Allison Williams & Ebon Moss-Bachrach Reunite After 7 Years

Vanity Fair

It's been seven years since Allison Williams &amp; Ebon Moss-Bachrach starred in HBO's 'Girls.' Allison and Ebon reunite to discuss everything from working with Andrew Rannells on the show to songs that were actually written for Kelly Clarkson by Jack Antonoff. See them also catch up on their latest projects including 'Fellow Travelers' and 'The Bear.'   Director: Claire Buss  Director of Photography: Ryan Nethery Editor: Richard Trammell Talent: Allison Williams &amp; Ebon Moss-Bachrach Producer: Madison Coffey Line Producer: Romeeka Powell Associate Producer: Lyla Neely Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes Talent Booker: Meredith Judkins Camera Operator: Chloe Ramos Gaffer: Niklas Moller Audio Engineer: Sean Paulsen Production Assistant: Alexis Alzamora Stylist: Allison: Cristina Ehrlich, Margaret Meg Galvin   Groomer: Ebon: Melissa Dezarate Make-up Artist: Allison: Gianpaolo Ceciliato  Hairstylist: Allison: Anthony Campbell  Set Designer: Jeremy D. Myles Writer: Chris Murphy Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Assistant Editor: Andy Morell

Transcript

00:00 Oh my god, what are you doing here?

00:02 Oh my god!

00:04 What are the chances?

00:06 So weird. Should we sit in these chairs?

00:08 Yeah.

00:10 When did we first meet?

00:14 I'm just gonna

00:16 have an apologetic preamble.

00:18 Allison's gonna remember everything perfectly with 100%

00:20 recall and I can't even remember this morning.

00:22 We have the same problem.

00:24 This is gonna be so boring.

00:26 I think my first day of work was at the Brill building.

00:28 But then my first day of work

00:30 with you was at the Gramercy Hotel.

00:32 Right, and that was a wild night of filming.

00:34 What I remember most about that

00:36 first night of filming was watching

00:38 you try to keep it together in the presence

00:40 of Andrew Rannells. Yeah.

00:42 Which was not something that you were capable of doing.

00:44 Yeah, that was a recurring obstacle.

00:46 I have videos of you on set just trying to

00:48 keep it cool. The worst one that

00:50 I remember about Andrews, we were playing

00:52 there was a Marnie and Desi gig.

00:54 Maybe the first one was like an open mic night.

00:56 Yeah, in Williamsburg. Yep.

00:58 I have a video of this.

01:00 Andrew and Lena were

01:02 in the audience, maybe up on a balcony.

01:04 Yeah, up on a balcony.

01:06 And I remember Andrew improvising something or something

01:08 and he goes, "Oh, never trust a man

01:10 in a Henley" or something like that.

01:12 And I could hear him, somehow I could hear him

01:14 even though we were singing and playing

01:16 and he was all the way over there and made me laugh so much.

01:18 This is gonna be a real shit show.

01:20 Marnie, we love you!

01:22 [Music]

01:24 [Music]

01:26 [Music]

01:28 We had some incredible luck

01:30 in terms of the music that we performed.

01:32 I actually think a lot of our songs were really beautiful.

01:34 The lyrics are what made them

01:36 cringey, often.

01:38 My favorite song, I think

01:40 there are so many beautiful ones, but my favorite one is "Oaxaca."

01:42 It's the last Marnie and Desi

01:44 we recorded in the studio.

01:46 The lyrics are so cringey

01:48 that I don't want to say them out loud.

01:50 Say them out loud, come on.

01:52 "Walking my maracas, doing what you do.

01:54 Where there are no gringos are,

01:56 yeah, you'll find me a bar, Oaxaca."

01:58 [Music]

02:00 [Music]

02:02 [Music]

02:04 [Music]

02:06 [Music]

02:08 [Music]

02:10 Marnie singing the word gringo

02:12 is like, it should be illegal.

02:14 It shouldn't be able to happen.

02:16 I found out the other day that we had all, most of our songs

02:18 were just discards from Kelly Clarkson.

02:20 I think the song "Breathless,"

02:22 I guess we're allowed to say this, it's been a long time,

02:24 was written by Jack Antonoff

02:26 for Kelly Clarkson.

02:28 The one with, "And I'll ride over

02:30 on my bicycle, oh."

02:32 Yeah, I like that song.

02:34 It's a great song. She should have done it, but we got it

02:36 as a result. But yeah, I think

02:38 the other thing was

02:40 we often were really performing.

02:42 Yeah.

02:44 Which is nerve-wracking.

