Alex Borstein was ‘pretty much done’ acting when she landed ‘Mrs. Maisel’

Alex Borstein almost gave up acting before landing the role of Susie Myerson on Amy Sherman-Palladino’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“I knew [Palladino] was working on this idea, developing it and pitching it,” Borstein told Page Six at the Amazon show’s press junket on Wednesday, adding that she’d decided she was “pretty much done” acting and was set to move permanently to Barcelona.

“She’s like, ‘Are you really? Because I think this might be moving forward and I really want you to read for this part.’ So I was like, ‘F–k, OK, let me read it.’ I read it and of course loved it,” Borstein said. “With Amy, you’re not playing a mom, you’re not playing a fat sidekick, you’re not playing some lovelorn person looking for a dude and you’re not playing the wet blanket. It’s just a cool three-dimensional character that happens to be female. It’s like really rare. And so I couldn’t say no.”





Even though she took the role, the 47-year-old actress, who has two children with ex-husband Jackson Douglas, did end up getting a place in Barcelona. She told us whenever she gets three or four days off in a row, she flies back there.

“I’m always tired because I’m trying to run back and forth to see my kids and come back to New York and so it’s always like jet lag and dehydration and exhaustion,” she admitted.

Her hard work paid off though. Borstein took home the Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy in September and even sparked an internet frenzy when she shimmied on her way up to the stage before proclaiming she “went without the bra.”

“You know what’s so funny about that is, I looked up on the monitor and I saw my boob and I was like totally happy with how my boob looked,” she laughed. As for the shimmy, “It was just an off-the-cuff, not even thought about moment, but it became like all anybody wanted to talk about which makes me laugh so hard.”

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 2 premieres on Amazon on Dec. 5.





Share this: