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Too Much star Emily Ratajkowski has worn a lot of hats in her 34 years of life; she’s graced the cover of countless magazines, appeared in movies such as I Feel Pretty and Gone Girl, and she’s been an outspoken advocate for causes she cares deeply about, including access to Planned Parenthood and freedom of sexual expression for women. Ratajkowski has been the it girl, the dream girl, and the girl’s girl, and sometimes, all three at once.
In her new Netflix series, a semi-autobiographical rom-com from the mind of Girls creator and star Lena Dunham, Ratajkowski plays Wendy Jones, a knitting influencer who viewers first meet as the show’s protagonist, Jessica (Meg Stalter), storms in on her in the dead of night. Wendy is the new girlfriend — and, spoiler alert, later fiancée — of Zev (Michael Zegen), Jessica’s ex-boyfriend of nearly a decade who callously threw out their relationship, leading to Jessica’s mental breakdown and ultimately her decision to move to London.
For Jessica, things don’t get easier by moving 3,500 miles across the world, however, as she still hallucinates Zev everywhere she goes and becomes infatuated with Wendy, stalking her online presence and creating a whole video series addressed to her. It’s great fodder for a traditional rom-com where these two women exist on separate planes and never the two shall cross. In the time of social media, though, that doesn’t exactly translate.
“The ex-girlfriend thing, for example, has always been a theme in rom-coms. And now, in the age of the internet, you can stalk your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, they can become a huge part of your everyday life in the same way that we see on Too Much,” Ratajkowski said of the new-age implications of a well-explored trope in pop culture.
PHOTO: NETFLIXIt’s that idea, combined with Dunham’s justifiable need to humanize each character, that led Ratajkowski — who has been friends with the Catherine Called Birdy director for more than a decade — to the project. After experiencing romantic relationships, breakups, the birth of her son, and female friendships that have seen her through all of it, Ratajkowski told DECIDER that she is drawn to any story where women are able to find a sense of common ground.
“Maybe when I was younger, I could have fallen into that trap a lot more, but I tend to just always feel connected to other women and give them the benefit of the doubt,” she added, saying that art should echo her own life experiences. “I feel like I relate to their experiences and we speak the same language.”
It’s a great reminder of Reese Witherspoon’s now-viral Glamour Woman of the Year speech, where she laments that reading scripts where women are written solely by men is “ridiculous,” especially when the women are in a bind. “Do you know any woman in any crisis situation who has absolutely no idea what to do?” the Legally Blonde actress says, “It’s ridiculous that a woman wouldn’t know what to do.”
The idea of women being emotionally driven, illogical, or incompetent is one that most women have rolled their eyes at one time or another, especially when it’s used to justify storylines where women are pitted against each other. In the case of Too Much, it would have been easy to frame Wendy Jones as a flighty rebound or a brainless influencer who Jessica looks at enviously as her competition. The distinct choice not to have that be the case between these two strong female characters is felt and appreciated by Ratajkowski.
PHOTO: NETFLIX“I don’t get confused about that anymore,” she told DECIDER of the so-called competition between women on or off-screen, “No guy could tell me a story that would make me not relate to a woman.”
Check out DECIDER’s full interview with Ratajkowski below.
DECIDER: I want to start by asking you, what’s it like playing Wendy Jones? Is this someone you knew immediately, or did you kind of have to find her?
EMILY RATAJKOWSKI: They had written her a little differently. She [Dunham] told me, “I had you in mind for this part when I was writing this character,” blah, blah, blah. And I was like, “Okay, but can we change her job a little bit?” I really wanted her to feel like a New York girl, and also Lena had kind of gone out of her way to not make her stereotypical, but I sort of loved the idea that she was maybe an influencer, and to have this real internet prize of the same sort. She was maybe easy to love to hate, you know, and then that’s why the payoff is so much better later.
Why was it important that Wendy felt like a New York girl to you? Her crafting is a huge thing that sets her apart from what you would consider the typical influencer. What was it about that for you that made it something that you wanted to incorporate?
I think all women on social media, whether or not they’re crafting or hustling, it’s an attention economy. We all know that that can be a way to make money now. I think 10 years ago, it was maybe not as obvious, but now we accept it. Like, “Oh, this can be an amazing hack, instead of having to work at a nine-to-five.” And I liked that there was something really sincere, and sort of like she has no shame about what she’s doing. There’s that one clip where she’s responding to some comment, and she’s like, “Yeah, I bought my grandma’s house and my parents were addicts.” She’s using this cutesy thing to hustle, which I think is cool. I think we see so many women and girls on social media and we’re like, “Oh they just want attention.” But there’s real benefits to their security and safety when they’re doing this, so I like that about the character.
So much of your character is informed through the perception of her by Jessica’s character. It’s flipping the conversation on how we see other women and how we adjust our own perspective on other people. Has it made you adjust your own expectations for meeting other people, or maybe your own established relationships in your life?
