Latest news with #MollyKochan
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Limited Series Writers on the Impact of Casting, Writing Emotional Journeys, and Finding a Tonal Balance
'Dying for Sex' co-creators, executive producers and writers Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock knew that establishing the tone of the show was always going to be hard. The limited series starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate is based on the true story of Molly Kochan, a young woman who is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Together with her best friend Nikki Boyer, the two start a podcast about her journey. More from Variety David E. Kelley on Shaping 'Presumed Innocent' With Ruth Negga's Barbara as the Killer - Then Changing the Ending After Filming Began 'Nobody Wants This' Creator Erin Foster Says Kristen Bell Kept the Show's Production in L.A.: 'She Wants to Be Home With Her Kids' All About the Mother: Cristin Milioti Looks Back, From 'The Sopranos' to 'Black Mirror' and 'The Penguin' Molly, played by Williams in the show, doesn't plan on having a sexual awakening, but she does. And as she battles her illness, she explores her sexual desires and fetishes, empowering herself. Speaking during Variety's A Night in the Writers' Room Limited Series panel, Meriweather said, 'We decided to focus on the humanity of the characters and really not try to think about genre that much.' While the earlier episodes were structured around a comedic tone, Meriweather explained that over the course of the show, the tone got darker. 'The most important thing was honesty and allowing space for that,' Meriweather said. Speaking about the sex scenes, Rosenstock explained that the sex was never gratuitous. 'The sex was always doing something for the character. It was always helping her heal.' And while the showrunners wanted it to be hot and sexy, the North Star was that it was always doing something for Molly. The two revealed how they had discussed the idea of musical theater and how each song is used to move a character along. Said Merriweather, 'Every sexual experience she has is like a musical number. The song is supposed to take the character to a different place by the end.' Rosenstock went on to explain how Molly's bravery needed to be reflected in their writing. 'Part of what this character is doing is that she has this radical acceptance of, 'Yes, all these different ways that sex can look like and feel like, and ways that you can experience pleasure.' So, we needed to have that bravery in our writing and in the filming of it.' She went on to explain that if they cut away in the way that shows have that tendency to, 'We are also having shame around what we are talking about and what we are showing. And we wanted to make something that reflected the character's outlook on that.' Meriwether and Rosenstock were two of the writer-producers who spoke about their creative process on Thursday night at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. The limited series panel included Lauren LeFranc ('The Penguin'), Ian Brennan ('Monsters – The Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story'), Olivia Milch ('The Better Sister') and Nikki Toscano ('Long Bright River'). LeFranc spoke about 'The Penguin' and Cristin Milioti, who plays Sofia Falcone. LeFranc revealed writing the character meant a lot to her, but she hadn't pictured an actor. 'I just knew this voice and I knew what I was looking for and needed.' When Milioti was cast, LeFranc knew she had her Sofia Falcone, and she could hold her own against Colin Farrell, who plays Oswald Cobb. LeFranc said, 'She's his antagonist in a lot of ways. And that this very complicated relationship and the character itself is very complicated. She has to be able to pull off something deeply emotional and you need to empathize with her, but she also needs a wit.' Milch talked about adapting 'The Better Sister.' The series is based on Alafair Burke's novel and stars Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel. Before taking the show out, Milch revealed that all eight scripts for the series had been written. It was a rare occasion, but it helped when bringing together the casting. 'There's a real gift in seeing the completion of that vision. But then that's where the collaboration starts with your actors, right?' She added, 'When you start understanding who your cast is, then you build a relationship with them in terms of the act of creation of who the character is. So your ideas about it start to be infused with who they are, with their ideas about it, with what you're finding together. And that evolution and that living, breathing reality of the creative process, that's where the good stuff happens.' In 'Long Bright River,' Amanda Seyfried plays a jaded Philadelphia patrolwoman Mickey Fitzpatrick in the Peacock limited series who searches for her younger sister, Kacey (Ashleigh Cummings), amid the opioid crisis in Philadelphia and sex workers being murdered. In casting Seyfried, Toscano said the actress 'undeniably transformed into this.' When looking for someone to play Mickey, she was looking for someone who could be undeniably raw, and Seyfried checked all the boxes. 