The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is back in action for its final season. The period comedy-drama follows the life of the titular Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) who goes from becoming a housewife in the late 1950s to becoming a stand-up comic in New York. Her bawdy and irreverent humor makes her an instant delight to her audience, but given the time period, not everyone in her family is thrilled about her career choices. The series is currently in its fifth season, and we pick up after Season 4's finale where Midge met up with Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) at Carnegie Hall. The fifth season jumps back and forth through time, taking us to various points in the future for us to take a look at what the future is like for Mrs. Maisel (hint: it doesn't look too bad).

We spoke with Kevin Pollack and Caroline Aaron about the new season. Pollack and Aaron play Moishe Maisel and Shirley Maisel, respectively, Midge's in-laws and the parents of her ex-husband, Joel (Michael Zegen). We spoke to Pollack, who is a stand-up comedian himself, about whether or not he ever considered getting on the stage as Moishe to do a little set. With Aaron, we discussed the more serious story arcs this season involving Joel and his girlfriend Mei Lin (Stephanie Hsu). Both Pollack and Aaron also praised the on-set environment and what they learned from working with showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino. Of course, they also told us which characters they wanted to act across but never did, and how they would react to one of Lenny Bruce's sets as Moishe and Shirley.

Check out our full interview in the video below or you can read the transcript further down the page.

COLLIDER: Kevin, obviously, you've done some stand-up yourself in the past, to say the least. Was there ever a moment when you would pitch to Amy, “Hey, maybe Moishe should do some stand-up”?

KEVIN POLLACK: It, thankfully, never crossed my mind. I cherish my roots as a stand-up comedian, I continue to do it on occasion. It's my favorite thing in life to do, but when given this opportunity to help create and bring to life this ridiculous character of Moishe Maisel, I just want to do that. I mean, I would offer my insights to Luke Kirby playing Lenny Bruce, or, obviously, Rachel playing Midge, and they're such great dramatic actors that it was about articulating and delivering, and realizing their scenes, right?

Midge’s monologues were completely invented, whereas a lot of times, in Lenny's, they were recapturing existing monologues from his appearances. You know, it's all on the page there, and it's a great, great opportunity, but a challenge, to make those words perfect. So the last thing I wanted to come in to do was to come in and say, “You know, the joke really sits on this side, not so much on that side,” you know?

CAROLINE AARON: But I learned a lot from Kevin, and I felt like it was a bonus of being his partner because he knows so much about stand-up comedy. And they availed themselves of real stand-up comedians as part of the narrative along the way. They weren't brand names that we would necessarily know, but Kevin would say to me [while] we were doing a table reading, “You know, that was a real guy, that guy occupied this corner of this comedic universe.” And so, I just had sort of insider baseball with him, and it was really fun.

POLLACK: Yeah, and then Amy Sherman-Palladino’s father, when she was growing up, was a stand-up comedian. So she lived in that world as a child and draws from it often, and wonderfully.

I didn't know that so that actually gives a lot of insight into the show. And Caroline, your character's arc this season is so nice because there are so many more dramatic elements to her storyline this season. Did you enjoy exploring that side of Shirley? I'm not going to spoil it, but specifically, there are some moments with her and her son and the potential of the future.

AARON: I was longing for it. You know, the thing about it is, as an actor, you always wanna play all the cards you have in your hand, and you never do because what you are is a spoke in a wheel, and you want that wheel to turn, and be round and be robust. But you, as the actor, have so many more things that you want to share and show. So, as the series went on, particularly this season when we would get scripts, and it would give me that opportunity to crack Shirley open, I was thrilled by it, really, really thrilled by it, and grateful for it.

Yeah, those are very emotional scenes. I was holding back tears watching them. It was a lot, it was a lot. And you guys have had a great run with this series. With it being over, is there a specific aspect of this show that you'll miss the most?

AARON: The way we were treated.

POLLACK: Oh my goodness, yes.

AARON: I mean, I have to say – again, a lesson – when you treat people really well, they bring their A-game to you, and we were so well-treated, so well-respected. They wanted us to be, and do, our best.

POLLACK: Yeah, that's not to be underestimated or mentioned. That's a great one, Caroline, and I hadn't thought of that. It's true, it's so true, how we have been treated, continuing to this very day.

AARON: Right, they really wanted to make it possible for us to be 100% there in every way to serve the story.

