardsSean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
I was going to ask if switching from brunette to blond has changed your routine…
That’s been new for me, the Christophe Robin. It’s used the same way as Olaplex, so I’ll try to do Olaplex maybe twice a week and do the purple mask once a week. I leave it in for 30 minutes, and it really cools out the blond. I prefer my blond a little bit cooler because I’m so fair.
What about in terms of styling your hair? Are you a wash-and-go person?
I’m useless when it comes to styling my hair. I just brush, put something that keeps flyaways down, and I’m out the door. If I’m going out somewhere sometimes I’ll throw…actually, I’m obsessed with the T3 curling wand. I’ll just throw a couple curls in my already air-dried hair with the curling wand.
How much time do you spend getting ready?
Fifteen to 20 minutes. I like to pick my clothes out the night before. My skin care routine is really simple. I try to use just a few products. Basically, I use Cetaphil’s cleanser and Vintner’s Daughter Botanical Oil. I’ll put on some sunscreen and maybe a little bit of concealer, and I’m out the door.
Kate Spade‘s fashion empire and legacy extends beyond her namesake brand to Frances Valentine, the second accessories line founded by the late designer. Today (January 30) Frances Valentine announced that it is paying tribute to its cofounder with a deeply personal, joyful campaign starring a special member of Spade’s family.
Frances Valentine tapped Rachel Brosnahan, Spade’s niece and star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, to front a vibrant spring 2019 campaign honoring her aunt’s memory. Brosnahan appeared on the Today show alongside Frances Valentine CEO Elyce Arons to unveil the campaign and discuss her aunt’s lasting impact on fashion.
“When you lose someone you love very, very much, you spend a lot of time trying to think about how to keep their spirit alive,” Brosnahan said on Today. “In Katy’s case, there is so much of her left behind, and this was an opportunity for us to celebrate her life and her legacy and how much she meant not only to us, but to so many other people and the impact she’s had on the fashion industry.”
Maggie Cepis for Frances Valentine
In the campaign, Brosnahan models Frances Valentine’s “modern vintage” bags and jewelry alongside outfits that are emblematic of her aunt’s well-known penchant for color. Pieces from the collection include leather bags in mustard yellow and red woven basket bags, oversize pendant earrings, and bow-adorned kitten heels.
“I have always loved Katy’s love of colors and accessories,” Brosnahan said in the brand’s look book. “She brightened up every room she walked into. She also loved classic shapes, but by mixing colors and patterns and adding funky accessories, her personality always shone through.”
Maggie Cepis for Frances ValentineMaggie Cepis for Frances Valentine
When it was time to bring that personality to life in the new campaign, Arons told Glamour, Brosnahan was the perfect fit. “Asking Rachel to be in the campaign was very natural. She is part of Katy’s family and part of the Frances Valentine family,” she said. “It was very organic and easy. Rachel enthusiastically agreed to be in the spring campaign and we were over the moon.”
The campaign captures the sense of optimism and joy legions of shoppers found in Spade’s designs—and in the designer herself. “The spring FV collection reflects Katy’s love of color and modern shapes as well as her love of vintage prints,” Arons said. “Katy had a joyous nature and loved creating things that made people happy. [She] gave women permission to be themselves and to be original.”
Maggie Cepis for Frances ValentineMaggie Cepis for Frances Valentine
Brosnahan remembers her aunt’s personality fondly and carries her memory into the campaign. “Katy led with an almost unparalleled kindness and generosity in both work and life, and firmly believed it was one of the keys to her success. She taught me a great deal about passion and drive but never at the expense of kindness,” she said. “She found joy in every corner of her life and work, and that’s something I will always carry with me.”
Brosnahan’s campaign follows special products that memorialize Kate Spade at Frances Valentine. Last fall the brand released the Kate bag, a boxy tote reminiscent of the Sam bag from Kate Spade New York, to honor its founder. At the time, Arons told Glamour that Frances Valentine would always be informed by Spade’s aesthetic. Spade, she said, “was someone who manifested her personality in every product, so there’s a lot of Katy in everything we do [at Frances Valentine].”
Maggie Cepis for Frances Valentine
Now Spade lives on in her niece’s image. “Having Rachel as the face of the spring campaign would have made Katy smile,” says Arons.
Pick any scene in the season two premiere of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—really, any scene—and it will show you just how brilliant Rachel Brosnahan is as stand-up comedian and Upper West Side divorcée Midge Maisel. (She didn’t win that Emmy for nothing…) But if I had to pick a scene that stayed with me long after the episode ended, it’d be that heartbreaking last one.
In the four-minute moment—stop reading now if you haven’t watched—Midge is swept up in emotion while she watches couples kiss in Paris. It’s romantic and gorgeous, but Midge is miserable. It serves as a reminder of what she used to have—or rather, what she thought she had. Out of loneliness and fear, Midge phones estranged husband, Joel (Michael Zegen), in New York to get back together. Yes, the same Joel who cheated on her with his secretary.