'She's really willing to strip down and strip away from everything else. And we needed somebody that could have that snf was bringing this weird sort of guarded cop to life.' Toscano also made her directorial debut with the series, stepping behind the camera for episode 6. In discussing that experience, Toscano said she had been surrounded by an incredible group of women or men 'whose primary focus was to uplift women.' She also praised her all-female department head, explaining that it was never the intention to hire an all-female crew. 'The women just won the fucking job.' Brennan revealed how the labor strikes of 2023 impacted writing 'Monsters.' Netflix's nine-part series follows the real-life events of the Menendez brothers, Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik Menendez (Cooper Koch), who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989. 'The Hurt Man' episode was written by Brennan and focuses on Erik as he opens up to his defense attorney about the sexual abuse he experienced. Brennan had noticed when watching the real-life court testimony on Court TV and the brothers were talking about sexual abuse, 'you literally can't look away 'cause it doesn't cut away…you can't break the tension.' And so he was inspired to do the same. He had the idea that the episode would be a single shot. Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, loved the idea. Except he had to write it before the strike. 'It was the most challenging artistic thing.' Brennan couldn't sleep and revealed, 'I went downstairs and then like poured a very large glass of wine and wrote the episode in one sitting.' Watch the full panel above. Best of Variety Emmy Predictions: Documentary Programs — Nonfiction Races Spotlight Pee-wee Herman, Simone Biles and YouTube Creators 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Death is not a mystery': what happens to your body when you're dying?
'Who would like to hear about what happens when you're dying?' In the final episode of the FX series Dying for Sex, a hospice nurse with an oddly comforting sense of enthusiasm explains to a patient what to expect as she dies. 'Death is not a mystery. It is not a medical disaster. It is a bodily process, like giving birth or like going to the bathroom or coughing,' she continues. 'Your body knows what to do.' She'll eat and drink less, for example, and sleep a lot more; she won't get out of bed and might become delirious. Eventually, her breathing will slow down until the death rattles take over. She might even experience 'the rally', the nurse says, or a burst of energy and mental clarity days before her last breath. The scene is based on real events in the life of Molly Kochan, who received a terminal breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 and embarked on a sexual journey until her death four years later. Kochan, who died at age 46, documented her experiences in a podcast with her best friend, Nikki Boyer, which inspired the TV series. Related: I'm a death expert. I designed eight questions to help you think about dying 'There's this assumption, understandably, that dying isn't something an audience wants to look at. It feels too scary or sad,' says Kim Rosenstock, the show's co-creator, writer and executive producer. 'So we felt like we had an opportunity to depict death in a different way. And in doing so, to hopefully make death feel even a tiny bit less mysterious and scary.' To some extent, each death is unique because it depends on a person's age, health status and reason for dying, says Julie McFadden, a hospice nurse and online educator in Los Angeles, California. But for those unaffected by a traumatic event, such as a car accident, most people will experience certain stages and symptoms. Experts say that knowing more about death – which they call 'death literacy' – can actually help quell fears of dying. Here's what they said about the science and psychology of the death process. Months before death, the transition phase begins, says McFadden. This entails spending more time in bed, eating and drinking less, and needing more help with daily tasks such as getting dressed and going to the bathroom. During this time, it can be hard to keep up with conversations and sleep will take up most of the day. This stage can be particularly difficult to notice in people who have conditions such as dementia or Parkinson's disease, adds McFadden, because the signs mirror those of their illness. The transition phase could also involve a 'detachment from the world' in a way that makes