Kristen Bell, Natasha Lyonne and the Comedy Actress Roundtable

Much like the series they appear in, six of television’s top actresses find themselves careening wildly between laughter and tears as they gather for THR‘s annual Comedy Actress Emmy Roundtable. Over the course of an hour in early May, Kristen Bell (Nobody Wants This), Hannah Einbinder (Hacks), Kathryn Hahn (Agatha All Along, The Studio), Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face), Jessica Williams (Shrinking) and Michelle Williams (Dying for Sex) unpack their own personal and professional vulnerabilities, reveal the empowering side of onscreen nudity and, yes, even debate the merits of emojis — the eggplant included.

What’s the wildest or most amusing thing that you’ve read about yourself on the internet? Jessica, your co-star Harrison Ford did compare you to Yoda …

JESSICA WILLIAMS That was really wild. He doesn’t like talking about [Star Wars], so I was like, “He said what now?” But “sassy” is one I used to get a lot.

NATASHA LYONNE Did you say Oliver Stone said that?

J. WILLIAMS Harrison Ford.

LYONNE That makes more sense. (Laughter.)

Natasha, I did see one about you that made me laugh. I believe it was Maya Rudolph who said of you: “She’s a hooker with a heart of gold minus the hooker part.”

LYONNE But I do accept cash in exchange. Maya knows that. At various points, she was, I won’t say “pimp” because that’s weird. … Heart of gold, though. (Laughter.) I was going to say, you know how net worth is the first thing that comes up on anybody? I’m susceptible to just clicking on it out of sheer curiosity. And I don’t think it’s true. Or I look at it and think, “Well, it should be more,” so then I have to call Maya and see if we can get any more gigs.

J. WILLIAMS Normally I see, like, “Jessica’s feet.” Just photos of my feet.

KATHRYN HAHN WikiFeet!

J. WILLIAMS Nobody’s asked about my net worth yet.

HAHN Well, I’ve spent a lot more money than I should have if that’s my net worth. Like, it’s gone!

If you were to see a Kristen Bell type or a Michelle Williams type or insert-your-name type on a casting breakdown, do you have a sense …

KRISTEN BELL Whether or not you’ll get it? 50-50 … (Laughter.)

… do you have a sense of what it means?

HANNAH EINBINDER Early on in Hacks, it was like, “messy alcoholic, millennial bitch.” I don’t know what it would be now, but that’s what people wanted me to do a lot back then.

BELL If it’s a Kristen Bell type and it’s a story about a family, it’s a young, quirky mom. Or it’s like an older person who’s dating, but she’s kind of quirky. Probably quirky because I keep going back to the word.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS I don’t know what I look like out there.

LYONNE Is that how you stay sane?

M. WILLIAMS I don’t know. I try not to take on what somebody might say I am or am not.

Kristen, I’ve heard you say that at one point your husband, Dax Shepard, gave you advice about finding your lane …

BELL But she’s here!

I’ll let you explain.

BELL It’s just embarrassing for me, but I guess that’s why I called you all here. (Laughter.) Earlier on in my career, when I felt like I wasn’t booking the things that I wanted to book and also the things that people wanted me to book, it was like, “Oh, lost another role. OK.” “No, it’s Michelle Williams again. Great.” “OK, it’s Michelle. OK, it’s gonna be Michelle.” “It’s gonna be Emily this time. Perfect. Love those girls.” And my husband’s like, “Stop trying to drive in other people’s lanes. You are not going to be Michelle Williams, but you have a lane on the highway, and you can speed in it.” You (to Michelle) were the example name in that because you are like this goddess of the craft.

M. WILLIAMS Awww.

BELL And he was basically saying, don’t use a goal, use something more internal. And it was when I really digested that — like, “Oh yeah, I’m just going to do my thing and see if anyone likes it” — that it started working.

J. WILLIAMS The game is trying to pay attention to your lane when there are so many other great people and funny people, because we all have actresses who are always in the conversation before you.

BELL Let me make this very clear: I still want to be Michelle. That has not gone away. I just also like being Kristen.

HAHN Gosh, I don’t think I have a lane. It’s such chaos.

LYONNE I don’t think of you as chaotic at all …

J. WILLIAMS You’re so singular. I mean, I’m obsessed with you. I’m trying to be cool …

HAHN Oh God.

J. WILLIAMS It’s so interesting how we all see ourselves.

Kristen, years ago, when you were cast in Frozen, I believe you pushed to have your character, Anna, be someone who you said you needed to see when you were 11. What did that mean to you?