The moment could have been a disaster, but it ends up being a showcase of expert storytelling in the hands of co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino. The scene somehow humanizes Joel, while still making your heart break for Midge. She wants to make their marriage work; Joel does, too, but he knows he can’t. After seeing his wife shine on stage—in a way he never could—he realized he’d be holding her back. The very thing Midge excels at, finding humor in the devastation she felt because of Joel, is the one obstacle he can’t get past. He doesn’t want her to stop performing, but he also can’t be with her because of it.
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
The scene is so good, it may come as a surprise that it was filmed in under two hours and without any formal rehearsal. It was also a big concern for Brosnahan and Zegen after they read the script. The phone call represents a big shift for the Maisel’s relationship, and Brosnahan wanted to make sure it stayed authentic to her character. “To be honest, I was so frustrated by that scene when I first read it,” she tells us. “We spent season one establishing that when Midge gets hurt she doesn’t cry, she gets funnier. This scene really broke that rule. I had a little bit of a hard time pushing past that, because when Joel left, Midge didn’t cry. She got on stage. Here it really breaks her.”
Zegen felt the same way. “I also had problems with it,” he says. “I didn’t really understand where Joel was coming from. He’s telling Midge that he can’t be with her, even though he tried to get back with her over and over again.” Plus, as Brosnahan notes, “They had all but gotten together immediately before that moment [in the season one finale], which is what Midge was saying.”
But, “The key thing Joel tells her is, ‘I can’t be a joke,'” Zegen says. “I think that really says a lot. [Her comedy] is completely embarrassing, not to mention emasculating, for him.”
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
Sherman-Palladino understood the actors’ concerns and walked them through the scene. “[She explained] that so much has changed for them over the course of the first season, and I think ultimately what breaks from this one is there’s something that feels even more permanent about this,” Brosnahan says. “No one cheated [this time] and no one walked out the door. They’re just at a crossroads, and in that moment they are both choosing to walk different ways. That’s what’s so heartbreaking about this. It shows how much they have grown and evolved over the course of the first season.”
Once Brosnahan and Zegen hammered out the specifics of the scene, Brosnahan says she was really able to sink her teeth into the moment—especially when Joel says, “I love you too, honey, and you’re going to be OK.” Midge hangs up the phone and collapses in tears before walking away. “That moment was the one that felt the most clear to me of that whole scene,” Brosnahan says. “Amy just let me walk with it; in that moment, she and Joel have said everything they want to say and are both choosing to walk away. It breaks my heart because [the scene shows] you can love someone that much and know you’ll never be together.”
PHOTO: Nicole Rivelli
Brosnahan also hints that even if Midge and Joel do get back together, it may never stick. “Early on, before we even shot the pilot, I was asking Amy where Midge is [theoretically] headed,” Brosnahan says. “She told me—and this still breaks my heart—that Midge will go on to be wildly successful, live in a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue with 12 poodles, and will have everything she could have imagined this new dream to become. But, she’ll still remember the day before Joel left her as the happiest day of her life. So I think the moment [with the two of them on the phone] is the beginning of her journey toward that path. I do believe they’re soulmates, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be together.”
The second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Rachel Brosnahan is hungry. “I usually have Nutella in my purse,” she says, after taking her seat at Boxwood, a restaurant nestled in the London West Hollywood Hotel. “I had Smarties in there too. I took all the condiments from the hotel in France when we were shooting Maisel—all the honeys and jams. I really love condiments.”
Maisel, of course, is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the Amazon original series for which Brosnahan, 27, took home the 2018 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series—Musical or Comedy.
“I can already see the headline of this story,” she says. “‘My Love Affair With Condiments.’”
For the past few weeks, Brosnahan—a Milwaukee native—has been in Paris shooting the second season of Maisel, a show that’s been called “a love letter to stand-up comedy, female empowerment, and New York City,” by The Hollywood Reporter and about which New York magazine asked “Can We Talk About How Charming The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is?” The unofficial consensus among critics and fans is that the show—much like Mad Men and Good Girls Revolt—can be added to the canon of period pieces that possess an uncanny resonance.
The series, written by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, follows Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, a full-skirted domestic 1958 Jewish princess from the Upper West Side for whom perfection—or at least its patina—is a nonnegotiable. Midge waits until her husband falls asleep to remove her makeup and sets her alarm for dawn to reapply before he wakes up; she uses measuring tape to meticulously track and jot down the size of her ankles, calves, and thighs; and she finally—finally—gets the rabbi to come to her Yom Kippur breakfast, a worthy accomplishment for any good Jewish housewife.