time feel non-existent, says Cole Imperi, a certified thanatologist, a specialist who studies death, dying, grief and loss. Senses will begin to dull as well, she says, so sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch won't be as intense. When we die, our bodies get less efficient at running like clockwork Due to a lower food and beverage intake, at this point it's possible to enter ketosis, a state in which the body burns fat for energy instead of glucose. Imperi says some people may experience pain relief or euphoria as a result, but it's not entirely clear why. Some research suggests the neurotransmitter Gaba increases during ketosis, which makes you feel calm, while cortisol, the stress hormone, decreases, says Imperi. All these symptoms will worsen until the last stage of life, called 'active dying', says McFadden. This can begin a few days or hours before death. For the most part, a person is unconscious, she says, and breathing and heart rate can become irregular. If respiration or heart rate becomes too erratic and causes discomfort, hospice workers can bring in a music-thanatologist to help stabilize vitals and ease anxiety, says Imperi. These trained professionals play the harp and use their voice at bedside. 'When we die, our bodies get less efficient at running like clockwork,' says Imperi, 'so when music-thanatologists come in, the body sort of tethers itself to the pattern of their music.' Related: I'm a death expert. I designed eight questions to help you think about dying This stage is also when 'the rally' happens. About a third of dying people undergo this sudden rush of mental clarity shortly before they die, according to McFadden. For a brief couple of days, hours or even minutes, personalities return, loved ones' names are remembered and favorite foods are craved yet again. 'There's not a definitive scientific reason why this happens,' says Imperi. 'But I will say that it is a beautiful, beautiful gift.' It's also very common, at any point during active dying, to experience hallucinations or visions that typically involve loved ones who have passed. Imperi says dying people often talk about needing to pack their suitcase or waiting to be picked up at an airport. The last thing that happens before death is a change in breathing pattern called Cheyne-Stokes respiration, says Imperi. Like a fish out of water, a person experiences a series of rapid breaths followed by long periods of no breathing. As a result, one can't swallow mucus or saliva, so it thickens and builds up in the back of the throat, making each breath sound a bit gurgly, says Imperi. These noises are called terminal secretions, commonly referred to as the 'death rattle'. Although it sounds painful, Cheyne-Stokes breathing doesn't hurt – just like most of the active dying process, says McFadden, who says she can tell based on patients' non-verbal cues. 'A dying person is like a baby,' McFadden says. 'Babies can't say they're hungry or teething, but you can tell something is wrong by how they're acting. Dying people are the same.' 'In American culture, death is largely feared and seen as this disaster to avoid at all costs,' says Rosenstock. 'It was important to us to convey the dying process in a truthful way.' It's normal to be scared of death because it's in our nature to survive, says Imperi, but the best way to quash a fear of dying is to educate yourself. Several studies show that the more we learn about and contemplate death, the less anxiety we have about experiencing it. Death literacy can be especially helpful for people who are already dying, McFadden says. Related: Dying for Sex review – Michelle Williams' erotic journey is revolutionary TV 'Most people are not comfortable talking about it, so everyone skirts around the issue. But at the end of the day, they do want answers, and generally speaking, we have some,' McFadden says. 'We don't know exactly what it's going to be like after you're gone, but we know enough about what you can expect [during the process], and in most cases, my patients and their families sigh with relief once they learn more about it.' That's because one of the hardest parts about dying is losing control, says Imperi, and death education can help put the ball back in your court. On the other hand, some people might find a sense of control by refusing to learn more about what's happening to them or their loved one, adds Imperi, which can be equally as therapeutic. 'Supporting that resistance is sometimes more important,' says Imperi, because that might be what a person needs at that point in their journey. Above all, 'we are built for death just like we're built for birth', says McFadden. 'The more we understand that, the better we will live – and the more peaceful we will die.'
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Death is not a mystery': what happens to your body when you're dying?
