Alex Borstein loves the word cunt.
“It’s my favorite word. I like calling people cunts; I like being called a cunt. I love it,” the Emmy Award-winning actress recently told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. It is sprinkled through Borstein’s new Prime Video comedy music special, Corsets & Clownsuits. However, it resembles a verbal slap when her Marvelous Mrs. Maisel character Susie Myerson utters this four-letter word, and Susie’s client and best friend Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) is on the receiving end in this week’s Susie-centric episode of the series.
The fifth and final season of Mrs. Maisel is unfolding in a non-linear fashion, revealing early on that Midge’s dreams of becoming a global sensation have come true. At some point along the way, we learn that her close bond with manager Susie has fractured. By the time the mid-’80s roll around, the pair are no longer speaking. This week’s episode, “The Testi-Roastial” reveals precisely when and why this friendship fell apart, while offering a semblance of hope that reconciliation is on the cards.
Midge’s meteoric rise is captured via a 60 Minutes interview in the second episode of this season, chronicling significant moments in her career to come. From an arrest during her sold-out Carnegie Hall set to a string of famous boyfriends (and husbands), there is a lot of drama down the line. However, the most significant reveal is her big breakup with Susie, and “The Testi-Rostial” opens in 1985 with Midge on stage recounting this implosion—though avoiding the granular details.
Elton John’s “Susie (Dramas)” then transports us to the home of the comedy roast, the iconic Friars Club in Manhattan. It is 1990, and Susie is honored with the titular “Testi-Rositial,” where Midge’s absence is expected. What unfolds is a savvy, hilarious, and emotional depiction of Susie’s professional rise—and the many rumors of what went down with her first-ever client.
Borstein chatted about the daunting episode, the final season, uncovering Susie’s past (and future), and the familiar location where she shot Corsets & Clownsuits. Warning: Spoilers lie ahead!
Celebrating Susie
“That script is so unique. It’s unique within our series. We had done nothing like that before—it has a different flavor and tone,” says Borstein. “For that reason, it was terrifying in some ways; you’re not left to your usual resources. I don’t have Rachel by my side in every scene. It’s different.” Not only is Susie taking center stage, but she is flying solo on this trip down memory lane.
“Playing with time” is a daunting deviation from the norm, both physically and mentally. “You’re trying to embody a character at different times—how they sit, move, speak,” she says. Borstein mentions it “was confusing at times” to keep track of the variety of years in Susie’s life, but it was also “eye-opening and exciting.” In the world of the show, it has only been three years since Susie and Midge first met (Midge’s Gaslight debut was in 1958, and the current season predominantly took place in 1961), so “it was fun to shake things up” and dive into Susie hitting the big time.
Susie’s ascent has elements of the woman she shares her initials with. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino told Borstein about the connection to the first superagent Sue Mengers before she auditioned. Borstein opted out of additional research. The reason? “I was afraid I’d latch on to something and then start mimicking something. I didn’t want to know what someone looked or spoke like, so I tried to stay away.”
Borstein wanted to stick with Sherman-Palladino’s words because “in my opinion, what makes a great character is if it’s all there on the page. It doesn’t require someone to sit down with you and explain more.” While Susie’s origins differ from Mengers’, one similarity is a star client and close friend who would go on to leave them. For Mengers, it was Barbra Streisand. In Susie’s case, Midge broke up their decades-long partnership after discovering the truth about her manager’s deal with the mob—and its impact on Midge’s family.
Susie and Midge’s Breakup
“It was disconcerting to learn how deeply Susie betrayed her. Susie betrayed her on a lot of levels; there was a lot not shared with her partner,” she says. Borstein agrees it is a love story, which is why this sequence of events hits so hard. There are a lot of secrets Susie is keeping from Midge, whether it is details about her personal life or the deal ex-husband Joel Maisel (Michael Zegen) made to ensure Midge wasn’t part of Susie’s less savory business arrangements. Borstein understands why Susie didn’t tell Midge: “She wanted to make good, deliver, protect her from the truth.”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, in 1985, when the Maisel family is at the synagogue, the FBI comes looking for Joel; there is nothing Susie can do to hide it from her anymore. Susie finds Midge alone, clutching a letter from Joel that explains the reason for his arrest. This pivotal scene presented a challenge for both actors. The first five episodes were shot in order, but all feature scenes from across the timeline. “You’re shooting out of order in terms of decades and what’s transpired—you flashforward, you flashback—so that fight came at a very different time in our shooting schedule, and it caught us both off guard. It was hard to shoot,” says Borstein.