BELL I’d always wanted to be a part of Disney animation, and the script was great, but it felt like something I’d seen before. Like this beautiful formula that always works. So, I really pushed because I thought, “I don’t want to play the princess with good posture.” I loved Sleeping Beauty or Snow White as a kid, but I couldn’t really identify. I wanted the girl who had a princess crown but she sat like this (slouches over) and she talked too fast and wore her heart on her sleeve and said things that were embarrassing and then backtracked and who loved everyone ferociously.

LYONNE Does that mean a little broken or a little insecure while still taking over the world?

BELL For sure insecure, but not from any sort of deep trauma — just insecure in the way we all are insecure. Like, “Am I being accepted here? Can I try harder?” All the things I was going through and still go through.

For all of you, what are the subtle or not-so-subtle things you’ve pushed for because it was something you needed to see at some point in your life?

LYONNE (To Einbinder) Well, buddy …

EINBINDER I’ll take it, and (motioning to Lyonne) I sit next to my freaking queer icon here … [Lyonne starred in the 1999 rom-com But I’m a Cheerleader as a cheerleader whose parents send her to conversion therapy camp to try to “cure” her lesbianism.]

LYONNE I skated in on that one, but I’m into it.

EINBINDER But what Hacks has been able to do for bisexual representation is give a vivid life and a reality to this character. We know that when people write to their own experience, something is just far more lived-in. And as a queer actor myself playing a queer character, I can add my, you know, zest. So, this season, there’s a polyamory arc that is not the butt of a joke.

LYONNE Wasn’t called [for the role].

EINBINDER Oh my God, dream! But yeah, there have been a lot of amazing queer films and TV that predated Hacks, of course, but it warms my heart when I get messages from people who feel like this is an in-depth and non-fetishized representation of bisexuality.

LYONNE (To Einbinder) Do you feel like this kind of a queer component is something that you’ve slowly laid in track for, or was it always embedded?

EINBINDER Oh, it’s always been there. A lot of our writers room are writing to their own experiences. Everyone who’s telling a story has an incredibly talented comedy writer to represent that lived experience. And it’s this great symbiosis where, because I live a queer existence, I’m able to lend various [ideas], like, “Well, I don’t know if they would be, like, coming at the same time in the shower. Perhaps, like, one person is talking.” (Laughter.)

Anyone else find themselves pushing for things you needed to see?

HAHN For me, a lot of it is aspirational — something I can say through someone else that I can’t really say in my own life. When I was a kid doing theater, I was like, “Oh, this is where I’m telling the truth.” I can touch things that maybe I’m not ready to in my own life.

BELL Well, you don’t have to go home with the consequences. I mean, I don’t want to be as lofty as being like, “Between action and cut, I feel most alive …” I heard someone say that for real one time.

J. WILLIAMS To answer that question, I’m like a 6-foot-tall Black lady who’s a size 14 …

LYONNE Prove it! (Laughter.)

J. WILLIAMS Heeey! (Starts to rise.) Growing up, I feel like I took pieces of people. Queen Latifah and Whoopi Goldberg and Maya Rudolph. Just these legends, but still it wasn’t quite right because I didn’t quite [see me].

LYONNE They say, like, steal from the best, and so Russian Doll, season one, I ate a raw egg yolk for breakfast because she was hungover and that was a straight-up Rocky riff. And Gena Rowlands is the one I’m most guilty of stealing from. I do think something that’s sorely missing that breaks my heart about this community is that we don’t sit around and just fucking love [each other’s performances] for a second. It’s hard now, there are so many shows, you’re lucky if you’re catching one or two. And everything feels so disposable, on to the next — and if it is a big hit, it’s about awards and outfits.

BELL I think you should be absolutely haphazard with your compliments. One thing I’ve started doing, and I believe you (to Hahn) have gotten a few of them, if I see something I love — and every night I try to take some time to watch TV with my husband — I send a voice memo. Like, “Hahn, you bitch. How dare you be so good in this show.” I contained it for many years, but I just feel better when I’m throwing it out there. So, if I see someone in a role I love, you’re getting a voice memo.

HAHN It’s so awesome.

J. WILLIAMS I feel like that on set, too. Coming up, I did sketch and improv, and there’s a lot of meanness and cliques in comedy and in-scene partners — guys who will use you as a punchline and it feels really bad. Now that I’m older, I [realize] how many mean comedy teachers there were, like real dicks. So, when I’m working, especially in comedy, I’m like, “No, I’m here. Let’s yes-and.”