'Who would like to hear about what happens when you're dying?' In the final episode of the FX series Dying for Sex, a hospice nurse with an oddly comforting sense of enthusiasm explains to a patient what to expect as she dies. 'Death is not a mystery. It is not a medical disaster. It is a bodily process, like giving birth or like going to the bathroom or coughing,' she continues. 'Your body knows what to do.' She'll eat and drink less, for example, and sleep a lot more; she won't get out of bed and might become delirious. Eventually, her breathing will slow down until the death rattles take over. She might even experience 'the rally', the nurse says, or a burst of energy and mental clarity days before her last breath. The scene is based on real events in the life of Molly Kochan, who received a terminal breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 and embarked on a sexual journey until her death four years later. Kochan, who died at age 46, documented her experiences in a podcast with her best friend, Nikki Boyer, which inspired the TV series. 'There's this assumption, understandably, that dying isn't something an audience wants to look at. It feels too scary or sad,' says Kim Rosenstock, the show's co-creator, writer and executive producer. 'So we felt like we had an opportunity to depict death in a different way. And in doing so, to hopefully make death feel even a tiny bit less mysterious and scary.' To some extent, each death is unique because it depends on a person's age, health status and reason for dying, says Julie McFadden, a hospice nurse and online educator in Los Angeles, California. But for those unaffected by a traumatic event, such as a car accident, most people will experience certain stages and symptoms. Experts say that knowing more about death – which they call 'death literacy' – can actually help quell fears of dying. Here's what they said about the science and psychology of the death process. Months before death, the transition phase begins, says McFadden. This entails spending more time in bed, eating and drinking less, and needing more help with daily tasks such as getting dressed and going to the bathroom. During this time, it can be hard to keep up with conversations and sleep will take up most of the day. This stage can be particularly difficult to notice in people who have conditions such as dementia or Parkinson's disease, adds McFadden, because the signs mirror those of their illness. The transition phase could also involve a 'detachment from the world' in a way that makes time feel non-existent, says Cole Imperi, a certified thanatologist, a specialist who studies death, dying, grief and loss. Senses will begin to dull as well, she says, so sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch won't be as intense. Due to a lower food and beverage intake, at this point it's possible to enter ketosis, a state in which the body burns fat for energy instead of glucose. Imperi says some people may experience pain relief or euphoria as a result, but it's not entirely clear why. Some research suggests the neurotransmitter Gaba increases during ketosis, which makes you feel calm, while cortisol, the stress hormone, decreases, says Imperi. All these symptoms will worsen until the last stage of life, called 'active dying', says McFadden. This can begin a few days or hours before death. For the most part, a person is unconscious, she says, and breathing and heart rate can become irregular. If respiration or heart rate becomes too erratic and causes discomfort, hospice workers can bring in a music-thanatologist to help stabilize vitals and ease anxiety, says Imperi. These trained professionals play the harp and use their voice at bedside. 'When we die, our bodies get less efficient at running like clockwork,' says Imperi, 'so when music-thanatologists come in, the body sort of tethers itself to the pattern of their music.' Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This stage is also when 'the rally' happens. About a third of dying people undergo this sudden rush of mental clarity shortly before they die, according to McFadden. For a brief couple of days, hours or even minutes, personalities return, loved ones' names are remembered and favorite foods are craved yet again. 'There's not a definitive scientific reason why this happens,' says Imperi. 'But I will say that it is a beautiful, beautiful gift.' It's also very common, at any point during active dying, to experience hallucinations or visions that typically involve loved ones who have passed. Imperi says dying people often talk about needing to pack their suitcase or waiting to be picked up at an airport. The last thing that happens before death is a change in breathing pattern called Cheyne-Stokes respiration, says Imperi. Like a fish out of water, a person experiences a series of rapid breaths followed by long periods of no breathing. As a result, one can't swallow mucus or saliva, so it thickens and builds up in the back of the throat, making each breath sound a bit gurgly, says Imperi. These noises are called terminal secretions, commonly referred to as the 'death rattle'. Although it sounds painful, Cheyne-Stokes breathing doesn't hurt – just like most of the active dying process, says McFadden, who says she can tell based on patients' non-verbal cues. 'A dying person is like a baby,' McFadden says. 'Babies can't say they're hungry or teething, but you can tell something is wrong by how they're acting. Dying people are the same.' 'In American culture, death is largely feared and seen as this disaster to avoid at all costs,' says Rosenstock. 'It was important to us to convey the dying process in a truthful way.' It's normal to be scared of death because it's in our nature to survive, says Imperi, but the best way to quash a fear of dying is to educate yourself. Several studies show that the more we learn about and contemplate death, the less anxiety we have about experiencing it. Death literacy can be especially helpful for people who are already dying, McFadden says. 'Most people are not comfortable talking about it, so everyone skirts around the issue. But at the end of the day, they do want answers, and generally speaking, we have some,' McFadden says. 'We don't know exactly what it's going to be like after you're gone, but we know enough about what you can expect [during the process], and in most cases, my patients and their families sigh with relief once they learn more about it.' That's because one of the hardest parts about dying is losing control, says Imperi, and death education can help put the ball back in your court. On the other hand, some people might find a sense of control by refusing to learn more about what's happening to them or their loved one, adds Imperi, which can be equally as therapeutic. 'Supporting that resistance is sometimes more important,' says Imperi, because that might be what a person needs at that point in their journey. Above all, 'we are built for death just like we're built for birth', says McFadden. 'The more we understand that, the better we will live – and the more peaceful we will die.'
