Stephanie Hsu is a woman whose romantic troubles turn deadly, and Zosia Mamet is her best friend trying to help, in A24's Everything Everywhere All at Once, following it up with everything from the action-comedy The Fall Guy to the ensemble buddy comedy Joy Ride. Mamet first found her breakout success with a leading role in HBO's Girls as Shoshanna, having since starred in everything from Under the Silver Lake to Netflix's The Decameron.

Hsu leads the Laid cast as Ruby, a party planner in her early 30s who has bounced from partner to partner without any success, only to subsequently find that all of her former sex partners are bizarrely dying in the order she slept with them. Mamet stars in the show as AJ, Ruby's best friend and roommate who helps her put together a timeline of her past partners and start investigating why they are all dying. As Ruby is confronted with some hard life lessons, though, she'll also find her and AJ's friendship put to the test.

Alongside Hsu and Mamet, the ensemble Laid cast includes This Is Us alum Michael Angarano, Good Trouble's Tommy Martinez, Andre Hyland, Elizabeth Bowen, Olivia Holt, Ryan Pinkston, David Denman and Susan Berger. With a whole host of special guest stars and the Emmy-nominated creative duo of Nahnatchka Khan (Fresh Off the Boat) and Sally Bradford McKenna (Will & Grace), the show proves to be a captivating mix of dark comedy, meaningful character growth and intriguing premise.

In anticipation of the show's premiere, ScreenRant interviewed Stephanie Hsu and Zosia Mamet to discuss Laid, what drew them to the "wild and unruly" premise of the show, the connection they made while finding their characters' dynamic, and the joy they felt getting to explore the messiness of their characters.

Hsu & Mamet Found Laid To Be A "Really Rare" Exception From The Scripts They Read

"...the pilot is just so hilarious..."

ScreenRant: I am so thrilled to chat with you both for this show. I watched the first seven episodes of it, and I am in love with it already. It is funny, it is wild. Stephanie, if you'd like to start and then Zosia, what about the material, about your characters, really drew you in to want to be a part of this show?

Stephanie Hsu: I mean, it really is on the page, the pilot is just so hilarious, and then the premise is just so wild and unruly. You know, this woman who is in her 30s having a hard time finding love, finding out all the people she's ever slept with are dying. You're like, "I want to be a part of that." So it was sort of obvious. And then, I think in the larger, existential way, it's fun to ask these questions about love and relationships, it felt like a fun task. Yeah.

Zosia Mamet: I mean, we've been talking about it so much today, it's sadly really rare that you read something and there's nothing that you would maybe shift or morph a little, or you're like, "Oh, okay, maybe that'll change on the day." It jumps out at you so instantly, and makes you laugh out loud, and makes you feel the feels. It really was just so it was like a perfectly baked cake that was delivered, and you want to be a part of it. You want to say those words, and then, when they told me that Steph was playing the lead, I was just like, "Yeah, I want to do this. I want to say those words with her." We said a lot of words.

Both: [In sync] We said so many words. [Laughs]

Hsu & Mamet Found They Were Given "The Space To Find" Their Characters

"...it is fun to be flawed, and we are also flawed."

Stephanie, I'll turn to you next, because one of the things I love about Ruby is that she is a three-dimensional character in that she has flaws, but yet she's also a very endearing person that you want to sympathize and empathize with. What is it like walking that balance from the performance side of tapping into her bad side as well as her good side?

Stephanie Hsu: Yeah, I think it was something that was really important for Sally and Natch, and for me as an actor, to let her be flawed. There are moments where I really want to protect her thought process, and I have to understand where it's coming from, because I have to play her. But also, it is fun to be flawed, and we are also flawed. Allowing this character to be imperfect and just finding those moments of when you need to kind of protect her integrity, and when you can let her out loose.

Zosia, I'll turn to you next, because very similar, AJ, is someone who is still trying to find herself. She is in this relationship she's unsure of, she's having problems with her friend. What is it like finding the heart of her and that balance through your performance?

Zosia Mamet: I think similar to your first question, Natch and Sally did such an incredible job of creating these characters, and making them wholeheartedly three-dimensional already. And then, I think they also really allowed us the space to find them in the moment. I think they wrote such an incredibly funny show. It's so amazingly zany in its circumstances. But also, we all kept coming back to this idea that these characters have to feel real. And I think, oftentimes, in TV shows and in film, we don't necessarily want to go to the unlikable, flawed places, because it feels a little scarier and uncomfortable. I think it was really a throughline that we kept trying to come back to, which is not everyone has figured everything out by this age.

I think a lot of the times we see people or characters in their teens or their 20s being messy, or making mistakes, but by the time they get to their 30s, we're like, "Yep, they figured it all out." And that's just not real. That's just not reality or real life, so it felt really fun, but also just really honest to play these characters who are in this romantic comedy chocolate shell, if you will. But also, are maybe not totally realized entirely as human beings, and are still taking the wrong path, or making a wrong choice, and are not the perfect friend and not the perfect partner. It was a really fun line to walk.

About Laid

A woman finds out her former lovers are dying in unusual ways and must go back through her sex timeline to confront her past in order to move forward – “Laid” is a f---ed up rom-com where the answer to “why can’t I find love, is there something wrong with me?” is a resounding “Yes. There is. The problem is definitely you.”

Stay tuned for our other Laid interviews:

• Michael Angarano & Andre Hyland
• Tommy Martinez
• Nahnatchka Khan & Sally Bradford McKenna

Laid is now available to stream in full on Peacock.

Source: ScreenRant Plus