02:46 I think what was nice that was built in

02:48 was that they were supposed to be maybe not so

02:50 great. Nobody had expectation,

02:52 like a very high expectation, so that felt safe

02:54 to me. Totally safe.

02:56 But hard to decide how good to, like how much

02:58 to try and how good to be. I tried as hard

03:00 as I could try.

03:02 Well, there was always this, like, you know

03:04 that it's being used for comedy.

03:06 So you're like, the pain of giving it my all.

03:08 Yeah, but like you said, the lyrics

03:10 were so, like, kind

03:12 of a lot in a way, and

03:14 so specific and sort of

03:16 stylish and embarrassing

03:18 that even if

03:20 Leonard Cohen could sing them

03:22 and they would still, you know what I mean?

03:24 No, they wouldn't sound as awesome as Leonard Cohen.

03:26 But I do remember

03:28 thinking, like,

03:30 "Oh, God, if I do my best

03:32 and I look over at Video Village and everyone's giggling,

03:34 that's just gonna scar me, like forever.

03:36 I'm just never gonna recover from that."

03:38 I had this experience of performing stronger

03:40 on the show where it was

03:42 quiet, except for my voice.

03:44 Work it, make it, do it,

03:46 makes us harder,

03:48 better, faster,

03:50 stronger. There's no more

03:52 vulnerable experience than

03:54 a room full of background,

03:56 silent, and just your little voice

03:58 just in the room, echoing

04:00 against nothing else, singing

04:02 "I'll be your white cape boss tonight."

04:04 It's just very embarrassing.

04:06 When you double down and commit to

04:08 someone's tragedy, it kind of, like,

04:10 it can be funny. And I just felt like,

04:12 you know, the more tragic

04:14 I thought Desi was, was kind of the funnier it was.

04:16 Like, the more he cried, the funnier it would be.

04:18 I tried to cry, like,

04:20 at least a couple times a season.

04:22 It was never so

04:24 important to me in any other...

04:26 to cry.

04:28 100%.

04:34 It, like, fully assumed that

04:36 the girls on Girls

04:38 were just in, like, a documentary series

04:40 and the men were doing, like, acting.

04:42 Which was a compliment, a very backhanded

04:44 compliment, I guess, because you just, I don't know,

04:46 we seemed like our characters, but

04:48 we really didn't get credit for, like, performing.

04:50 People just assumed we were exactly the same as our

04:52 characters were. But then you'd have, I'd have weird

04:54 experiences. I was the same age as my character

04:56 living in the same city. People would come up to me and just be like,

04:58 "Marnie!" And then I'd be like, "I know,

05:00 yes, okay, yeah, I am."

05:02 I think it's just a testament to the show.

05:04 I think that just that people were like, you know...

05:06 It was, yeah, it was such an honor to be

05:08 part of a show that felt like it was

05:10 so real that people thought they were running into

05:12 that character on the street.

05:14 Like, they'd see me in, like, a SoulCycle class

05:16 and be like, "Yeah, Marnie's in my SoulCycle class."

05:18 I'm like, "She is, in a way. She's with you.

05:20 She's everywhere." Or,

05:22 like, in the subway. But then people were also very,

05:24 very free to tell me how much they hated her.

05:26 Like, in person,

05:28 spontaneously. --Yeah, I remember hearing about that.

05:30 --Yeah. What did people say to you about

05:32 Desi? --Uh, I don't really remember.

05:34 Somebody came up to me on the train last night

05:36 and was, like, talking to me about

05:38 The Bear, and he's like, "How come your restaurant

05:40 opens at 3pm?"

05:42 --What? --I was like,

05:44 "It's a fake restaurant on a show that

05:46 I don't write. I don't know what to tell you."

05:48 He's like, "I know, I know, I know, I know."

05:50 I walked away. --He's like, "But really,

05:52 though, you gotta think about it. 3pm is weird."

05:54 --But sometimes people still

05:56 come up to me and they're like, "Desi!"

05:58 'Cause there's a bunch of... --Rewatching.

06:00 --People. Or re-are. Like, I feel like

06:02 there's a lot of... mostly women

06:04 that I've interacted with, like, in their

06:06 early 20s who are, like, seeing it for the first time.

06:08 --My dad, who loves, like,

06:10 lurking on social media, sends me all these

06:12 girls' re-watch clips

06:14 of, like, people re-watching the show

06:16 and reacting to it, and he always is like,

06:18 "The comments are so pro-Marnie!"