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The True Story Behind ‘Dying For Sex'—What Happened To Molly Kochan?
"Dying For Sex" FX's new series Dying for Sex isn't your typical cancer story. The show chronicles the extraordinary real-life journey of Molly Kochan, a woman who set out to explore her sexuality after being diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. Over the show's eight episodes, Michelle Williams portrays Kochan, while Jenny Slate plays her best friend, Nikki Boyer, who supports her throughout the entire process. 'After Molly receives a diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, she decides to leave her husband and begins to explore the full breadth and complexity of her sexual desires for the first time in her life,' the official synopsis reads. All eight episodes of Dying for Sex are now streaming on Hulu. Keep reading to learn more about Molly Kochan and how closely the show mirrors her actual life. FX's "Dying For Sex" on Hulu. Yes, FX's new series Dying For Sex is based on the popular Wondery podcast of the same name, which Kochan and Boyer created during the final months of Kochan's life. Kochan also documented her cancer journey on her website Everything Leads to This, which she initially kept anonymous before eventually going public with her story. While on her deathbed, she wrote a memoir titled Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole (2020), detailing how her stage IV breast cancer diagnosis led her to seek life's deeper meaning through 'a sexual journey of exploration,' according to the description. 'She juggles dozens of online suitors and brings kinks and fetishes into the real world, all while dealing with the ups and downs of her cancer treatment.' Molly Kochan was born and raised in New York but moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. She decided to stay in LA after getting engaged to her husband. According to People, in 2005—shortly after her engagement—Kochan visited her gynecologist due to pain during sex and a small lump in her breast. However, doctors dismissed both symptoms, she later shared in her blog and memoir. On Everything Leads to This, she shared an open letter addressed to her OB-GYN, recalling how she had gone to his office to voice her concerns—only for him to allegedly treat her visit "much like an encounter at a cocktail party.' 'I told you about discomfort with sex and you asked me if I really loved my fiancé. When I said I did, you mentioned another patient who had had a similar problem and, it turned out, wasn't in love with her partner. I then told you about a lump that was concerning. It was small, it was hard, it was nothing you said after kneading around it for a minute. Plus, you said, I was way too young to worry about something like breast cancer. I was 33. After that you rushed through the rest of the exam and had me meet you in your office once I got dressed,' she wrote in the post. Four years into her marriage, in 2011, Kochan was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy, radiation, a bilateral mastectomy, and breast reconstruction, according to her book. Although she initially believed she was in the clear, the cancer returned three years into her hormone therapy—this time spreading to her bones, liver, and brain. The diagnosis was Stage IV and terminal. After learning in August 2015 that her cancer had metastasized to her liver, Kochan realized she could no longer stay in her marriage. She left her husband and set out on a sexual journey in hopes of reconnecting with her body. In March 2016, she moved out and later opened up about the difficult decision on her blog. 'The truth is, without this diagnosis I probably would have stayed, continued to try to make things work,' Kochan wrote at the time. 'Because there is a lot of love there. But there is also a lot of stress. And a stressful environment is not a good one when battling cancer.' FX's "Dying For Sex" on Hulu. Nikki Boyer was one of Kochan's closest friends for over 20 years. The two first met when they were paired together in an acting class. 'She didn't like me very much because I was annoying and probably vying for everyone's attention,' Boyer told The Sunday Times Magazine. Had their drama teacher not matched them, she says, 'I don't know if Molly and I would have found each other's friendship.' As Kochan faced her cancer diagnoses, she and Boyer grew inseparable, remaining by each other's side until the very end. 'We've been together through marriages, divorces, boyfriends, her step kids, and now my cancer ... twice,' Kochan penned in her memoir. 'She cries, sometimes as much, if not more, than I do about my diagnosis. But we laugh, too. That's always been the light of our relationship: laughter.' Kochan began a hormone therapy that was supposed to lessen her libido, but it ended up doing the complete opposite, giving her a full-on sexual awakening. 