Marin Hinkle and Caroline Aaron Agree The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Is ‘The Gift That Keeps on Giving'
When it comes to mothers, especially meddling matriarchs like the ones in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, there's clearly nothing they won't do to try to help their adult children—with tons of embarrassment included.
This is the key to understanding the proper and fashion-forward Rose Weissman (Marin Hinkle), and the outspoken Shirley Maisel (Caroline Aaron)—respectively, the mother and mother-in-law of the series' feisty heroine, Miriam “Midge” Maisel's (Rachel Brosnahan). It's also a key ingredient in the extremely comical scenes in Season 4 of the series on Prime Video.
Being able to portray mothers and nurturers in this award-winning series is something both experienced actors are grateful for.
“I just have to say I think playing a mother is one of the most joyous things I’ve ever been able to do,” Hinkle exclusively tells Parade. “I want to do it forever!”
In addition to the strong family dynamic that resonates with fans around the world, Aaron says that Midge’s story, and the way she's following her dreams regardless of the conventions of the time, is something she relishes being an integral part of.
“It’s thrilling to watch somebody go after their dream,” Aaron explains. “But then comes the consequences of that for everybody else that surrounds her. You know that Miriam having this big dream is going to impact everybody’s life.”
Read on for more of Parade's sitdown with Marin Hinkle and Caroline Aaron about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4!
Since you both play involved mothers, do you find that you are feeling more maternal toward family members and friends?
Aaron: Well, we’re both mothers and we’re both mothers of sons named Ben. So that’s a faucet that never turns off. It is something that my children wish I would turn off. My son is like "please cut it out," so I kind of default to that. If you think of the best part of mothering as being a nurturer, well I think that Marin comes by that easily. I would say that my need to feed everyone has certainly been amped up by Shirley. If anybody comes over, even delivery people.
Hinkle: I am the same way.
Aaron: They came to bring me equipment for the press day this morning and they were covered up, practically in hazmat suits, and I want to put out a spread. I must have inherited that from Shirley.
Hinkle: That’s so funny because yesterday they delivered all the systems and lights to help us get connected to you. I’m very incapable of being good with technology so they were aiding me. Somebody arrived with all this equipment and I was like, "Hold on, hold on." I went inside and I had some cakes I had baked and I had some cookies that I wanted to give them. My son and husband looked at me and said, "Wait, it was a delivery." I responded, "Yes, but he has the rest of the day to be on the road and he may be hungry." Yes, there is definitely that part of Rose that seeps in.
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What are some of the overall highlights of this season?
Aaron: I think one of the things [viewers] should look forward to is watching somebody recover from failure and how do you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again. I think the season is enormously funny but it’s also deeper and edgier I think than in seasons past. It’s just like any relationship.
We’re on Season 4, we have a relationship with the audience and now we’re going to be a little more exposed to the audience, these characters are more than they have been before. You let go a little bit of the ways in which you’ve been self-protective at the beginning of a relationship, you start shedding layers. I think our show has shed a few layers this season.
Hinkle: Yes, I think every year there are many surprises. But I think what Caroline said is true, that now that the audience knows all of us, Amy and Dan have decided to go deeper. So, we even got more surprises than I think any other year about what could happen and what does happen. I was thinking that they always do this wonderful thing where they bring us into more connection with each other.
When it comes to my character, she just continued to surprise me in ways of finding strength. It’s kind of a mirror to what happened during the pandemic. I think all of us had to find that within our own lives. How do you keep going when you’re asked not to leave your house? How do you keep going when you’re not sure about safety? It does have an edge to it that I don’t think the other seasons have had to this degree.
There are also some important life lessons about women’s roles.
Hinkle: Yes. There are parts of the show sometimes where the balance of motherhood and work life, and then also balancing that with family. I think that that kind of question has existed throughout my growing up with my mother, who both worked and then raised children. I think it’s been very interesting in this show that people have questioned that. They still kind of get frustrated that Rachel’s character, Midge, goes off to work. They’re like, “Shouldn’t she be home?” I have to say that one way I counter it is that any young person I can, I just make sure that I’m putting my energy into mothering.
Now that Rose is forging her own matchmaking career, do you think that she can relate more to Midge’s dreams for her comedy career? Do you think that this could help bond them?
