What was it like having Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon’s daughter, Nicole Fosse, often on set?

At first it’s really intimidating because she’s going to be able to spot the fake. But she’s a very evolved woman, so she was able to be supportive and helpful and instructive and nonjudgmental. We would talk a lot about where Gwen would put emphasis on words and that she would often choose the nonoperative words, the nonobvious words, to emphasize. So, instead of it being how we would all say Broadway, she would say Broadway. That was a real linchpin.

Why do you think Bob and Gwen had such a symbiotic relationship? How did you and Sam Rockwell work together to craft that magnetic pull between you two?

I feel like it has something to do with both of their early abuse history. It created an understanding between the two of them that went beyond words. I thought of them as twin souls, yin and yang, light and dark. They both had these traumatic early experiences and as a result, Bob wanted to go further and further into them and investigate them and examine them, and Gwen wanted to rise up, up, up and away from them. They had these similar experiences, but they dealt with it in different ways.

On our Drama Actress Roundtable, you said how musical theater brings you such a blissful feeling of joy. Was there a particular moment shooting a musical number in the series where you felt that way?

Our first one, the first number that we did was "Who's Got the Pain?" [from Damn Yankees]. The day and night that we shot that, I'm gonna see it at the end. Like when my life flashes before my eyes, I'm gonna see that night. I was very happy.

Did you have any rituals on set to help you get into the mindset of Gwen while shooting? Play any music or listen to her old showtunes, maybe?

Oh my gosh, so many things. When Sam and I weren't acting, we were always preparing or researching or conjuring. I mean, I was listening to something, watching something, doing something, improvising something. There were no breaks in the day. There was never a moment when we weren't working on our characters.

What are some of the things that you watched or listened to?

There were a few interviews with Gwen, you know, because she aged. Everything about her aged. Her body, how she held herself, her voice, how she articulated. There were these touchstones for all of the ages. There was an interview she did when she was in her 30s that was really integral for me, and then one in her 40s and then one in her 50s and then one in her 60s. So, I would sort of float all over these reference videos depending on what we were shooting that day.

When you were reading the scripts, was there a scene you were so eager to get to and shoot?

It's equal parts eagerness and dread because it's so hard. You look at this and you're just like, "Man, OK." The only way is forward and there's nothing to do but just keep my head down and work. It's so much material. It's like making eight movies. You make a movie, and there are like three hard scenes that you are anticipating. This felt like everything was hard because there was aging and there were prosthetics and there was body language and singing and dancing and all this stuff. There were so many challenges littered everywhere. But that of course is what I live for. It's what I've worked for, to be given the opportunity to challenge myself. So, I'm very grateful for it, but you just feel like you're standing at the base of a mountain looking up at it every single day, thinking, "How am I gonna get there?"

The prop or costume piece I wish I could have kept was …

I just adore the [costume] designer Melissa Toth, with whom I've worked three or four times now. She has such a strong emotional feeling about the clothes, so every single thing that I put on, I was like, "Yup. This is it. This is it. This is it." Like how it felt good to talk like her, the sound felt really fun to play with, the same thing went for the costumes. It felt good to dress like her. These crazy things, like her safari suits. I really liked in episode seven when we had MC Gwen and we had the exploding cane, things that have tricks and a top hat that pops out. And her caftans, her pajamas. I loved her. I miss her. I feel like she’s a friend of mine and it’s been too long since I’ve seen her.

This series obviously ended with Bob's death and is a limited series, but are there any other showbiz couples that fuel each other creatively and personally that you think would be fascinating to explore?

I wanna play her again! I became very close to the girls that did my hair and makeup, and I was talking to them this morning. And we were saying, "Oh, we wish we could just do this job again. Like, can we do Gwen post-Bob? Gwen at 65? Her life without him?" She was such a showwoman, and I love that she sort of did these one-woman shows and appearances later in life. She has her complications and her feelings and her blind spots, but there was this inherent goodness in her. Everybody who knew her, when they would talk about her, they'd say that she was just the most generous woman. Gwen did this for me or Gwen held my hand or Gwen bought my bathtub or Gwen rescued this cat. She was a beautiful person to embody. And I would gladly put on a red wig again. I want to do this job for the rest of my life.