Resentment from years of back-to-back dates at casinos and rumors of Susie’s gambling habit bubble to the surface in a verbal sparring match that hits every insecurity both women have. This is nearly 25 years after everything we see in the main storyline, but we know these characters so well by now that each utterance hits hard.
“You ungrateful cunt” is how Susie responds to Midge’s accusations. Whereas Borstein loves this word, Susie is not using it affectionately. “I think Susie does know she betrayed her at that point,” Borstein says. “It’s Susie using this big, ugly word. You know, like you're supposed to get big if you see a bear—to startle it. I feel like that’s what Susie was trying to do.”
Instead of startling Midge, she responds with an equally visceral jab: “This is how I’m going to remember you, Susie, small.” Sure, her choice of insult isn’t something she could get arrested for saying on stage, but I tell Borstein that it feels way more personal. It turns out that this low blow harkens back to the conversation they had about Midge becoming a stand-up comedian. “The first episode when Susie says, ‘I don’t mind being alone. I just do not want to be insignificant.’ And for Midge to say she is small and insignificant is the most hurtful thing she could possibly throw at her,” Borstein says. “So it was powerful.”
Peeling Back Susie’s Layers
In a season of revelations about the future, Sherman-Palladino also pulls back the layers of Susie’s past, including a surprise connection to Gordon Ford’s (Reid Scott) wife, Hedy (Nina Arianda). Unlike Midge, Susie never divulges personal relationships, and she wasn’t thrilled when Midge took her to a lesbian bar last season. While Susie hasn’t outwardly confirmed a romance with Hedy, it is clear from an argument backlit by the Radio City Music Hall that it was more than a platonic relationship. It has been 15 years since they saw each other, and Hedy is keen to catch up, whereas Susie can barely look her in the face. “This is public. It’s too loud,” Hedy says about Susie’s tone that vibrates with anger and heartbreak.
“That 30 Rock scene was challenging because anytime they mix Susie being vulnerable and hurt with running, that’s hard—trying to hit those timings while maintaining that gut-wrenching feeling,” says Borstein. Hedy chased Susie from inside the iconic building onto the sidewalk, and she recalls it being “very late at night and sweltering hot.” Borstein says she was “delighted to work with Nina” in a scene showing the typically hardened Susie at her most vulnerable. “I liked playing her hurting, a little bit broken, and a little bit terrified,” she adds.
Whereas Susie isn’t an open book, Borstein isn’t holding back in the deeply personal Corsets & Clownsuits. There is a Maisel connection, as rather than shooting it at one of the many existing New York City venues, Borstein opted for Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. More specifically, she stood on the same Wolford Theater stage that Midge has called home since Season 4. “It felt like having Amy Sherman-Palladino give me away at my own wedding,” Borstein says.
Borstein has publicly toured the show, but when it came to Prime Video shooting the special, she asked the showrunner if they could use this space (“she loved the idea”). It is a unique location and a “beautiful honor,” as two weeks after they shot Corsets & Clownsuits, the set was demolished: “It was the last thing that was done in that theater—it meant so much—and there’ll be no other special ever shot live from the Wolford Theater because it didn’t exist except in our imagination.”
Working on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has left its mark on Borstein in more ways than one, as much like her character, it has allowed her “to believe in love again and be able to open myself up to the possibilities.” It is a bittersweet feeling, and Borstein reflects that when a show like this ends, “you’re heartbroken.” But it has also invigorated the actress that another all-encompassing role could come along, “you have to hold out, don’t take no for an answer.”
Three more episodes remain, but Borstein is already taking lessons from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. “I think the big takeaway is the relationship with Midge and Susie, and when a woman’s got another woman’s back, what’s possible is endless,” she says. “We need to do more of that. I need to do more of that.”
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