The ex-girlfriend thing has always been a theme in rom-coms. And now, in the age of the internet, you can stalk your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, like they can become a huge part of your everyday life in the same way that we see on Too Much. I think that really can heighten having this window into someone’s life, but then, no actual personal connection, like it really can make it easy to have this one-dimensional take on people. And what I love about this storyline and Too Much is that we all know that experience of looking into someone’s life who you feel tethered to because you’ve shared people or experiences, but you don’t know each other. Being able to put them against you and compare yourself to them and dislike them, but then you actually get to connect with this person, and they’re genuine and great. Maybe when I was younger, I could have fallen into that trap a lot more, but I tend to just always feel connected to other women and give them the benefit of the doubt. I feel like I relate to their experiences and we speak the same language and I don’t get confused about that anymore. No guy could tell me a story that would make me not relate to a woman. And then just getting older and also having experienced that from every angle. Being the person who’s perceived that way, perceiving other people. I just like to be generous with femme-presenting people.
PHOTO: NetflixHow does it differ, working on a project with someone like Lena Dunham at the lead?
Lena’s an incredible director. I’ve never worked with a female director before, so this is a really special experience for me. And I found that a lot of the strength in her directing was actually attributed to traditionally female things, like generosity and graciousness. But there’s also so much strength because she’s such an incredible leader. She really allows for this incredible collaborative spirit and process to happen. It reminds me of parenting a bit where you’re like, “I could come to you and I can ask for these things and I can trust that when you say yes to those things they’ll be good choices.” And Lena and I have known each other for like 11 years or something so we have gone through life, whether it be romantically or career-wise, all of the things together, and I think just being able to talk about those experiences and bring that to the dynamics between these two characters was really nice.
What are you gonna take away from this project, and what are you going to make sure you bring onto the next set from this project specifically?
Obviously, the title of the show is Too Much, and I think we all know what it’s like to be a woman who changes her period to an exclamation mark in your email to make it sweeter and less authoritative. What I like about Lena is she finds a really wonderful balance. She’s not trying to make herself smaller, but she is being collaborative. I want to be that way, not on set and in my next projects — which, I am looking to produce and direct — also just in life.
I do wanna ask about the scenes of when we’re first introduced to Wendy, and then also in the London cafe, because I think both of those scenes have such an emotionality to them. Can you talk about filming those scenes and putting together that chemistry?
It was really fun to play the opening scene where she breaks in, because I think that was the part of it that I really enjoyed, like the New York girl aspect of it all, where she’s just like, “I’ve seen this before.” She’s still the opposite of Jessica — she’s like, “Sure, break into the fucking house, like, I get it, girl, you’re a loose cannon.” I imagine she lived with roommates before Zev and saw all kinds of stuff. Obviously, [it’s] just such a painful opposition to how Jess is feeling, where she would be so anxious and so freaked out and this girl was like, “Okay, I’ll handle this for everyone, you need a xanax.”
I think we actually shot the cafe scene first, which was really nice because Meg and I hadn’t worked together yet and I felt that some of the ways that we were starting to connect that day on set were the ways the characters were finding tenderness and connection without really knowing each other. I loved filming that scene so much. It was just such a joy because I don’t think there’s that many scenes that catch on vulnerability, and then they’re very open, but then the second that Jessica starts to crash out, Wendy’s like, “Actually, no, I’m good. This is all I needed.” So there’s still differences, but they can tolerate those differences while also coming together and just being like, “Right, we can help each other.”
As someone who might consider themselves a New York girl, have you ever had an ex-girlfriend break into your apartment at 3:00 a.m.?
No, I haven’t had that. I haven’t done that and it hasn’t happened to me. But I think I’ve had the equivalent, like the internet version of that happen, so there you go.
I think the show talks so much about being a strong woman and having strong women around you. But then it also examines men’s treatment of women, and how nothing’s ever going to change until we figure out how to come together and how men need to change. As someone who’s been in this industry, have you noticed any kind of change?
I’m of the school of thought that I don’t need to teach or train any men professionally or personally, other than my son. So I just focus on my own happiness, on my own connection to self, whatever that looks like, which I think is actually what the women in Too Much do. They’re all a lot of different types of “too much,” but they’re just not being concerned with how they’re perceived or how the world digests them. They’re being who they are and I do think that the more people that do that, the more doors will open for us, and the more we’ll be able to tell our stories. It is in the sense that we live in a crazy time and who knows what’s going to happen next. I think for me, it’s personal fulfillment and joy, and that’s also what we see with the characters, right? So that’s what I strive towards.
As the mom of a son, are there behaviors that you’re trying to nip in the bud in order to raise a young boy to be cognizant of women’s emotions and feelings?
I just believe in teaching kindness to any child. My son is four, and I do think that it was very sweet. For example, this really touched my heart, but last night I came home from my friend’s art show, and then I went to dinner and I got into bed, and he was sleeping in my bed, and he woke up and he said, mama, how was the show and the dinner? And it was so sweet because it’s just like, god, he was thinking about my experience and he wanted to connect. I just think teaching children really fundamental kindness, empathy, and consideration can go a long, long way. So I am just very focused on that with Sly. I think it’s like the fundamentals, and then you can get into the more political and gendered stuff later.
Too Much Season 1 is now streaming.
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English (US)