06:20 And it's, like, a very unfamiliar feeling, 'cause my parents

06:22 were, like, Marnie defenders for a decade,

06:24 and now they're like, "Oh, it's just a

06:26 pro-Marnie world." My

06:28 theory is, what was coded as selfishness

06:30 among millennials

06:32 is now coded as self-care, and

06:34 just, like, being aware of what

06:36 you need and advocating for your needs

06:38 and standing up for yourself. And so, Gen Z

06:40 is like, "No, we get her. She makes sense to us."

06:42 Like, she, I guess, was just before her time.

06:44 And the whole show, like, got a

06:46 lot of flack when it was airing

06:48 for everyone being too selfish and

06:50 self-centered and blah blah blah. Like, that was, like, the number one...

06:52 --Yeah, and now just that level of narcissism is just...

06:54 that's just baseline. --No, I actually think

06:56 that it's a bunch of girls trying to, like,

06:58 create the best environment for each of

07:00 them to survive

07:02 and thrive and being

07:04 wrong, but, like, still trying and caring.

07:06 I think that's a pursuit that

07:08 is resonant in a new way,

07:10 whereas before it just looked like we didn't know

07:12 that any other countries existed

07:14 or, like, that anyone had lives that

07:16 were less fortunate than ours. But that was sort of

07:18 the point. It just got, like, missed a little

07:20 bit. But I think people are just getting it. --I was

07:22 masked in narcissism. I mean, it seems like --Yeah, of course.

07:24 --insane self-involvement. But I

07:26 do think... I think there's something to it. --I like to

07:28 imagine girls in the time

07:30 of TikTok, like, how it would have changed.

07:32 Shosh would have a bangin,

07:34 very thriving TikTok

07:36 following, I think. She would have, like,

07:38 lots of, like, acrylic nails, like, tapping against

07:40 a Stanley Cup, and then, like,

07:42 Get Ready With Me's. And I think she would be...

07:44 Do any of these things make sense to you? --No, no, no.

07:46 --I just saw your soul

07:48 leave your body. --I feel very...

07:50 I feel... I trust you.

07:52 --I think Marnie's... I think she'd

07:54 still be trying to have a

07:56 singing career, in addition to other

07:58 jobs. I picture her with

08:00 another marriage under

08:02 her belt, come and gone, I think.

08:04 Probably on the verge of deciding to have

08:06 a baby on her own.

08:08 --Do you see her in New York? --I see her, like,

08:10 outside of Boston, sort of.

08:12 Like, wanting to stay close, Amtrak

08:14 away, but not in the same.

08:16 Needing to have a new zip code.

08:18 --Right. Just sort of starting in a little bit.

08:20 --Yeah. What about Desi? Where is he? Where did he go

08:22 on the motorcycle? --I don't know. I could see him, like, working with

08:24 troubled youths,

08:26 like at-risk teens.

08:28 --Like Scared Straight? --Yeah, maybe, like,

08:30 or leading, like... --Knowles trips.

08:32 --Yeah, like leading trips, like

08:34 in Arizona, or you know, like

08:36 in the desert or something, and like taking

08:38 kids that need... yeah, Scared Straight.

08:40 That kind of stuff. I could see that. I could also see

08:42 him, like, busing tables at a place like

08:44 Pappy and Harriet's, like out in Joshua Tree or

08:46 something. Like, kind of, like,

08:48 adjacent to a music scene, maybe?

08:50 But I like the idea of him as like a

08:52 like a therapist.

08:54 Not like a licensed therapist, but somebody who's really

08:56 getting their hands dirty with like...

08:58 --He knows how to make a fire and give advice.

09:00 --Yeah, just like, I've been there, guys. I know what you're

09:02 going through. --Yeah. This was something I debated

09:04 talking about, but we have one scene in particular

09:06 that was instantly iconic

09:08 and that people I do not know talk to me about

09:10 all the time. And it was a scene where your

09:12 face was in my butt. --Yeah.

09:14 --And we filmed it, I think, on my birthday.

09:16 It was the first day of shooting for that season.

09:18 Facts that feel helpful. --Okay.

09:20 --And at the premiere, at which I

09:22 was seated with my whole family, after that

09:24 scene played, which is

09:26 one of my favorite... Hold on. I want to remember

09:28 the dialogue. Exactly.

09:30 I believe, I believe

09:32 Desi says, "I love that."

09:34 --I think it's like, "I love you. I love that."

09:36 Or this or something. --I think it's, "I love

09:38 that," and Marnie says, "I love you, too."

09:40 And it's a montage at the beginning of the season

09:42 where you're like catching up with everybody, and it's literally

09:44 all you need to know about where she is,

09:46 what's going on. The scene ends

09:48 and Kathy Griffin,

09:50 who's in front of me in the theater, just slowly

09:52 turns around and

09:54 slow claps in my direction

09:56 after that. And I was like, "Well, as

09:58 if I weren't already going to remember this for the rest

10:00 of my life, I will remember it."