BELL Comedy is supposed to make you happy.

LYONNE Hey, baby, ever heard of Lenny Bruce? (Laughter.)

BELL I just think we have an obligation to cheer each other on.

LYONNE One of the gorgeous things about getting older is that you move past this false narrative that women are supposed to be against each other. And what’s so exciting about moving behind the scenes is, I’m like, “Holy shit, I could work with each of us.” Like, suddenly there’s a way to do that. So you’re no longer in this game of it’s me versus them.

J. WILLIAMS But it’s so hard if you’re Black. There’s a million times more white parts than there are Black parts, especially in comedy. So there’s this insane scarcity — then, if you’re like fully Black and not mixed, there’s an [even more] insane disparity. It’s why I try to make sure my life is full. Because we’re not there yet for people of color, and it does pit us against each other in a lot of ways. You see it happen all the time: There’s one person of color of the moment, and that person just gets cast in everything you see. It’s bullshit.

How are your choices different at this stage of your careers? For instance, how do your personal lives and families factor in?

LYONNE What I’m beginning to learn in adulthood is that it’s never OK to bring that kind of personal backstory of, like, “This morning was crazy,” to try, in any way possible, to compartmentalize those things. That’s a maturity thing, right?

HAHN Yeah. I also feel like the scramble or the panic starts to [wane with age]. I always think of a space shuttle with all the shit attached to it, and as it’s taking off, the unnecessary stuff starts to fall off. It’s menopause for me. But it’s interesting because I played a witch [on Agatha All Along], which was exactly where I was supposed to be at that particular time in my life. It was the quirky best friend roles, then the pregnant woman, then the horny pregnant woman and now the witch.

LYONNE A classic arc. (Laughter.)

HAHN I’m curious to see what’s next.

BELL I have a slightly different perspective, and, to each their own, but I can’t physically operate in the world if I don’t have some part of the morning or evening with my family. I am so rooted in that life, and I can explain it best by saying, I like being an actress, but I love being Kristen. And if I had to choose between the two, I would quit this career in a heartbeat. But I know that about myself, and about 12 years ago, because my oldest is 12, I was like, “What if I just tried to see if I had leverage to be like, I’m not going to shoot outside of L.A. anymore?” No matter how good the director is or how good the script is, I won’t do it. I wouldn’t care enough. I’m not trying to do the Revenant 2 in wherever they shot that. I don’t need to do that. It wouldn’t fulfill me. So, I said, “Don’t even send me anything if it’s not shooting in L.A. or if it’s not early enough in the development that I can say, ‘We have to shoot in L.A.,’ ” and I’ve been really, really lucky. But that does bleed in a little to the, when I get there in the morning, I will absolutely compartmentalize and shut that off and I’m never trying to bring baggage to set unless it’s happy, playful, fun stuff that would excite us. But then, at the end of the day, I’m not really here for, “Let’s do a couple more just for us.” If we’ve got it, I need to go home and reconnect with my family because otherwise I can’t come in tomorrow.

HAHN There are a couple of projects that, because I was away from my kids for that amount of time, there is still a, like, “Ughhh.” Like, being away from my son when he first got his driver’s license and being across the country — that kind of stuff.

BELL It’s a very important part of the female conversation that is often left out because we can talk about how awesome this career is and all the hard work we do to get here and stay here, but what’s not said out loud a lot is, “What are the other components that allow you to do that?” And for me, it’s that — it’s saying no to a fair amount of things because it won’t work. My brain won’t function. And it’s OK to prioritize your social life and your family life and your life as a human being because if you don’t have all of that, what are you even pouring into the acting recipe? You have to have a full life as a human being, otherwise you don’t know how to act like a human being when you’re in front of a camera.

J. WILLIAMS Also, there are seasons. Like, sometimes you do just got to grind. There’s a season for grinding. Because we’re all in different points in our career …

HAHN A hundred percent.

J. WILLIAMS So, I’ll stay for alts, but I also don’t have kids yet. I haven’t gotten to that point in my life.

EINBINDER I want to go to grad school at some point.

J. WILLIAMS Hell yeah. What do you want to study?

EINBINDER Perhaps environmental science.

J. WILLIAMS I want to finish school.

EINBINDER I just think, like, you’ve got to go outside. You’ve got to live your life.

