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Simply Marvellous
Simply
Marvellous
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It might not be one of the more star-studded shows around, but The Marvellous Mrs Maisel has been steadily racking up acclaim from critics and fans alike for years, boosting its star, Rachel Brosnahan, firmly into the spotlight…
Delightfully bubbly and enthusiastic, Rachel Brosnahan has combined her easy smile and hearty laugh with an underlying en vogue sense of determination and individualism to play the title role in hit Amazon Prime Video series, The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel.
And as a result, the 29-year-old has emerged as a major new star, earning herself an Emmy and two Golden Globe awards as Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show.
“There’s been so many moments working on the show for the last three years where — I overuse the word ‘surreal,’ but that’s how it feels all the time...,” nods the Wisconsin-born Brosnahan, “I worry that I’m going to forget how insane and special and surreal this whole experience has been.”
Small chance of that happening any time soon, after the actress just picked up yet another Emmy nod at this year’s virtual show. Though she ultimately lost out to Canadian actress Catherine O’Hara, just as last year the gong went to Fleabag virtuoso Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Brosnahan’s continued presence on the red carpet is a testament to her journey both on and off the small screen.
“Early in my career I had been told by casting agents and other people that I wasn't suited for comedy,” she reveals. “So it was definitely intimidating to audition for Maisel. We're four years into the show now and it doesn't get less intimidating, but the success of the series just goes to shows that we shouldn't put ourselves into boxes because for a long time I turned down auditions for comedy series because I was told that I'm not funny."
Like many modern actresses who have been handed complex and assured leading roles to play on screen, Brosnahan has been lucky enough to draw some inspiration from her character, 50s housewifeturned-stand-up ‘Midge’ Maisel.
“Midge is resilient and confident, and her sense of self-empowerment is something that I have tried to draw upon in my own life,” she nods. “I love her proactive nature and especially how ambitious she is - qualities that have been lacking in me at times. She is the kind of woman who wants to make you take on the world.
“She's willing to defy a lot of the social conventions and double standards that govern how men and women should live and their roles in society. Midge has understood that having lived according to the social constraints of her time she had never really questioned why she had accepted that life. Then after that privileged world collapses, she realises that there are a lot of other possibilities open to her and she intends to embark on her own path.”
In doing research for the part, Brosnahan learned first-hand about the insidious nature of “social constraints” placed on women of Midge’s era.
“I went on eBay and I bought a lot of vintage magazines from that period,” she notes. “It was so strange and offensive to read all the articles about how to be a good housewife and how to please your husband, or how to find a husband.
“Women were being given advice on how to smell nice, how to make themselves more attractive to men, not to express your opinions too strongly, and not to appear to be too intelligent or overshadow your man. There wasn't even any questioning of those kind of restrictions. It was very disturbing to see how women were expected to conform to this extremely repressive set of rules of behaviour that were intended to reinforce their subservient position with respect to men.”
So is Midge an anachronistic representative of the second wave feminist ideals that truly bloomed from the Sixties through to the Eighties?
“She is part of an ongoing process of social change, but when you're living it, you don't necessarily see it from that broader perspective, from the outside,” she says. “But I hope that as the show evolves, she will develop a greater awareness of her being part of the overall struggle by women to achieve equality.”
As for Brosnahan, her own life is undergoing a kind of upheaval too – alongside her omnipresence come awards season, this year sees her segue into the world of big budget film, with appearances in historical thriller The Courier (alongside Benedict Cumberbatch), and drama I’m Your Woman.
“A friend and I were walking by Times Square and there was this enormous billboard that was the length of a city bus and had my face on it,” she says of her newfound fame. “It was before the first season of Maisel aired. We were in shock.
“My friend wanted me to pose so she could take pictures of me with it in the background, and I was like, no, I look terrible! And she was like, ‘You’ll be so glad you have these in 15 years.’ And I am glad that I have those photos.”
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