Hinkle: That’s an interesting question. You know how in life sometimes we allow ourselves to accept parts of ourselves that we still have a harder time accepting in others? I think it’s a slower process for her to accept it in her daughter than it is in herself, which I think is interesting. But to answer, we’re not allowed to say too much about it, but I do think that it’s opening her up in a new way, I would imagine, to her daughter. But it still is a growth that she has to keep working on. Sometimes this woman has some double standards. Sometimes I think she applies that to her daughter.
I will say that even just getting up and figuring out how to make money, which Rose didn’t ever have to do because she came from a family of wealth and then she says goodbye to that and obviously turns around and decides that she’s going to do things completely anew, I think that that kind of bonding with her daughter is understandable and inevitable.
How do fans react when they meet you?
Aaron: It’s so exciting. People always asked if we went to summer camp together or if they saw me in a movie. But now they say, “You are in Mrs. Maisel!" And this is the first time I’ve ever played a character that reminds everyone of someone they love. It’s either their aunt, their grandmother, their mother, a teacher, a friend’s mother. Frustrating as she can be when it comes to a lack of boundaries, she seems to remind people of women in their lives that they got an enormous kick out of or had great affection for.
How has your fashion sense personally been informed by these gorgeous, colorful clothing and accessories? Are you taking home any of these lovely items?
Hinkle: No, they don’t allow us to keep anything. Oh my God, you can’t even take an earring or something. It’s all so exquisite and ready for a costume show in a museum. I’m going to say this. I am not a very good dresser. I don’t even want to be apologetic because I’m at a certain age that it’s like I am what I am, right? But my attention to noticing it on others and my attention to valuing it, I didn’t understand the value of presentation and artistry in how you offer colors and endowing, matching things, coordinating. I really have such respect for it now and the way that people demonstrate the display of who they are through their clothes. I’m in awe of it. I have to get to a place where I know how to do it better myself, but I am so lucky to be able to step into this character who does it so beautifully.
Aaron: I was just going to say even the parts you can’t see. We’re still wearing the underwear. Even when I go in for a fitting I go, “Do I have to put on the bra and the girdle?” and the costume designer goes, “Yes, it changes the way the clothes fit.” I will say it’s been eye-opening how restricted clothes were for women. Do you know what I mean? We haven’t even gotten to pants yet.
Do you remember in the first season, Miriam would wake up early, Midge would wake up early to put on her makeup before she even saw her husband? A woman’s appearance, how she presented herself, that was a job. That was a full-time job. Now I really understand it. It’s like putting on all of those clothes, I just keep thinking about how lucky we are that that’s a choice now. It didn’t used to be a choice; it was just a way of living.
Talk about being able to go back in time to this beautiful world.
Aaron: I feel very emotional a lot of times when there are certain scenes or certain sets because it makes me miss my mother and it is like walking back in time. I wish I’d saved more things of hers. Do you know what I mean? When I look at the clothes I go, "Oh my God, my mother had that coat, those gloves, that pin," that I wanted nothing to do with when she passed away, and now, I would like to have them back.
The world of women in this show is very familiar to me. The way women dressed, gloves and hats just to go downtown. One of the big rules in my family was that you dressed for dinner. There was a sense of formality that’s all over this show that I truly love.
What is it like to be in something that is leaving people breathless?
Aaron: Isn’t that so nice? What you dream of your whole life is that you will be in this kind of show. You never count on it; you endow each thing you do with this possibility. Believe me, after the first season I went around to every actor and asked, "Did you know this was going to be such a hit?"
I think even for the creators and for the rest of us, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Nobody could have imagined, especially because the world is so specific. It’s also about Jews and it’s about New Yorkers. It feels like the landscape is narrow and yet it has blown up to be loved on an international level.
Hinkle: I love working. Any job I’ve always been the person that I got out of graduate school and right away whether or not it paid or not I would take it. I just always thought I had something to learn, and I still am honestly that way. I love working. But this job, and the amount of gratitude I have every single time I step on the sound stage, there is a moment where I cannot believe it. The way I walk into a theater and there’s usually a ghost light and it’s dark and there’s one part of it that’s like the magical light, I feel that every single time I’m on set. I almost want to weep as I leave every day and think – I pinch myself how did I get so fortunate to time travel and to time travel with this group of artists.
That’s across the board, every single person from the person that’s helping me do the COVID test to the person that’s designing, Bill Groom, the sets. I just think they’re the top-notch of what they do. In answer to your beautiful question, I’ve never been so grateful and I hope it lasts forever. I don’t know if it can, but I feel like I’m the luckiest woman my age alive to play this character.