Why Dying for Sex Costars Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate Feel Humbled by Parenting Young Kids: ‘Spiritual Masters’ (Exclusive)

Coming together on screen for the first time, Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate make for a formidable duo in the FX limited series Dying for Sex. 

Despite never having worked together — although the two did appear in Venom, they never shared scenes with each other — the costars built an undeniable bond while working on the series adapted from Nikki Boyer’s podcast of the same name, which chronicles best friend Molly Kochan’s real-life sexual exploration in the wake of being diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. 

While the series is full of dark humor and wit, especially during Molly’s (Williams, 44) unexpected sexual endeavors, it comes packed full of raw and intense emotional scenes often shared with Nikki (Slate, 43) as they face the realities of cancer. 

Reflecting on filming the show together, Slate tells PEOPLE that both actresses were connected and there for each other, even from the moment they first read scenes together. 

“My sense of Michelle from the moment that we rehearsed our first scene together, when I came in for a chemistry read, was that I matched up to her,” she says of Williams. “She was just, like, sensors out and really attuned [to what was going on] and that was very soothing for me.” 

Explaining that she likes to know what’s going on with her costars — “Knowing whether or not they feel vulnerable, I can understand how to get as close as I am supposed to be getting while offering respect,” she says — the actress reveals that she and Williams “were always checking in, like vocally or just through touching each other.” 

Over the course of shooting the eight-episode series, they two had a symbiotic relationship and developed “a verbal and nonverbal shorthand,” Slate says, explaining that “so much of this project is about communication. ‘How do you speak to yourself? What do you say about yourself? How do you speak to other people who love you?’ ”

Helping to release the tension on set, the two told Good Morning America that they indulged in food therapy by getting lots of ice cream and pizza trucks for the cast and crew. “Nothing brings people together like food,” Williams explained on the show. 

According to co-created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether, there were “a lot of jelly beans on set,” Rosenstock confirms to PEOPLE, adding that created a real family bond and safe place for everyone by, “[getting] a lot of snack trucks and ice cream.”  

Additionally, for Slate and Williams, both being parents to young children was another way to help to distract from the intensity of working on Dying for Sex. When asked by PEOPLE if having kids under the age of 4 brought a certain level of humility or levity to something as emotionally intense as this series, Williams says, “Yes.” 

“You know, there’s nothing like a toddler to make you humble,” says the Fosse/Verdon star, who shares daughter Matilda, 19, with her late partner, Heath Ledger, and three sons with husband Thomas Kail, with Hart, 4, born in 2020, a second born in 2022, and a third welcomed via surrogate six weeks ago. “They’re really real. They will really do a lot of stuff.” 

Adding to that, Slate, who shares daughter Ida, 4, with husband Ben Shattuck, says, “They are your spiritual masters.”

“That’s right,” Williams chimes in, before the creator of the Marcel the Shell with Shoes On series continues, explaining, “They are cracking the whip. My husband calls our daughter the torchbearer. He’s like, ‘She’s a really truthful person, so she should be the torchbearer for [us]. We should model ourselves after her.’ ”

“I think generally becoming a parent, one thing that I gained was a sense of legitimacy. There’s no time to waste,” Slate says, before adding, “To be an actor has always been my dream. So there’s a lot of joy that I would feel every day coming to work, even on the harder days there’s a rush of energy that comes in for me that’s also much appreciated.”

“But I feel energy because, sometimes — my daughter was like 3 years and a few months and your son was in his 3s almost 4 — like, you’re tired. They’re running around, they’re not eating sand anymore, hopefully, but you’re tired. So to feel refreshed is wow,” Slate concludes. 

Williams adds, “Yeah, and to get a 15-minute break at work is so astonishing. There’s like 15 minutes that you might sit on a couch and nobody’s asking you anything, it’s very restorative.”

Going off that, Slate adds, “To have a cup with a lid and some small person isn’t gonna bump into you and spill the thing all over yourself, I mean, it’s a luxury.”  

Dying for Sex premieres Friday, April 4 on Hulu.