Michelle, you’ve said that Dying for Sex wasn’t necessarily the thing you saw yourself doing. You said something like, “I’m a mom, I got all these kids. I’m going to do a show about what?!” Tell me what you were scared of?

M. WILLIAMS Well, the only reason I get these parts is because she (to Bell) won’t work on the East Coast. (Laughter.) But it’s not [fear] for me, it’s really not. It’s actually the clearing of fear. I just never know what’s going to happen because I don’t create my own material. I’m in a patience game with myself, like, how long can I wait and how patient can I be until the thing comes along that I think [fits my criteria], which is: Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said right now? And does this need to be said by me? And you have to wait a long time if you’re not talented enough to make your own material, which I’m not.

LYONNE I highly doubt it, I’ve known you a long time …

M. WILLIAMS When [Dying for Sex] came up, it’s not what I would’ve prescribed, but I knew immediately that it was what I wanted to do. It’s just that I couldn’t have designed it myself.

I also suspect you were immensely grateful to have had an intimacy coordinator on this one. As you’ve said, you showed up, I don’t know if it was day one or week one, and you’re trying to figure out how to fake six orgasms …

BELL (Feigns horror) Did you fake those?! (Laughter.)

LYONNE She would never! (To Michelle) Is it a full McGilliCutty on the outside?

M. WILLIAMS No, you don’t see [me naked].

LYONNE I mean, I’m never nude. I’ve tried, nobody wants it.

EINBINDER Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. (Laughter.)

M. WILLIAMS The thing that you really do need is a supportive family because I’m fine to do this kind of material, I’m committed to it, but, if you’re in a partnership and have children, you really do need their full and unwavering support to be able to go and do these things and to say, “Yeah, this is something that we’re working on as a family.” Because when you do something, when you take time away, the other people in your family need to step up and fill your shoes a little bit, and so they have to believe in what you’re doing. And I’m lucky to now have this place that I can jump from.

Did I read that it was your eldest daughter who said, “Go do this project”?

M. WILLIAMS She said, “I’m glad it didn’t come out while I was in high school!” (Laughter.) But she’s a different generation than how we grew up, so she didn’t have to fight for this insistence to be expressive and expansive and messy. She is just there.

Kathryn, I remember reading how you had a conversation with your son, who was around 13 at the time, where you said, “Please don’t google me.”

HAHN Well, I’ve been nude in a lot of stuff. (Everyone starts applauding her.) Thank you so much. I never get this affirmation. But it’s never been something that I didn’t know going into it and the stuff I do usually is not stuff that they would watch unless it’s like a big comedy. We don’t talk about my work. When I’m home, I’m Mom. They make fun of me relentlessly. It’s exactly what they should be doing as teenagers. Though my son told me when he was 15, he went into a big party where a bunch of kids were standing around watching Step Brothers, and he said, “Mom, I just turned and walked out.” And I was like, “I one hundred percent get it.”

LYONNE But you’re such a heavy hitter, just as a performer, and I haven’t seen all of your nude work — maybe I could get a super cut later …

HAHN Yes, I have one.

LYONNE I think of you more as Julianne Moore, like, flying across her art space with a merkin. That, to me, is sort of like a third category.

HAHN I think so, too.

LYONNE It’s less like, “Hey baby, come check it out.”

HAHN That’s never been my currency. It’s not for that.

EINBINDER I did more nudity this season than I ever have, and I found it really empowering and liberating. I also do look to actresses who have done it, and I feel like they’re cool for doing it. And it’s made me feel a lot better in my body doing it.

LYONNE Is it about, like, feeling laid bare around something that you’re not holding back?

EINBINDER I think it’s just taking away this puritanical socialization that we all have received as women. The idea of being shirtless, I really think we’re going toward a reality and a society where the female form is just normalized. Like, this thing (she covers her chest), why [do we do this]? Actually, why?

BELL There’s such a buildup [to these scenes], but then you do it and you didn’t die …

EINBINDER And it deepens my comfort with myself, and I’m reaching this level of, like, “OK, all of my friends [at work] have seen me undressed and nothing is different and now it’s out there.” I’m warning my parents, “Don’t watch.” But other than that, it’s cool.

LYONNE You’re also shooting it safely and it’s tethered to character, not to fantasy.

EINBINDER Yes, it’s justified, and it’s a female gaze.

HAHN I think the only times I’ve ever done it has been with a female creator or director, so yeah, it doesn’t feel like that outside gaze judging it.