By the end of the pilot, things take a turn: Midge’s mousy husband, Joel, leaves her for his secretary, but instead of getting a desk job or finding a richer husband, Midge semi-accidentally starts to test her voice at open mics nights in East Village underground comedy clubs, a fruitless passion of her husband’s. But she is good. Really good.
It’s a testament to Brosnahan that most people who watch Maisel assume she’s done stand-up or that it’s ignited an interest in doing so—she nails the loose-canon countenance that comes with amateur open mics and, later, the all-business confidence of holding an audience captive.
“The truth is no and no,” she says when I ask if she has experience with stand-up or aspirations toward it. “It’s a slightly different technical skill set—one that I’ve never really worked on and one that doesn’t always come naturally to me.”
“I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Based on Brosnahan’s past roles—namely as call girl Rachel Posner in House of Cards—for which she received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series—and the wife of a scientist developing the atomic bomb in short-lived WGN America drama Manhattan, even Sherman-Palladino wasn’t sure she’d be the right person to play Midge, a character whose primary motivation is to prove to everyone around her that a housewife can be funny.
“I had a casting director [in Los Angeles who] called me up and said, ‘I know there’s literally nothing on this girl’s resum´e that will tell you she can do the part, but I feel like it’s Rachel,’” Sherman-Palladino says. “You look at her [work], and it’s either drama or half the time she’s being tied to a post or thrown in a box or shoved in the back of a van. All very dramatic.”
Brosnahan agrees. “I’m laughing [at the fact that] I’m now an award-winning comedic actress,” she says. “Like, that feels absurd! I spent most of my life being told I wasn’t funny. I’ve lost many jobs because people would say, ‘We really liked her, but she’s just not funny.’”
Still, Brosnahan didn’t take that feedback personally. “It happened enough times that there was a pattern,” she explains. “I thought, Maybe I should listen to it. Now I’ve realized you can continue to learn things, even when you’ve formed a really solid sense of self.”
Her Maisel costar Alex Borstein, who plays Midge’s tough-as-nails manager at the comedy club, views Brosnahan’s background in drama as an asset. “She’s honest and vulnerable, and that’s what I think it takes to be a really good comedic presence,” Borstein says. “She’s got a tough sensibility—and some darkness in her. Having sarcasm and having that dark comedic sense usually comes from being an underdog or having some pain. It’s a muscle.”
Sherman-Palladino wanted whoever played Midge to be “infinitely watchable,” someone “you weren’t going to get tired of staring at after, like, five minutes.” Plus, she had to be the kind of actress who could click with the very specific rhythm and rat-a-tat pattern of Sherman-Palladino’s dialogue—a stylistic signature of all her scripts. To that end, every woman who came in to audition was required to deliver three key scenes from the pilot: the speech Midge gives at her wedding, the breakup with her husband, and the character’s first stand-up set.
Brosnahan nailed all three. “A lot of really talented, wonderful actresses came in for it—great girls that I hope to work with someday,” Sherman-Palladino says. “But Rachel…she knew these scenes inside and out. By the time she walked out the door, we were like, ‘Well, that’s our girl.’”
Dinnertime. Brosnahan zeroes in on the cheeseburger and, instead of the restaurant’s house-made chips, asks for fries. She’s especially excited to see her favorite ketchup—Sir Kensington’s—is provided. “They had a truck where you could sample their condiments outside of the Frances Valentine offices in New York,” she says. (Frances Valentine is an accessories brand designed by Kate Spade, Brosnahan’s aunt.) “I have a love affair [with Sir Kensington’s ], if I’m being honest.”
Over the course of our meal, Brosnahan’s culinary passion comes up several times. She tells me about her trips with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge’s ex-husband Joel, to an “oyster ramen cocktail bar” in Manhattan’s Hamilton Heights and the time she learned how to make artichoke pizza with Rachael Ray. Her best friend, Karlee Fomalont, cites the Dave & Buster’s and Shake Shack in Times Square as go-to spots for them when I later ask her about Brosnahan.
But there’s one story, about an encounter earlier this year, that makes Brosnahan “infuriated.” She was at an influencer event for Maisel, held at a Los Angeles Jewish deli, and helping herself to fries and latkes when a man came up to her and asked, “Are you sure you want to eat that? Don’t you have a dress to fit into?”
“It wasn’t the first comment this guy had made,” Brosnahan says. “He kept asking about my personal life and my relationship status, but in a really aggressive way—as if that was the only thing of value about me. He said things like, ‘You must have a man.’” Brosnahan reminded him that the event was about her work on Maisel, not her private life, but he continued to push. The comment about her body was the breaking point. “I was shoveling a latke in my face—and very thrilled about it, mind you—when he made the food comment,” she explains. “I said, ‘I am sure I want to eat that. I love latkes! Do you want one?’ I was trying to keep it light, but I would have loved to have had a great Amy Sherman-Palladino—style clapback. It’s only in hindsight that you think of these things.”
