When you put six of TV’s top actresses around a table, it’s hard to predict where the conversation will go. Sure, you prepare a lengthy list of questions, but, as evidenced by THR’s latest Comedy Actress Emmy Roundtable, featuring 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), the discussion will go in directions a moderator never sees coming.
Among the more revealing was a spirited conversation around onscreen nudity — specifically, the idea that stripping down on camera has actually proved both “empowering and liberating” for actresses like Einbinder, who did more nudity on this season of Hacks than ever before. “I also 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,” Einbinder told the table. In response, Jessica Williams revealed that nudity was something that she was eager to do in her career as well.
Bell was similarly forthcoming, sharing how she’d spent years coveting tablemate Michelle Williams’ IMDB profile. “Earlier on in my career, when I felt like I wasn’t booking the things that I wanted to book and 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,’” recounted Bell. “And my husband was 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.’ 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.”
Michelle Williams was appropriately touched by the story, if a tad embarrassed by the attention. She used the platform to talk about the importance of having her whole family on board with the professional choices she makes. In the case of Dying for Sex, her 19-year-old daughter was very supportive, though, as Williams joked, “She said, ‘I’m glad it didn’t come out while I was in high school!’”
The challenges, both expected and unexpected, of trying to balance work and family became a recurring theme of the hour. Hahn spoke candidly about her family, opening up about the regret she harbors over the moments she missed with her kids because she’d been off on a film set. And Bell revealed how she now refuses to film projects outside of L.A., noting that she is wholly uninterested in having her day begin or end without her family around her. “I can explain it best by saying, I like being an actress, but I love being Kristen,” she said. “And if I had to choose between the two, I would quit this career in a heartbeat.”
Watch the full Emmy roundtables on IFC on Fridays at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET or stream it on AMC+. THR Emmy Roundtables will be rolling out in print and online for the next four weeks. In addition to catching broadcast episodes of Off Script With The Hollywood Reporter on Fridays, look for complete videos of each Roundtable on THR.com and YouTube on Sundays through June 22.