10:02 Yeah, we had a lot of sex on the show.

10:04 A lot of us had a lot of sex. I think

10:06 I had the most of all of us.

10:08 --I think, I know you did

10:10 because that was, Lena

10:12 was making sure of it.

10:14 --So, I'm obsessed with the Bears, you know.

10:16 During this awards season, I had the honor

10:18 of being in many rooms with you while you were

10:20 winning awards. And I'm sure you were out of body

10:22 while it was happening, but I started to get made fun

10:24 of by the fellow Travelers cast because

10:26 the minute they would call your name, I would be like

10:28 levitating in the air, like screaming.

10:30 It was the most exciting thing to watch.

10:32 Your performance is so gorgeous.

10:34 I wonder what it was like being

10:36 in that ensemble because it really is

10:38 you have such spectacular moments

10:40 and your episode in particular,

10:42 but it is really like a family

10:44 from the outside at least.

10:46 And I'm wondering what that's like.

10:48 --I don't know. For me, it's like, you know, it's not

10:50 dissimilar from Girls, where you have just like a really good company.

10:52 It takes a lot of pressure off, you know?

10:54 You just feel like you're on a journey.

10:56 Everyone's telling a story, so you have less of a

10:58 burden on you.

11:00 And I really love

11:02 actors and collaboration and being

11:04 in a room with a bunch

11:06 of people with a bunch of energy and having a lot of ideas.

11:08 Like big messy scenes are kind of the things

11:10 that I have the most fun with, personally.

11:12 That episode of the Forks one,

11:14 people really love. I really didn't

11:16 enjoy making that so much. It felt kind of lonely

11:18 for me in this quiet restaurant. I was working

11:20 with really good actors, but it wasn't

11:22 like my family of like the

11:24 people that I had been working with in season one

11:26 and like that kitchen, you know, of like

11:28 Maddie and Liza and Lionel and

11:30 Jeremy and Io and everyone. I'm an actor

11:32 because I want to collaborate with people, not

11:34 because I want to be by myself.

11:36 --If Forks was a little

11:38 bit lonely, what was the most fun?

11:40 --I like the first

11:42 season. Like it's just

11:44 like a mess. It's like a sinking ship. You know

11:46 like people talk about like kitchens

11:48 and they describe, I've heard somebody describe a kitchen as like

11:50 being on a submarine. --Yeah.

11:52 --I got stabbed! Not right now. I got stabbed.

11:54 Son of a fucking...

11:56 --Abra! I got stabbed.

11:58 --Probably fucking deserved it.

12:00 --Maybe.

12:02 --I haven't seen Fellow Travelers. --How dare

12:04 you? I'm walking. --So that's like,

12:06 that's... fuck.

12:08 --It's okay.

12:10 I have to explain something to you, which is that when we

12:12 make these things, there's now all this technology

12:14 you can continue watching it for quite some time

12:16 afterwards. Unless it gets

12:18 taken off a platform unceremoniously

12:20 someday. But for now, it's still there. --I'm gonna watch it, but

12:22 I think I'm gonna watch some girls first.

12:24 --Well, why not? --I'm like a little

12:26 --As long as my face is part of it, obviously.

12:28 Malignant narcissism. --Yeah. So, what

12:30 do you like? Like, okay, because

12:32 after...

12:34 well, maybe during you did

12:36 it was Peter Pan, right? --Mm-hmm.

12:38 --And then was Perfection...

12:40 --Get Out was before Perfection. --Get Out, right.

12:42 --Yes. So that was

12:44 kind of because of Peter Pan.

12:46 Jordan Peele was like, She'll do anything.

12:48 --Yeah, she's crazy.

12:50 --She'll do anything. She just flew on live

12:52 television sword fighting Christopher Walken like she's

12:54 down. She will be the ultimate

12:56 villain of this movie. And he was right.

12:58 I loved it. And so then from there, I just was

13:00 like trying to keep doing things

13:02 that felt really interesting and also kind of

13:04 playing with what audiences were expecting

13:06 from me after each choice.

13:08 Like it kind of changed, and I

13:10 really enjoyed that. Like I knew that the first time

13:12 people saw me after Get Out, they wouldn't trust me

13:14 for a while again. --Right.

13:16 --And so choosing movies and genres where I

13:18 could play with that felt really fun. --So using

13:20 expectations based on what you

13:22 just did or what you've done, whatever.

13:24 Your body of work, and then it's just...