'I literally wanted to hump everything and everyone that I saw,' she said on her podcast. 'For a long time with sex—and this is why I had a problem in my marriage—I was really, really, really good at figuring out what other people liked and then I could simulate that like an actor for them,' Kochan said in an episode of the podcast. 'But I never really knew what I liked.' Boyer told The Times that Kochan's sexual exploration was also a way for her to confront past trauma, including being sexually assaulted at age 7 by her mother's then-boyfriend. 'A lot of people think, 'She's just having sex, f------ around to make herself feel good,'' Boyer said. 'But it wasn't just about that. There was healing of old wounds. Her whole life she felt fragmented and during sex she was allowed to make her own choices and put the pieces together for herself.' Molly Kochan passed away on March 8, 2019, after more than three years of living with Stage IV cancer. In a blog post titled 'I Have Died,' published after her death, she shared that her 'last days were great.' 'I was with the people who were meant to be there,' she said. 'I never wanted to deal with this disease and blame no one for even remotely not wanting to be around it. Even unconsciously.' Boyer told The Times that she was by her best friend's side during her final moments. 'I put my hand on her head and my other hand on her heart. I said, 'I'm here, I've got you,'" she recalled. 'I was in awe of her in that moment. It was one of the most magical things I've ever experienced. It was so intense and beautiful.' She shared that creating the podcast after Kochan's death delayed some of her grieving, as it felt like she was still working alongside her. 'I felt she was guiding me,' she said, 'which is the most vulnerable thing to do… I saw every phase of Molly. I saw her sexy self. I saw her sick. I was scrolling hundreds of messages. I saw more dick pics than I ever thought possible." While Dying For Sex largely stays true to Kochan's real-life story, the FX series did take a few creative liberties, according to Boyer. For example, the show is set in New York, even though Kochan actually lived in Los Angeles. The producers also merged several of the men Kochan encountered (many of whom were into kinks and fetishes) into a single character known as 'neighbor guy,' played by Rob Delaney. Another moment in the series shows Molly revealing that her husband hadn't touched her in years and that she'd never had an orgasm with another person. Boyer told that this plot point was one of those creative liberties. However, Kochan was open on the podcast about how she and her husband had fallen out of sync sexually during her cancer treatment. In Dying For Sex, viewers will also see Molly exchanging sexy photos with men she met online. Boyer clarified to that while Kochan did, in fact, date a man who enjoyed being kicked in the groin, she did not break her femur doing so. However, she did meet men who wanted to be dominated in the bedroom. In the series, she's shown barking orders at suitors (and in one case, quite literally, as one guy liked pretending he was a dog). Boyer said that Kochan actually did meet a man who wanted her to treat him like a pet dog and live in her home in a cage (which is why one episode title is called 'My Pet"). Her best friend revealed that Kochan also had sexual encounters in her hospital bed near the end of her life. 'She wanted to feel really alive and as normal as possible, so it just didn't feel like she was stuck in the hospital for days on end,' Boyer said. Dying For Sex is streaming on Hulu. Watch the official trailer below.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
She was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So she slept with as many men as she could
When Molly Kochan was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer aged 42, she had a rather unexpected reaction. Within weeks of her diagnosis she had left her husband and embarked on an odyssey of sexual self-discovery, trying anything from kicking a man as hard as she could in the crotch, to spending time with a foot fetishist and engaging in, er, 'water sports'. After relating one such date to her friend, Nikki Boyer, the pair decided to make a podcast about her new mission and in 2020 Dying for Sex was released. So extraordinary is Kochan's story that the notoriously choosy five-time Oscar nominated actress, Michelle Williams, broke her acting hiatus to play her in a new TV adaptation of the same name. After two days immersed in Kochan's story I feel like a human raisin: dehydrated from crying and laughing. It's so desperately sad to keep realising that this vividly funny and thoughtful person died in 2019. When