LYONNE But we [didn’t used to have a] WikiFeet equivalent of, like, freeze your nips. What’s that website?

J. WILLIAMS The nipple tracker?

Wait, what’s the nipple tracker?

LYONNE The one where they show you all the naked people in freeze frame.

M. WILLIAMS Just screengrabs of everybody …

LYONNE The stakes really do feel like they’ve changed for any of us who are choosing to do stuff because, really, what you’re doing is giving people the right to go into that website and find it all, which is like, I don’t know, you’re serious people and you got one boob here, one boob just a little bit there, nobody wants to play that fucking game.

When strangers approach you, which project or character do they typically want to talk about?

HAHN For a long time, it was Jen Barkley from Parks and Rec, and I wasn’t even in that many episodes. Now it’s Agatha, the witch.

J. WILLIAMS For me, it’s Daily Show, Shrinking and The Bear, which I’m not on. (Laughter.) I go, “Not me, but thank you so much.” I get that all the time.

BELL It’s usually Veronica Mars or Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I think it’s because the name was in the title. Because no one can remember the title of the show I’m on now. They just go, “I watched your show!” “Your show!”

EINBINDER I get, “Are you the annoying girl from Hacks?” No, that was just season one. People are nice. It’s usually gay people who are like, “All right!”

M. WILLIAMS I’m a clean split between Wendy and Lucy and Dawson’s Creek.

HAHN I don’t know if you remember this, Michelle, but you were doing a play at Williamstown, I can’t remember which one.

M. WILLIAMS The Cherry Orchard?

HAHN Ever heard of Chekhov?! (Laughter.) You were doing Dawson’s Creek at the same time, and I just remember being so impressed that you were still connected to all those parts of yourself as an actor — that it wasn’t like one thing or the other. I remember being like, that’s an aspirational thing for me — to be able to be so curious about so many different avenues of expression and performance.

M. WILLIAMS You know, it’s really great when nobody gives a shit about what you’re doing. (Laughter.) It’s so amazing when nobody’s really watching and you’re like, “Well, OK, I’m just going to careen wildly and see what I’m all about and what I can do or can’t do, what I’m interested in, what I’m curious about and where I want to go.”

How about you, Natasha? What’s the project that fans approach you about most?

LYONNE Russian Doll. And that show’s the thing I feel most connected to fans when they talk to me about because I’m like, “Oh, this is a real simpatico.” Like, you don’t have to bring this one up. Poker Face is fun to talk about, but it’s a little bit more like, “Yeah, I know, crazy guest stars.” This is an addendum, but the thing I’m most excited about right now is this movie I’m writing with Brit Marling, who’s fucking brilliant. [The film, Uncanny Valley, will be set in the world of immersive video games and make abundant use of AI.]

HAHN Oh, I heard!

LYONNE Yeah, and I feel very proud of, like, IP ownership and this era of, why don’t we make the rules and trailblaze around the things that we actually care about? Because it’s fun to do, and worse comes to worst, I’ll go back [to simply acting]. But I really admire people like Greta Gerwig or Jordan Peele and they managed to extricate themselves and focus on one thing at a time, and I do have a dream of just allowing myself that shot and seeing what comes after.

EINBINDER Want to go to grad school together?

LYONNE No, I’m busy. (Laughter.) But I don’t understand, what’s it for again?

EINBINDER Just the wonder and excitement of learning. Yeah.

LYONNE We need a subject, Hannah.

EINBINDER OK, environmental science. Or we could do art history. I’m open.

Ending on a lighter but hopefully revealing note: What’s the most used emoji on your phone?

HAHN I’m not a deft emoji user. I do a lot of XOXOs, sometimes a K slips in and I send it anyway.

M. WILLIAMS I think if someone got a text from me with an emoji they’d know that my phone was stolen and I was in trouble.

BELL I’ll say it: Emojis are fun. They convey a lot more than words sometimes. I overuse one in particular that I’d prefer not …

HAHN Eggplant! (Laughter.)

BELL If you send me, “Let’s meet at All Time at noon,” here’s what you’re going to get from me: eggplant! And you’re going to know exactly what it means. It means “I’ll be there and I love it.”

LYONNE I go double flames a lot, and I’m not sure why. And I do like to tell an entire story in them, including a bento box. I just feel sad that they’re often ignored, so I want to bring them in.

BELL The flamenco dancer is fun, too, when she’s cartwheeling. That means she’s early and very excited.

This story appeared in the June 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.