13:26 --Yeah. Exactly. --I think that's smart. Yeah.

13:28 --Well, it's been really fun, and it's kept me in this

13:30 thriller mix genre, which I never

13:32 expected, and I can barely sit through a horror movie.

13:34 I'm too scared. But it is

13:36 really fun, and the character's really interesting.

13:38 And then I got to do a show like Fellow Travelers,

13:40 which is totally outside of that genre

13:42 and is historical fiction

13:44 and drama. And that was a really

13:46 fun challenge that felt also

13:48 very different, but rewarding

13:50 in a very similar way. It's actually, I'd

13:52 be very curious based on just anything

13:54 you know about the show to ask me a question

13:56 blindly, knowing nothing more than you know.

13:58 --All right. So is Matt Ballmer really

14:00 that handsome in real life? --So handsome, it's

14:02 crazy.

14:04 Great question. --What can I look up to?

14:06 Girls is always like a

14:08 work in progress, which I think

14:10 gave it a bit of

14:12 life. --Life, yeah. --And sort of,

14:14 almost also like a dangerous quality

14:16 almost in there. It felt like it was almost

14:18 could almost come off the rails.

14:20 Fellow Traveler, more

14:22 traditional kind of scripted.

14:24 --Definitely. Also because

14:26 it was, we jumped around time

14:28 within episodes, but then also like

14:30 narratively. So I'd have to keep track of

14:32 like where we were

14:34 in broad chronology, like just

14:36 a timeline, but also in the show

14:38 the order that details were being revealed

14:40 in the show, and then the order that we were filming

14:42 those things. It was all a jumble of

14:44 time periods. We went from the 50s to the 80s.

14:46 So it was a very different process.

14:48 It was like a different voice, different

14:50 look every decade. And so that

14:52 had to be much more meticulously planned.

14:54 --Fellow Traveler's based on the play.

14:56 --Based on a book. --Based on the book.

14:58 --And then there was an

15:00 opera, I think, and then a play

15:02 and now our show. --Okay. Tell me

15:04 about that accent.

15:06 --My accent? --Yeah. --You're just, this is

15:08 so funny. This is like Mad Libs.

15:10 By the way, it's Fellow Traveler's

15:12 plural. But we'll get there.

15:14 It's fine. We can ADR that. --Do you have an accent

15:16 in it? --I don't have an accent. I have a kind of

15:18 like what would have been

15:20 we hope accurate. I had a dialect coach.

15:22 Would have been an accurate way for a lady of

15:24 my station to have spoken during that time.

15:26 I based it on my grandmother's best friend, Annie,

15:28 who has an incredible voice.

15:30 --Like a kind of upper class --Kind of patrician.

15:32 --Mid-Atlantic kind of voice. --Yeah, slightly.

15:34 --Years ago, you wrote my husband a letter.

15:36 You slipped

15:38 it under the door of his apartment.

15:40 Do you remember?

15:44 --Yes.

15:50 --I burned it.

15:52 He never saw it.

15:54 --Any more Fellow Traveler's questions?

15:56 --Um...

15:58 --I know. He's been texting me nonstop.

16:00 He's a mad fan.

16:02 He can't stop. He's on his fourth rewatch.

16:04 This has been such a delight.

16:06 I'm so happy to see you.

16:08 --I'm always happy to see you. I love you very much.

16:10 --You're killing it. I love you too.

16:12 [music]

16:20 --Have you ever seen the

16:22 Marnie and Desi Tortured Poets Department memes?

16:24 --Have I ever? I'm an insane Swiftie.

16:26 I'm so honored. I love the idea

16:28 of Marnie and Desi

16:30 being in the Tortured Poets

16:32 Department, where someone

16:34 who won't be named is running,

16:36 dashing out with their typewriter.

16:38 Now I'm also referencing something

16:40 you just have, you're just looking at me with like...

16:42 --I'm listening and learning.

16:44 --It's the titular song

16:46 off of the most recent Taylor Swift album.

16:48 There were a lot of memes about us being the original

16:50 the tortured poets. It feels right.

16:52 It feels canonically accurate.

16:54 And this man who shall not be named would

16:56 have fit right in with our world and would

16:58 have, I think, probably really

17:00 like livened up our music in a way,

17:02 but also, you know,

17:04 it feels right.

17:06 [bleep]

17:08 [bleep]

17:10 --Okay. --It's just sort of...

17:12 Rumored to be the muse of that song.

17:14 --Oh, okay. Gotcha. --With his typewriter.

17:16 --Yeah. --Okay.

17:18 Alright. --It's just that...

17:20 I'm deep. I'm deep. I'm deep.

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