Brosnahan had the man booted from the event. “The guy was a jackass. It was so gross, particularly in a room centered around this show. It’s sad that this behavior still exists.”
During the past few months, Brosnahan has become acutely aware that her life—the one before the hit show, before the awards, before burgers with reporters in hotels—is different. She doesn’t feel famous, but there are times, like the latke incident, when she knows she’s under scrutiny. People know how to say her last name now. Doors are opening with opportunities. Living in New York allows her to still have some anonymity, but even that’s changing.
“I didn’t realize how much I was used to and valued utter anonymity,” she says. “Not that I need to be polished, but now I wouldn’t probably go to the grocery store in Midtown with zit cream on my face.” She laughs, because she’s done it before. Recently, during a breakout, Brosnahan put some “pink stuff” on her acne and went to her local dog park. “I thought, I’m not going to see anyone I know,” she says. Of course, as soon as she got there somebody asked, “Are you….?” Brosnahan panicked and said no.
“I don’t know why I was embarrassed. People have zits, and they put shit on them. But I was mortified. I felt so uncomfortable being a perfectly normal human being,” she says. “Why are we embarrassed when that happens? Everyone does that, whether in private or in public. I get mad when I get embarrassed about stuff like that.”
It was Miley Cyrus, funnily enough, who shared a similar story with Brosnahan at a press event that reminded her to keep things in perspective. “I hope I don’t butcher her words, but when she had a zit and wanted to put pink cream on it, she did, regardless of where she was. She felt it was important to show her young and impressionable audience that it was OK, and there’s nothing shameful about it. I found that really inspiring.”
Brosnahan has found one way to make this whole fame thing work for her: by bringing awareness to her passion projects, organizations like Global Citizen and Covenant House. “There’s a responsibility that comes with this increased platform,” she says. “None of us should be silent right now, but we also need to listen.”
When asked how she’d describe herself, Brosnahan chooses words like curious,ambitious, and open. It’s surprising, given that questions about her romantic life are off-limits. “I like to keep my private life private,” she says, without hesitation. “Maybe that will change, I don’t know, but I am blessed with a really rich personal life, so it feels important for my sanity to keep it separate.”
She didn’t expect to be so guarded—“I never would have considered myself that way”—but the more attention she got, the more she realized she was deeply uncomfortable sharing that side of herself.
“I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Fomalont also describes Brosnahan as open, though only with the people she’s close to. “It’s a balance I respect so much,” she says. “Because the impulse is to overshare, but then you lose the things that keep you grounded. She’s able to stay grounded and rooted because of the personal stuff she keeps tied to her heart, but she is engaged. It’s a delicate dance.”
Part of it is that Brosnahan likes disappearing into characters, and it can be hard for an audience to separate the art from the artist. “The most exciting thing that anyone ever says to me about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is that they didn’t realize that it was the same actress from House of Cards,” she says. “To me, that’s all I want.”
When the waitress approaches, asking if we’d like to see a dessert menu, Brosnahan is ready: “Yeah, of course.” The chocolate fondue—with fruit and a macaroon and ice-cream sandwich—stands out. (“If nothing else, the presentation alone is probably amazing. These guys really know how to throw a party.”)
While we wait, conversation turns to the Golden Globes and the moment Carol Burnett and Jennifer Aniston presented Brosnahan with her Best Actress award. “Annie was one of my favorite movies ever,” she says. “So [when I saw Burnett], I died. I’m pretty sure I went blank as I approached the stage.” As for Aniston, Brosnahan hadn’t watched Friends until two years ago. Now she’s seen every episode. “I love Ross so much! And Monica. I really enjoy the Geller siblings. I feel like I related to them the most because of their anxiety.”
That anxiety, Brosnahan says, never entirely goes away—even after winning a Golden Globe. “When we were shooting Maisel in Paris, I thought, I’ve got this. Then I got up there and was just as nervous as I was during the first season, equally horrified every single second. I was like, Shit, it never goes away.”
When dessert arrives, the spread looks like something Midge herself would have prepared for a dinner party. Each piece of fruit and cake is divided into perfect squares, like a delicious chess board. Before we ruin the illusion, I ask one last thing: “Much like the presentation of our meal, have the last six months been as amazing as it looks from my perspective?”
“There’s an element of fantasy—the fantasy of what this life looks like,” Brosnahan says. “I feel like I have one foot on either side of the fence, you know? I’m in a position where things are cool, but it’s all new. I still feel like a super-normal human being. I’ve worked really hard to get here, but I’m also really lucky. Nothing happens without some stars aligning.”
Hair by Ted Gibson at the Visionaries Agency. Manicure by Yukie Miyakawa at Kate Ryan Inc. Set design by Alex Brannian at Art Department. Makeup by Lisa Aharon for Chanel.
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