Kochan started hormone treatment, two things happened: her libido increased and she couldn't sleep. So she began posting sexy selfies in her underwear to men she met online all over the world – she loses count at 183 – to 'distract [herself] from pain or illness'. Photo swapping progresses into FaceTime calls and, eventually, physical liaisons – including with a man who wanted to be treated like a dog and be caged up in her house (Kochan simply laughs when reporting this on the podcast: 'I'm so interested in learning why?'). Many of these experiences are condensed into one character called 'Neighbour Guy' in the Hulu show, played by Rob Delaney. Kochan is delightfully open-minded and kind about these hook-ups and when Boyer manages to interview some of the men Kochan met it is clear how caring she was towards them, even for just one night. The question of why she is experiencing these desires haunts Kochan personally, and we eventually learn of a terrible childhood incident, where she was molested by her mother's boyfriend at the age of seven. Dominating her partners gives her a sense of control in sex when she had none as a child, helping sexual experiences to feel empowering rather than shameful or, as she says on the podcast, a 'power struggle'. This sense of agency is also important to coping with her cancer diagnosis – another thing she feels like she has no control over. Her newfound agency encourages her to meet with her doctor on her own terms, asking him to sit to answer her questions and allowing her to address him by his Christian name. It sounds like a small thing but juxtaposes brilliantly with the scenes showing the harrowing realities of cancer care: from scars, tubes and walking sticks to being strapped down to have radiotherapy on her eyeball. In the podcast, Kochan realises, with time, that the reactions to her photographs and her trysts don't shield her from her cancer like they did at the beginning, and what she really desires is connection. Sadly she doesn't get that romantic love in the end, but she has a deep, beautiful and enduring friendship and love from Boyer right up to – and beyond – her final breath. Following Kochan's death, Boyer got to work on the podcast with the assistance of the recordings she and Kochan did together, along with Kochan's bequeathed phone, laptop and book manuscript. The podcast is just six episodes long, and Boyer has explained since that she and Kochan intended it as the first of many series, with follow-ups to include a fuller exploration of Kochan's childhood trauma and Boyer's own heartbreaking health battle with miscarriage and IVF, which she was going through during Kochan's cancer treatment and which the TV show leaves out. Fans of the podcast will see plenty of moments from the podcast however, including many of Kochan's recorded words in the script, but some interesting changes have been made. Most obviously, it is based in New York rather than LA, meaning Kochan is wearing dungarees and camisoles over T-shirts for dates, rather than the sexier tight black jeans and bra-showing tank tops we know she wore in LA. Similarly, Boyer is made out to be more like a quirky thespian, scattily taking on Kochan's medical care and struggling to hold down a home, job and relationship, whilst in real-life she is clearly very 'together'. It also seems like, in reality, Boyer was less hands-on with Kochan's care than she is in the show, and didn't, as far as we know, sacrifice acting jobs to care for her. But her devotion in getting her best friend's story made into the podcast and TV show, and publishing Kochan's manuscript, is clear from Jenny Slate's tender portrayal of Nikki in the show. Timing is everything when it comes to getting a TV show made or a podcast commissioned. The contrast in cultural context from when Kochan and Boyer were thinking about the Dying for Sex podcast in 2018 (top TV shows: Yellowstone, Succession, Jack Ryan) vs when it was actually released in 2020 (top TV shows: I May Destroy You, Normal People, Sex Education) is stark. Even more recently there have been some brilliant TV shows and films (Babygirl, The Idea of You, The Principles of Pleasure, Sex, Love & Goop) and books (All Fours by Miranda July, Want by Gillian Anderson, Three Women by Lisa Taddeo) exploring the desires of women, particularly women in their 40s, and the idea of female self-discovery through sex. Kochan's story ends with self-acceptance. 'I realise I did get to fall in love. I am in love. With me,' she says, as she frantically sought to finish her book, Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole in her final days. And so, when death came, she felt ready. As she says in one of her last recordings, she looked forward to it, like 'going on a trip'. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