POLLACK: I mean, the obvious answer is that the scripts will never happen again, the writers will never happen, the genius will never happen again, the costume, the wardrobe-building will never happen again, the cinematography, the set design, the production design, casting, the actors. I mean, every aspect of it, it is truly ridonkulous. Every department head is a true savant. So we're spoiled from beginning to end, but what a great singular takeaway is how we were treated.

Yeah, you don't ever hear that talked about a lot, with treatment and how it feels to be just a member of this group, this project, you know?

AARON: Absolutely, and we've all done a lot of work during, and since we've come down, and as I said to Amy when we got together for one of these things, and I've been working on something else, I went, “Well, you've ruined every other job. You've just ruined everything for us.”

POLLACK: Yeah, I told Michael Zegen from day one, “It'll never be this good, and you're really, really screwed as a younger actor. You’ve got three decades ahead of you, we’ve got maybe three years.”

AARON: [Laughs]

I think you have longer than that!

AARON: I'll take very good care of him, he still has longer.

So I'm curious because there are so many characters on this show and you guys primarily worked within the Maisel household, the family, was there a specific character or someone that you didn't have a scene with that you kind of wished there was something for you to engage in?

POLLACK: Luke Kirby! Luke Kirby for me.

AARON: For me, it was Susie (Alex Borstein).

POLLACK: Well we had a couple of beats with her. She came to one of the family dinners.

AARON: For a second, but I would have liked to have had a very private conversation with Susie.

POLLACK: I would have loved to see Shirley and Suzie go toe-to-toe.

AARON: Shirley and Susie have something–

POLLACK: Yeah, you would have had some problems with her.

AARON: Yes, exactly. First of all… you know, exactly. I would have loved to have worked with Alex more, not only because she's so terrific and was so iconic and consequential on this show. There was not a lot of story overlapping between home and work, so Midge's whole world of stand-up comedy was kind of on the outskirts of where we were. And we do these table readings and hear about those days of shooting, and I always wanted to be there.

It would have been great to see you guys in your characters watching Luke Kirby do his stand-up as Lenny Bruce. I think that might have shocked Moishe and Shirley a little bit, but it would have been an interesting scene!

AARON: [Laughs] Yes, exactly.

POLLACK: “Why is he so angry? He seems very angry, this young man. Look, he's handsome, what’s he so angry about?”

AARON: “What’s he so unhappy about? I don’t know!”

POLLACK: “All the complaining…”

A lot of heckling in the crowd.

POLLACK: A free sample, you're welcome!

Obviously, you guys have been in this business for a while. Do you have any big takeaways from this series, beyond the treatment, do you have anything that you'll be taking in into future projects?

POLLACK: I learned a lot about the genius of the eight-page oner. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Jim McConkey, our steadicam operator, sort of, in their own way, I don't want to say reinvented, but made it their own and reimagined what it really means to do that. I've directed a couple of films, and I really was inspired by the oner and how challenging it is for the actors, and rewarding when every piece falls into place perfectly. That was the big, big, big takeaway, in terms of what I learned from this.

AARON: I learned so many things. I think Rachel had said once that she got to see how the sausage was made because she was there every day. I didn't quite get to see how the sausage was made, but because a bunch of us come from the theater, we would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse before we actually put it down on film. And I really thought [that] there is something really important about that kind of work together before you actually– not that I necessarily will get the opportunity to be in charge of that, I don't direct like Kevin does. [To Pollack] Can I be in your next movie?

POLLACK: Of course.

AARON: OK, good, phew!

POLLACK: That’s on film. I’ll hold you to that.

AARON: That's right, I get to be in his next movie. I was around a lot of directors. I mean, there’s a lot of multifaceted talents within this group, in a sense. And I think the other thing that I really learned is, you can take very small amounts of material, and you have to understand where you fit into the story and how you can contribute to the story in the best way possible. And when Kevin was joking and said, “Well, I learned it's not all about me,” but you know, there's a very famous acting joke when somebody's in A Streetcar Named Desire, and they say, “Well, what character are you playing in?” And they ask them what the play is about, and they go, “It's about a flower seller,” because that's the part they're playing and it's two lines at the end. And I think one of the things that I learned is, how to contribute to the larger story while telling your story. It's a really hard thing to do.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 5 is now streaming on Prime Video.